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After a pause, and after the glasses had been filled again, Auban, who was
sitting between his French visitor and the young German of whom the American
had said that he was a poet, bent forward and said in French: -
"Trupp and myself would like to ask you, gentlemen, the favor of an hour for a
discussion of the question: What is Anarchism? this afternoon. And not, as
usual, for a discussion of some special and sharply defined question, but for a
discussion of the fundamental principles of Anarchism itself. for both of us
feel that such an interchange of opinions has become necessary."
He waited to see if the meeting would assent to his proposition. The
conversation had ceased. They nodded to him, and he continued:-
" 'What?' - some of you will ask, 'what? - a discussion on the fundamental
principles of Anarchy? Why, have not these principles been established long ago
and so placed beyond all doubt?'
"Whereupon I answer, No! Notwithstanding fifty years have almost passed since
the word 'Anarchism' - in opposition to the view still prevalent that Anarchy
is nothing but the disorder of chaos - was for the first time employed to
designate a state of society; notwithstanding that in these fifty years
Anarchism has in all civilized countries of the earth become a part of
contemporary history; notwithstanding it has already laid the indestructible
foundation of its own history; notwithstanding there are thousands of persons
today who call themselves 'Anarchists' (here in Europe from ten to twenty
thousand, and in America probably as many more); notwithstanding all that, I
say that there is but a very small number of individuals who have thoroughly
mastered the idea of Anarchism.
"I will say right here who these few in my opinion are. they are the thinkers
of Individualism who were consistent enough to apply its philosophy to society.
They are—in the most intellectual and cultured city of the American continent,
in Boston - a few courageous, strong, and thoughtful men wholly independent of
all the current movements of the age, - in the same city where Anarchism found
its first and till now only organ. They are, finally, scattered in all
directions, the disciples of Proudhon, to whom this giant is not dead, even if
Socialism in ridiculous conceit fancies it has buried him...."
"I believe you may add," said Dr. Hurt, "that there are a few among the great
monopolists of capital who have come to understand what it is that maintains
their enormous fortunes and enables them to steadily increase, and who have
therefore not remained wholly ignorant of their greatest enemy."
"So we, the workingmen, we who have always honored the name despite all
persecutions, we are no Anarchists? What?" began Trupp, excitedly.
"In the first place, the question of Anarchism is not the concern of a single
class, consequently also not lf the laboring class, but it is the concern of
every individual who values his personal liberty. But then," - Auban rose,
advanced a little towards the centre, and stretched his thin figure, while he
continued in a louder voice, - "but then I say that you—those whom you just had
in mind, Otto, when you spoke of the workingmen - are indeed no Anarchists. And
in order to prove that, I have asked you to-day to listen to me for a
half-hour."
"Speak first," said Trupp, apparently calm. "I will answer you after you are
through."
Auban continued.
"I can say that I have always wanted only one thing: liberty. Thus I cam to
the threshold of so many opinions; thus I also came into the movement of
Socialism. Then I withdrew from everything, devoted myself to entirely new
investigations, and I feel that I have now arrived at the last result of all
study: myself!
"I no longer like to talk to many people. The times are past when the words
came readily to me while thoughts were wanting, and I no longer lay claim to
this privilege of youth, women, and Communists. But the time has come for
firmly and strongly opposing those foolish attempts at uniting principles in
theory which are practically as different as day and night.
"We must choose sides: here or there. For the one, and thereby against the
other. For or against liberty!
"Better honest enemies than dishonest friends!"
The decided tone of these words made an impression on all present. By the
earnestness with which Auban had spoken them every one felt that a crisis was
at hand....
Auban began again, and he enunciated each of his well- considered words so
slowly that it seemed almost as if he read them or had learned them by heart.
"I maintain," he began, "that a great split has arisen in the social movement
of the present day, and that it is perceptibly growing larger from day to day.
"The new idea of Anarchism has separated itself form the old one of Socialism.
The professors of the one and the followers of the other are concentrating
themselves in two great camps.
"As I have said, we are face to face with the alternative of making a choice
one way or the other.
"Let us do this to-day. Let us see what Socialism wants, and let us see what
Anarchism wants.
"What does Socialism want?...
"Wherever I inquired after its ultimate aims, I received two answers.
"The one was: 'It would be ridiculous to already outline the picture of a
future which we are only preparing. We leave its formation to our descendants.'
