Eleanor Marx Aveling
Source: Supplement to The Commonweal, Vol 1 No. 3, April 1885, pages 27-8.
Transcribed: by Graham Seaman, February 2022
GERMANY. — My notes were "crowded out" of the last number of the Commonweal— or rather their place was "better filled." Hence my reader must bear with me if I refer this month to certain events that would have been discussed then, and thai should not be passed by without recordal here. On the 7th of February two Anarchists, Reinsdorff and Küchler, were legally murdered at Halle — murdered for attempting to "commit an outrage" at the Niederwald celebration. They met their death calmly and bravely: so calmly that the reactionists, who cannot even understand the faith that is in such men, wondered. In its leader on this the Sozial-Democrat says:
"When a few days ago [i.e., shortly before the "execution"] the rumour went the round of the press that the condition of Reinsdorff (who at his trial was already in an advanced stage of consumption) had grown so much worse that his death was momentarily expected, there was a general belief the Government would be sensible enough — not to speak even of humanity — to abstain from dragging a dying man to the scaffold. Naive were they who thought thus! Little do they know the nature of our governors. What care these for reason, for humanity! In 'enlightened' Germany there reigns the most barbarous conception of criminal law... It is characteristic that the very people who demand capital punishment are thosd that profess the religion which declares vengeance to be the Lord's. This 'atonement' is in truth but revenge, retaliation. It is the adherents of the 'Religion of Love' who performed the bloody deed of executing a dying man... Reinsdorff gave us the real watchword when he cried 'Down with barbarism!' We are opponents of Anarchist dynamite tactics. We do not believe barbarism can be put an end to by appealing to mere brute force and to the most brutal instincts; but the most hideous of all crimes in our eyes is the deliberate murder, calmly carried out in the name of — Law. Death dealt in passion, despair, hatred, can be explained; political execution as a last resource of the oppressed who have no other means left of obtaining their rights, no one can straightway condemn; but legal murder, committed by a society that holds all means for self-protection — such a murder is indeed a barbarity."
The article concludes by saying — what we too can echo — that not merely Anarchists, but all Revolutionists, will "earnestly cry with Reinsdorff, 'Down with barbarism!'"
Rebel has called attention, in the Reichstag, to the shameful manner in which soldiers are set to work for their officers. The War Minister replied that the soldier's life was an ideal one. This week the Sozial Democrat publishes a letter from a soldier. The account that he gives of the food alone is horrible, but, "unfortunately, most of the men could get nothing else." They had to do "all the housemaid's work" for the officer's family, and were given only the worst and scantiest clothing. But all this has its good side. Ill-usage of this kind serves to remind soldiers that for them, as for all others, their only hope is in the Socialist movement.
The Bill for the "Protection of Workers" shall be more fully dealt with when all details are to hand. Meantime, I will only draw attention to the following resolution, calling on the Chancellor "(a) To summon an International Conference of the principal industrial States for the consideration, on a common basis, of a Law for the Protection of Workers, based upon a normal working day of 10 hours; the prohibition of labour for children under 14; prohibition, save in certain specified cases, of all night labour; (b) To instititute an inquiry into the condition of wage-labourers in regard to their wages."
Some very excellent speeches have recently been made in the Reichstag — the only place in Germany where they can speak — by certain of the Socialist deputies on the state of siege in Berlin and in Hamburg Altona. Liebknecht also spoke on the shameful law passed some six years since, by which the whole postal service was practically handed over to the police. Naturally neither Radicals, Progressists, nor Liberals supported the Socialists in their demand that this law should be abrogated, and, bearing in mind some of the English Government declarations with regard to violation of the postal service in Ireland, this need not surprise us.
In Germany, of course, there can be no open manifestation in commemoration of the Commune and all the other great revolutionary days of March, but none the less German Revolutionists, like those of all other lands, join in the cry that is at once a hope and a promise — Vive la Commune!