"The other was less reserved. It changed men into angels, pictured with
enviable rapidity an Eden of happiness, peace, and liberty, and called that
heaven on earth the 'future society.'
"The first answer was made by the Collectivists, the Social Democrats, the
State Communists; the second, by the 'free Communists," who called themselves
Anarchists, and those genuinely Christian dreamers who belong to none of the
social parties of the present, but whose number is much larger than is commonly
believed. Most religious fanatics and philanthropists, for instance, belong to
them.
"In this brief presentation, which will strictly keep inside the limits of
reality and deal with men only as they are, have always been, and will always
be, I must entirely ignore the last-mentioned classes. For the former of these,
the free or revolutionary Communists, would never have received any attention
in the social movement notwithstanding almost every decade of the present
century witnessed their rise, growth, and disappearance...had they not
championed a policy whose occasional application during the past twelve years
has made of the name 'Anarchist,' falsely assumed by them, in the minds of the
mentally blind (and these still constitute about nine-tenths of all mankind) a
synonym for robbers and murderers; and the latter, the philanthropical
Utopians—well, there have always been such, and we shall presumably have them
with us as long as governments shall create misery and poverty by force....
"Socialism wants the socialization of all the means of production, and the
societarian, systematic regulation of production in the interests of the
community.
"This socialization and regulation must proceed in accordance with the will of
the absolute majority and through the persons of the representatives elected
and designated by it.
"So reads the first and most important demand of the Socialists of all
countries, so far as they keep within the limits of reality and deal with the
given conditions.
"It is of course impossible to treat here in detail:
"First, of the possibility of the realization of these principles, which is
indeed conceivable only by the aid of an unexampled terrorism and the most
brutal compulsion of the individual, but in which I do not believe; and second,
of the consequences, in no manner to be estimated, which an unlimited—even if
only temporary—dictatorship of the majority would entail upon the progress of
civilization....
"And why should I? I need only point to the present conditions from which we
are all suffering: to the privileges, forcibly created and maintained by the
State, with which it invests capital in the form of interest, and land in the
form of rent, on the one side, and to the useless internecine struggle of the
labor dependent on that capital, the struggle in which labor irretrievably
devours itself, on the other; I need only point to these abominable conditions,
to give all thinking people an idea of how completely null and void must become
economic, and consequently all personal, liberty, after these separate
monopolies shall have become consolidated in the one, comprehensive, absolute
monopoly of the community which is to-day called the State and to-morrow the
collectivity.
"I say only so much: -
"The forcible exploitation of the majority by the minority to-day would become
a forcible exploitation, no more justifiable, of the minority by the majority
to-morrow.
"To-day: Oppression of the weak by the strong. To-morrow: Oppression of the
strong by the weak.
"In both cases: Privileged power which does as it pleases.
"The best that Socialism might achieve would consequently constitute only a
change of rulers.
"Here I put my second question: -
"What does Anarchism want?
"And starting from what has been said, I answer: -
"Anarchism wants the absence of all government which—even if it abolishes
'class rule'—inevitably separates mankind into the two great classes of
exploiters and exploited.
"All government is based on force. But wherever there is force there is
injustice.
"Liberty alone is just: the absence of all force and all coercion. Equality of
opportunities for all constitutes its basis.
"On this basis of equal opportunities, the free, independent, sovereign
individual whose only claim on society is that it shall respect his liberty,
and whose only self-given law consists in respecting the liberty of
others,—that is the ideal of Anarchy.
"When this individual awakes to life, the knell of the State has sounded:
society takes the place of government; voluntary association for definite
purposes, the place of the State; free contract, the place of statute law.
"Free competition, the war of 'all against all,' begins. The artificially
created conceptions of strength and weakness must disappear as soon as the way
has been cleared and the perception of the first egoism has struggled into
light that the happiness of the one is that of the other, and vice versa.
"When with the State the privileges maintained by it have become powerless,
the individual will be enabled to secure the full product of his labor, and the
first demand of Anarchism, the one it has in common with Socialism, will be
fulfilled.
"When shall I be enabled to secure the full product of my labor?" Auban
interrupted himself, as he caught the questioning glance of the Frenchman, and
continued: -
"When I can exchange the product of my labor at its full value, instead of
being forced, as at present, to sell my labor below its value, i.e. when I must
submit to being robbed of a portion of it by force."
After this explanatory clause, Auban again took up the thread of his address.
"For after the disappearance of force, capital, unable any longer to levy the
customary tribute, will find itself compelled to participate in the struggle,
i.e. to lend itself out for a consideration which the competition among the
banks themselves in the business of furnishing mediums of exchange will force
down to the lowest point, just as it will make impossible the accumulation of
new capital in the hands of the few.
"The power of increase of capital is the death of labor: the vampire that
sucks its blood. When it is abolished, labor is free.
"When the resources of nature shall no longer be obstructed by the violent
arrangements of an unnatural government which is a mockery on all common sense,
and which under the pretence of the care of the general welfare, purchases the
mad luxury of an insignificant minority at the cost of the misery of an entire
population, then only shall we see how bountiful she is, our mother. Then will
the welfare of the individual in truth have become identical with the welfare
of the community, but instead of sacrificing himself to it, he will have
subjected it to himself.
"For it is this and nothing else that Anarchism wants: the removal of all
artificial obstructions which past centuries have piled up between man and his
liberty, between man and his intercourse with his fellow-men, always and
everywhere in the forms of Communism, and always and everywhere on the basis of
that colossal lie, designed by some in shrewd and yet so stupid
self-infatuation, and accepted by others in equally stupid self-abasement: that
the individual does not live for himself, but for mankind!...
"Trusting in the power of reason, which has begun to clear away the confusion
of ideas, I calmly look into the future. Though liberty be ever so distant, it
will come. It is the necessity towards which, though the individual, mankind is
ever moving.
"For liberty is not a condition of rest; it is a condition of vigilance, just
as life is not sleep, but wakefulness from which death only can absolve us.
"But liberty raises its last claim in the name of Anarchism by demanding the
sovereignty of the individual. Under this name it will fight its last battle in
every individual who revolts against the compulsion of his person by the
Socialistic world that is forming to-day. No one can hold aloof from this
struggle; each must take a position for or against...
"For the question of liberty is an economic question!"
Auban's words had long ago lost their deliberate judicial tone. He had spoken
his last sentences rapidly, with a voice full of emotion. But with his hearers
the effect of his words varied with the individual.
No one rose to reply at once.
Then Auban added:
"I have taken my position in the last two years, and I have told you where I
stand. Whether I have made myself clear and whether you have understood me—I do
not know. But I do know that my place is outside all current movements. Whom I
am seeking and whom I shall find is, the individual; you - and you - and you, -
you who in lonely struggles have come to the same perception. We shall find
each other, and when we shall have become strong enough, the hour of action
will have come for us also. But enough."
He ceased, and stepping back, took his old seat.
Several minutes passed, during which various opinions were exchanged in low
voices before Trupp began his reply. During Auban's address he had been sitting
bent forward, his chin resting on his hand, and his arm on his knee, and had
not allowed a word to escape him.
He spoke tersely and as one convinced of what he says, after he had once more
surveyed the audience with his keen eye.
"We have just been told of two different Anarchisms, of which the one, we are
assured, is none at all. I know but one; what is Communistic Anarchism, which
has grown among workingmen into a party, and which alone is known in 'larger
circles,' as we say. It is as old, yes, older than the present century: Baboeuf
already preached it. Whether a few middle-class liberals have invented a new
Anarchism is entirely immaterial to me, and does not interest me any more than
any other workingman. As regards Proudhon, to whom comrade Auban again and
again refers, he has long ago been disposed of and forgotten even in France,
and his place has everywhere been taken by the revolutionary, Communistic
Anarchism of the real proletariat.
"If the comrades wish to know what this Anarchism wants, which has risen in
opposition to the State Communists, I will gladly tell them in a few words.
"Above all, we do not see in the individual a being separate from society, but
we regard him as the product of this very society from which he derives all he
is and has. Consequently, he can only return, even if in a different form, what
in the first place he received from it.
"For this reason, too, he cannot say: this and that belong to me alone. There
can be no private property, but everything that has been and is being produced
is social property, to which one has just as much right as another, since each
one's share in the production of wealth can in no manner be determined. For
this reason we proclaim the liberty to consume, i.e. the right of each to
satisfy his wants free and unhindered.
"Consequently we are Communists.
"But, on the other hand, we are also Anarchists. For we want a system of
society where each member can fully realize his own 'self,' i.e. his individual
talents and abilities, withes, and needs. Therefore we say: Down with all
government! Down with it even in the form of administration. For administration
always becomes government. We likewise oppose the whole swindle of the suffrage
and declare the leaders who have presumed to place themselves at the head of
the workingmen as humbugs.