FRANCE.— Poor M. Jules Ferry! There is something almost pathetic in his efforts to get up a nice little street-riot in order to rid himself of obnoxious Socialists and Revolutionists at one swoop, and in his constant failures to do so. The good people of Paris refuse to let themselves be massacred pour la plus grande gloire de M. Ferry, and thanks to the recent revelations of M. Andrieux, prefect of police, they are now less likely than ever to oblige him. A few weeks ago a "Demonstration" was got up at the Place de l'Opéra. but the whole thing was so clearly a police dodge that not even the hot-headed enthusiasts who never resist a "revolutionary" speech, fell into the trap. A perfectly harmless crowd of ordinary sight-seers was charged by the troop — but this was the only satisfaction M. Ferry got for his pains. Then came the funeral of Jules Valles. Here was an excellent chance. Thousands of men and women followed the ex-member of the Commune to his grave — so magnificent a demonstration has not been seen in Paris for years. But the huge crowd marched along quietly, in orderly fashion, and gave no chance to the police. Some young men of the bourgeois and "upper" classes came to the aid of the gendarmes by attacking the German Socialists, whom they accused of crying "Vive la Prusse!" But this too failed to make the hoped-for disturbance. The unruly students were quietiy chastised by some French worktaen and that was all. No, not quite all. They have unconsciously done us a great service. They have helped to show outsiders — what we Socialists know already — that our movement is an International one, and that a Socialist can be no Ghauvin or Jingo. They have also helped to remind the world that while the French workers can never forget the attitude of German Socialists during the war, German workers can never forget that immediately after that war the people of Paris chose as member of their Commune, as their Minister of Public Works, the German, Leo Frankel.
The 18th March, the Anniversary of the Commune has also apparently passed over without so much as an arrest.
But certainly the most interesting event to be chronicled this month is the revelation, already referred to, of M. Andrieux, prefect of police. M. Andrieux is publishing his "Souvenirs" — and nice souvenirs they are. The part of them which most interests us is that now in course of publication. Here he gives a full account of the way in which the Anarchist journal La Révolution Sociale was founded, and of the infamous manner in which the unsuspecting Louise Michel, Gautier, etc., were entrapped. Some of my readers may remember this very "advanced" paper, which so strongly advocated dynamite and action par le fait while at the same time constantly denouncing those Socialists who were considered reactionary because they objected to the Révolution Sociale and dared to hint that such journals, either consciously or unconsciously, did the work of the police, and played into the hands of the government. M. Andrieux tells us how these people, constantly led by the nose by his own agents, were anxious to start a paper, and how he, the prefect of police, helped them to the necessary capital, by provided them with a "boss" who advanced money. "To give the Anarchists an organ," writes M. Andrieux, "was moreover to place a telephone between the hall of the conspirators and the room of the prefect of police. One can have no secrets from the man who finds the money, and I was about to learn, day by day, the most mysterious plans... Of course, do not imagine I offered the Anarchists the help of the prefect of police. I sent a well-dressed bourgeois to one of the most active and intelligent of them. He explained how he had made a fortune as a druggist, and how he desired to consecrate part of this fortune in forwarding Socialist propaganda. This bourgeois ... inspired the 4 'companions' with no doubts. Through him I gave the State the necessary 'caution money,' and the Révolution Sociale appeared. Every day, round the editorial table gathered the most acknowledged representatives of the 'party of action;' the international correspondence was read; the methods that science places at the service of the revolution were freely communicated. I was represented in their councils, and even, when necessary, gave my advice. My object was to watch more easily the honourable companions by grouping them round a journal. However, the Révolution Sociale rendered me a few other little extra services." And M. Andrieux goes on to tell how he used the Anarchist paper to attack men he considered dangerous — more especially those who, in the Lanterne, were doing what the Cri du Peuple does to-day — that is to say, were showing up the secrets of the police and its spies. M. Andrieux also points out, with some satisfaction, that he had himself violently attacked for appearance' sake. Then M. Andrieux gives a detailed account of the Saint Germain "outrage," in which the statue of M. Thiers was slightly blackened, explaining at the same time why the "conspirators" could not be prosecuted, since the Code pénal provides only for cases in which a "public monument has been destroyed." With the cynicism of a police agent, M. Andrieux tells the whole shameful story of the way In which he led on Louise Michel and her companions, now in prison for unconsciously doing M. Andrieux' work. The wife of one of these victims, Madame Emile Gautier, writes to La Justice, M. Clemenceau's organ, that "in this dirty story there is another detail M. Andrieux voluntarily or involuntarily passes over in silence. Yet it is important. It was the police-agent Serraux who was the promoter and the soul of the International Congress held in London in July, 1881. Now this Congress is one of the chief charges that served to convict my husband of affiliation to an International Association that ceased to exist in 1872, and that caused his condemnation. When I think that my husband, arrested twenty-nine months ago, forced to herd with the worst criminals, dragged from prison to prison, ... that he will be imprisoned two years more, without counting ten subsequent years of police surveillance, because of the manoeuvres and reports (what reports!) of a Serraux and his like, I cannot but feel a justifiable indignation against M. Andrieux, who prepared and paid for this infamy, and who speaks of it to-day as a capital joke." La Justice adds a note to this interesting letter, very naturally demanding the immediate release of Louise Michel, Gautier and Krapotkine, now clearly shown to have been nothing but the dupes and victims of the prefect of police.