"As Communists we say: -
"To each according to his needs!
"And as Anarchists: -
"From each according to his powers.
"If Auban says such an ideal is impossible, I answer him that he does not yet
know the working men, although he might know them, for he has associated with
them long enough. The workingmen are not such sordid egoists as the bourgeois -
after they have had their day of reckoning with them, after the last revolution
has been fought, they will very well know how to arrange things.
"I believe that after the expropriation of the exploiters and the confiscation
of the bank, they will place everything at the disposal of all. The deserted
palaces will quickly enough find occupants, and the well-stocked warehouses
soon enough customers. We need not cudgel our brains about that!
"Then when each one shall be sufficiently supplied with food, clothing, and
shelter, when the hungry shall be fed and the naked clothed, - for there is
enough for all for the present, - they will from groups; will, impelled by the
instinct of activity, produce in common and consume according to needs.
"The individual will at best receive more, never less, from society than he
has given it. For what should the stronger who produces more than he can
consume do with the excess of his labor except give it to the weaker?
"and that is not liberty? They will not ask how much or how little each
produces and each consumes; no, each will carry his finished work to the
warehouses and take therefore in return what he needs for his support.
According to the principle of fraternity - "
Here Trupp was interrupted by a shout of laughter from Dr. Hurt. A general
commotion arose. Most of them did not know what to think. Auban was angry.
"To me it is not a matter of mirth, but a matter for tears, doctor, when men
rush into their destruction with open eyes," he said.
Trupp rose. every fibre of his whole solid figure was in a state of tension.
He was not offended, for he did not feel himself attacked, but his idea.
"With people like you we shall indeed make short work!" he exclaimed.
But Dr. Hurt, who had suddenly also become serious, entirely ignored these
words.
"Where do you live he asked brusquely. "On the earth or on the moon? What kind
of people do you see? Are you never going to be sensible?"
And turning away, he again broke out in laughter.
"One must hear such things in order to believe them! Two thousand years after
Christ, after two thousand years of the saddest experience in the following out
of a creed which has caused all the misery, still the same nonsense, in the
same unchanged form!" he exclaimed.
At one blow the spirit of the gathering had changed. In the place of calm
listeners who were recovering themselves from their astonishment at this
interruption, excited participants took sides for or against.
Trupp shrugged his shoulders.
The success of his words with the majority had been unmistakable. Auban saw it
with an uneasy surprise: what he himself had said had been strange and cold
reasoning to them. They longed for the perfection of happiness - Trupp offered
it to them.
Is it possible? This question came to none.
There is something evil about hope, thought Auban and Hurt, and their thoughts
greeted each other silently in a glance, - it despises reason, which
laboriously indeed and only gradually, but with unfailing certainty, removes
stone after stone and story after story from the giant structure of
illusion....
"I am sorry that you were interrupted, Otto."
But Trupp said quickly: -
"I had said what I had to say."
"Well, so much the better. But shall we not attempt to bring out our opinions
somewhat more in detail? Let us look more closely at special points."
The calm attention of awhile ago soon returned. But it was now forced, not
natural as before. Several persons took part in the discussion.
Auban began anew, turned towards Trupp: -
"I will attempt to prove that the philosophies of Communism and of anarchism
are also irreconcilably opposed to each other in their conclusions.
"You want the autonomy of the individual, his sovereignty, and the right of
self-determination. You want the free development of his natural stature. You
want his liberty. We agree in this demand.
"But you have formed an ideal of a future of happiness which corresponds most
nearly to your own inclinations, wishes, habits. by naming it 'the ideal of
humanity' you are convinced that every 'real and true man' must be just as
happy under it as you. You would fain make your ideal the ideal of all.
"I, on the contrary, want the liberty which will enable each to live according
to his ideal. I want to be let alone, I want to be spared from any demands that
may be made in the name of 'the ideal of humanity.'
"I think that is a great difference.
"I deny only. You build anew.
"I am purely defensive. But you are aggressive.
"I battle exclusively for my liberty. You battle for what you call the liberty
of others.
"Every other word you speak is abolition. That means forcible destruction.
"You talk about the abolition of religion. you want to banish its priests,
extirpate its teachings, persecute its followers.
"I trust to the steadily increasing perception which puts knowledge in the
place of faith. It is economic dependence that forces most people nowadays into
recognizing one of the many still existing churches, and prevents them from
leaving them.
"After the chains of labor have fallen, the churches will of themselves become
deserted, the teachers of a delusive faith and folly will no longer find
listeners, and their priests will be forsaken.
"But I should be the last to approve of the crime against the liberty of
individuals which would by force seek to prevent a man from adoring God as the
creator, Christ as the saviour, the pope as infallible, and Vitzliputzli as the
devil, so long as he did not trouble me with his nonsense and demand tribute
from me in the name of his infallible faith."
They laughed: perplexed, amused, irritated, pitying such weakness in dealing
with the enemy.
But Auban continued unconcerned, for he was firmly resolved, now he had begun,
to say the best that he had to say.
"You want free love, like myself.
"But what do you understand by free love?
"That it is the duty of every woman to yield to the desire of every man, and
that no man has the right to withdraw himself from the desire of any woman;
that the children resulting from those unions belong to human society, and that
this society has the duty of educating them; that the separate family, like the
individual, must disappear in the great family of humanity: is it not so?
"I shudder when I think of the possibility that this idea might ever prevail.
"No one hates marriage more than I. But it is only the compulsion of marriage
which induces men and women to sell themselves to each other, which affects and
obstructs free choice, which makes difficult, and for the most part impossible,
a separation, which creates a state of misery from which there is no
deliverance except death, - it is only this compulsion of marriage that I
loathe. Never should I dare raise an objection to the free union of two people
who are brought together for life.
"But just as well as the free union of two persons do I understand the
inclination of many people to change in the object of their love; and unions
for a night, for a spring time—they must be as free as the marriages for life,
which alone are sanctioned by public opinion to-day.
"The commands of morality appear ridiculous to me, and to have arisen from the
morbid desires of narrow men for regulating natural relations.
"And finally, you throw overboard private property with the same royal ease
and such a superficiality of thought as we find only in Communism.
"You say the State must fall in order that property may exist, for the State
suppresses it.
"It is true you do not respect property: your own property you do not respect;
otherwise you would not allow it to be taken from you day after day. Expel
illegitimate property, i.e. that which is not really property, but alienism.
But expel it by becoming proprietors yourselves. That is the only way in which
to really 'abolish' it, the only reasonable and just way, and at the same time
the way of liberty.
"Down with the State in order that labor may be free, which alone creates
property! So I exclaim also.
"When money shall be freed form all forcibly protected privileges - "
But now Trupp's patience was at an end.
"What?" he cried, indignant, "even money is to remain wretched money which has
corrupted, debased, and enslaved us all?"
Auban shrugged his shoulders. He was about to become vexed, but then he
laughed.
"Allow me a counter-question. Would it make you indignant to be an employer
and employee at the same time? A receiver and a payer of wages, and, as a
co-operator, master of the capital instead of as at present only its slave? I
think not. What arouses our indignation is only the fact that in consequence of
forcible robbery it is possible at present to get something without work."
"But what, according to your opinion, is to determine the value of labor?"
"Its utility in free competition, which will determine its value of itself.
all fixing of value by authority is unjust and nonsensical. But I know very
well that Communism solves this question, too, without much trouble: it simply
lumps everything."
"But free competition prevails to-day!" cried Trupp.
"No; we have the competition of labor, but not in the same way the competition
of capital. I repeat: You see the pernicious effects of that one-sided
competition and of property forcibly invested with privileges, and you exclaim:
'Down with private property!' You do not see that it is this very property
which makes us independent, and you do not see that it is therefore only
necessary to remove the obstacles in the way of acquiring it in order to
abolish the false relation of masters and servants. Believe me, the
organization of free credit, i.e. the possibility of each coming into
possession of the means of production - this bloodless, thorough-going and
greatest of all revolutions - will be followed by a change of all the
conditions of life which no one can adequately picture to himself to-day."
He stopped and say how coolly his words were received. Only Dr. Hurt sat
collected, logically examining word after word, calculating. To the majority a
revolution was only a chaos of corpses and ruins, and they shook their heads at
Auban's words. Therefore he tried to make his meaning clearer.