With such facts as these before us, bearing in mind the Wolf and Bondurand affair, that of Monceaux les Mines — in which the "outrage" was not only planned, but actually carried out by the police — how can we help asking once more who benefits by the dynamite outrages? We need not pause for a reply: M. Andrieux has given it.
SWITZERLAND.— Some hundreds of Anarchists and Socialists have been arrested, others expelled ; the Revolté suppressed, and it is to be feared that an extradition bill for "political" offences will be passed. All this has been brought about by some equally foolish and wicked dynamite "attempts," and the tall talk, breathing blood and thunder, of certain individuals. It is impossible to avoid asking — especially in the light of recent events elsewhere — who is the gainer in all this? If the threatened explosions were to come off, and an extradition bill were the consequence, who would benefit — the men and women who have found in Switzerland a comparatively free refuge from their persecutors in other lands, or the governments of those lands? Would the Social Revolution be much advanced if a few harmless and utterly unimportant Swiss bourgeois were killed, and some of the greatest and best Revolutionists handed over to the hangman? Would Socialism be the stronger if its representatives in Switzerland were ence again thrown into the dungeons of the Czar, the cells of Prussia and Austria, or given over to death in the mines or at the hands of the executioner? The various European governments have tried cajolery and threats before to induce Switzerland to give up to them the victims that have escaped them, and failed. Now the Swiss bourgeois is to be frightened by a cry of dynamite — for eyeryoue knows that the mildest-mannered bourgeois shows no mercy when he is frightened. The trick that entrapped Louise Michel, Gautier, Krapotkine, and so many more, is to be tried in Switzerland. It is worth noting at this moment that the Swiss press — those who clamour for an extradition bill and those (of which the reactionary and ultramontane Basler Volksblatt is one) that have the sense to protest against such a measure — all admit that the "foreign governments have largely augmented the number of police spies here." It is to be sincerely hoped that M. Andrieux' revelations will not be lost upon those men and women in Switzerland who are being made the tools of the very governments they are struggling against, and of the Society they want to overthrow.
RUSSIA.— In these March days, when the memory of Sophia Peroffska and her fellow martyrs is so present with us, we must not forget to chronicle the murder of another Russian hero — of Myschkine — one of the noblest as he was one of the most remarkable of the Russian Socialists. His splendid "defence" during the celebrated "Trial of the 193" of Moscow — a defence that was really a magnificent and unanswerable indictment of the government — stirred all Russia. For some years Myschkine had been in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and at Belgorod. But even these "houses of death" were too humane for such a criminal as Myschkine. Lately he was removed to Schusselbourg. Of this hideous fortress Stepniak writes: "Thence no plaint can ever reach us, for nature unites with man to completely isolate the unfortunates immured there. It is not a citadel built in the midst of a large town; Schusselbourg is a block of granite, entirely occupied by fortifications, and surrounded on all sides by the waves." Here the prisoners are of course entirely at the mercy of their brutal keepers. According to the account that reaches us, Myschkine struck one of the gaolers. What the provocation may have been, those who know something of Russian prisons can imagine for themselves. He was at once tried by court-martial, condemned, and there and then executed. All honour to his memory! It too will live "in the great heart of the people."
ELEANOR MARX-AVELING.