"Do you know what effect the abolition of interest, and thereby of usury,
would have? a steady demand for human labor; the equilibration of supply and
demand; the reduction of prices to the lowest point, and consequently an
enormous increase of consumption; the exact exchange of equivalents, and
consequently the most equitable distribution of wealth possible. But as a
result of this great economic revolution, the country as well as the individual
growing more prosperous daily."...
Trupp laughed, indignant and irritated.
"A fine revolution! and you want to make us workingmen believe in these
crack-brained fancies? Did I not see you before me, I should think I was
listening to a bourgeois economist. No, dear friend, the revolution that we
shall some day make will reach the goal more quickly than all your economic
evolutions! We will make shorter work: come and take back what has been stolen
from us by open force and scientific cunning!"
"If only the bourgeoisie do not make still shorter work of you!" remarked Dr.
Hurt. Exempla docent! That is: learn from history!"
That was his answer to Trupp's previous threat, which he had apparently
neglected.
The excitement produced by these words subsided only gradually. They saw in
them a defence of the bourgeoisie, and showered replies to them.
The German, who occupied the ground of the New York "Freiheit" and the
"Pittsburg Proclamation," and who was a member of the "Communistic Workingmen's
Educational Society," now took the floor.
"Nothing has so far been said of the real anarchism which was in existence
before anything was known of the Boston middle-class liberalism advocated by
Manchester men fifty years behind their times, or of the eccentric caviling of
the 'Autonomists'" - he aimed at Auban and Trupp - "and which still has the
most numerous following. It wants the Communism of free society based on the
co-operative organization of production. It does not deny the duty of labor,
for it declares: No rights without duties. It demands, moreover, the exchange
of equivalent products by the productive associations themselves, without
middle-men and profit-takers, and that the communes shall regulate all public
affairs by means of free contract. But in a free society, so organized, in
which the majority will feel very comfortable, the State will be useless."
"Then you grant the majority the right of establishing its will by force?"
"Yes. The individual must give way before the general welfare, for that is
higher."
"That is a position, one of the two which I have described. You are on the
road to Socialism."
"A fine position for an Anarchist!" said Trupp. "And what becomes of the
liberty of the individual? It is nothing but the centralistic Communism which
we have left far behind." The flame of dissension which some time ago had
broken up the clubs and led to the founding of a new paper, threatened to blaze
forth again. "It is my belief, and I stand by it, that in the coming society
each will perform his share of labor voluntarily."
The Frenchman now asked him courteously: -
"But assuming the case that men will not labor voluntarily as you expect, what
then becomes of the right to satisfy their wants?"
"They will. Rely on it," was Trupp's answer.
"I think it is better now to rely on it."
"You don't know the workingmen."
"But the workingmen become bourgeois as soon as they acquire property, and
then they will be the first to oppose the expropriation of their property. You
ignore human nature, sir; egoism is the spring of all action. Remove that
spring, and the machine of progress will cease to operate. The world would fall
into ruins. Civilization would have reached its end. The earth would become a
stagnant pool; but that is impossible as long as human beings inhabit it."
"Why do you not take the initiative, and demonstrate the possibility of
realizing your theories in practice?" Trupp was further asked.
He evaded this question by asking it himself. It was Auban who at once
replied: -
"Because the State has monopolized the circulating medium, and would prevent
us by force from furnishing one ourselves. Therefore, our attacks are primarily
directed against the State, and only against the State."
The discussion between Auban and Trupp seemed to have come to an end, and
threatened to entirely break up. Then Auban made a last attempt to force back
upon the ground of reality what vague wishes had raised into the empty spaces
of phantasy.
"One last question, Otto," sounded his loud and hard voice, - "only this one:
-
"Would you, in the system of society which you call 'free Communism,' prevent
individuals from exchanging their labor among themselves by means of their own
medium of exchange? And further: Would you prevent them from occupying land for
the purpose of personal use?"
Trupp faltered.
Like Auban, everybody was anxious to hear his answer.
Auban's question was not to be escaped. If he answered "Yes!" he admitted that
society had the right of control over the individual and threw overboard the
autonomy of the individual which he had always zealously defended; if, on the
other hand, he answered "No!" he admitted the right of private property which
he had just denied so emphatically.
He said, therefore: -
"You view everything with the eyes of the man of to-day. In the future
society, where everything will be at the free disposal of all, where there can
be no trade consequently in the present sense, every member, I am deeply
convinced, will voluntarily abandon all claim to sole and exclusive occupation
of land."
Auban had again risen. He had become somewhat paler, as he said: -
"We have never been dishonest towards each other, Otto. Let us not become so
to-day. You know as well as I do that this answer is an evasion. But I will not
let go of you now: answer my question, and answer it with yes or no, if you
wish me ever again to discuss a question with you."
Trupp was evidently struggling with himself. Then he answered—and it was a
look at his comrade who had just attacked him, and against whom he would never
have violated the principle of personal liberty, that impelled him to say: -
"In Anarchy any number of men must have the right of forming a voluntary
association, and so realizing their ideas in practice. Nor can I understand how
any one could justly be driven from the land and house which he uses and
occupies."...
"Thus I hold you and will not let go of you!" exclaimed Auban. "By what you
have just said you have placed yourself in sharp opposition to the fundamental
principles of Communism, which you have hitherto championed.
"You have admitted private property, in raw materials and in land. You have
squarely advocated the right to the product of labor. That is Anarchy.
"The phrase - everything belongs to all - has disappeared, destroyed by your
own hands.
"A single example only, to avoid all further misunderstanding: I own a piece
of land. I capitalize its product.
"The Communist says: That is robbery committed against the common property.
"But the Anarchist Trupp - for the first time now I call him so - says: No. No
earthly power has any other right, except that of force, to drive me from my
possessions, to lessen the product of my labor by even a penny.
"I close. My purpose is accomplished.
"I have demonstrated what I wished to demonstrate: that there can be no
reconciliation between the two great antagonisms in which human society moves,
between Individualism and Altruism, between Anarchism and Socialism, between
liberty and authority.
"I had claimed that all attempts at uniting the irreconcilable must leave
behind the solid ground of reality, and disappear in the clouds of Utopianism,
and that every serious man must declare himself: for Socialism, and thereby for
force and against liberty, or for Anarchism, and thereby for liberty and
against force.
"After Trupp has long sought to evade this alternative, I have compelled him
by my last question to explain himself. I might repeat the experiment with each
one of you. It is infallible.
"Trupp has decided himself for liberty. He is, indeed, - what I should never
have believed, - an Anarchist."
Auban ceased. Trupp added: -
"But we will practically carry out the principles of Communism in Anarchy, and
our example will we thoroughly convince you of the possibility of realizing our
principles that you will accept them as we do, and voluntarily abandon your
private property."
Auban did not say anything in response.
He knew very well that this external conciliation was only a fresh and last
attempt on the part of his friend to bridge over the deep chasm that had long
ago separated them inwardly, as it separated the new from the old, and assigned
them outwardly their respective positions.
"Neither I nor anybody else can save any one from his own doom,"... he thought
to himself. From this time forth he joined in the conversation only when he was
directly asked. It grew exceedingly lively.
Never had they remained so long as to-day. It was long past eight o'clock, and
still no one thought of leaving except Dr. Hurt and the Frenchman.
When the doctor took leave of Auban, he said in a low voice: "I am not going
to come again to your Sundays, dear friend. Anything that is right. But the
performances that I am asked to attend must not be too crazy. Your 'comrade'
jumped with both feet straight into heaven. That's too high for me."
Saying which he went, and Auban looked after him, smiling. The Frenchman also
rose, once more expressing his thanks. But Auban said deprecatingly: -
"We have only driven in the posts and erected the bare scaffolding. But it was
impossible to do more to-day."
"You will have a hard battle to fight, which you might make easier for
yourself if you would drop that word which frightens away innumerable persons
who are otherwise near you, yes, who entirely agree with you."
"The word Anarchy describes precisely what we want. It would be cowardly and
imprudent to drop it on account of the weaklings. Whoever is not strong enough
to study its true meaning and to understand it, he is not strong enough either
to think or to act independently...."
He took Dr. Hurt's vacant seat by the fire, and held his head in his hands.
All spoke now, even the Russian. The variously pitched voices struck his ear as
from a distance....
From what was being said he heard of Trupp's victory and of his own defeat....
They had forgotten him. While he had been speaking, the cool breath of reason
had descended on them. Now it was warm again: the warmth of a future,
winterless, paradisean life. And they rivaled each other in the description of
that life.; their words intoxicated them; they forgot where they were....
Auban continued to hear.
They ridiculed the eternal question of their opponents: who would do the dirty
and disagreeable work in the future? There would be enough volunteers for
everything, remarked one; and another: There would no longer be any such work
to do; machines would be invented for everything.
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