People :
Author : Constance Bantman
Author : John Quail
Author : Nick Heath
Text :
In the years 1889–1891 there had been a positive orgy of trades union organizing. There has been no satisfactory attempt to describe and analyze this phenomenon as a whole, much needed though it is. It is clear though that the ‘terms of trade’ had swung in favor of labor, which made such organization very much more simple. The combativeness had obviously been stimulated by the unemployed agitation and socialists in the previous years. The gains of 1889–1890 began to be eroded by unemployment and the counter-attack of the employers. Unemployment rose seriously between 1891 and 1893. Yet the earlier gains were not given up without a struggle. Defensive strikes occurred in many places. Some were of a massive and riotous nature and mobilized many more people than were involved in the strikes themselves. In December 1892 a fund raising procession in Bristol in support of a strike was banned. It took place anyway, and the authorities were unable to enforce their ban until dragoons had made repeated charges involving the free use of lances and sabers on a crowd estimated to number some hundreds of thousands. In the Hull dock strike in May 1893, gunboats were moored in the Humber, there was arson in the docks and many confrontations took place between strikers and police. It was not only in connection with industrial disputes that the people demonstrated their readiness to take direct action. The August 1892 issue of Commonweal reported that 3,000 people had first pulled down the railings protecting a railway that had been run across common land at Leyton, near London. They then proceeded to wreck the railway itself. The spirit of the times also made itself manifest in more local eruptions: when broker’s men seized the goods of a widow in Clerkenwell, a quickly gathering crowd attacked the men, smashed the seized goods and used the bits, together with lumps of coal, potatoes and garbage, to attack police when these subsequently arrived.[311]
In fact this period after the ‘boom’ of organizing, when the working class was in an embattled and bitter mood, proved a more responsive one for the anarchists. The period 1889–1890 had led to something of a scattering of the libertarian wing of the socialist movement. Insofar as there had been any anarchist organization at all it had been based in London on the London Socialist League. Outside London, branches of the Socialist League in their various states of disintegration or transformation had provided temporary haven, particularly where socialist clubs had been formed. It was not until mid-1892 that a federation of anarchist groups was formed in London and not until a little later that specifically anarchist groups were formed in the provinces. The one exception was a group formed in Sheffield in early 1891. This group however was formed round the exceptional personality of Dr John Creaghe, and when he left Sheffield towards the end of that year it went into something of a decline. The anarchists at this point were not really able to sustain an organization separately. The Walsall anarchists, for example, were based on the Socialist Club in Goodall Street, which had evolved from the local Socialist League branch. While they seem to have dominated the club ideologically by late 1891, they do not appear to have tried to make it exclusively anarchist. Leeds, to take another example, had seen a dispute within the ranks of the socialists in 1890 between anarchists and electoral socialists, including Tom Maguire. The basis of the argument was “which of the two courses is the correct one to take bearing in mind the events of the gasworkers’ struggle” which had culminated in a massive riot and the strikers’ victory. Maguire and his friends “in response to the men’s wishes and in accordance with our ideas of policy considered a Labor Electoral League should be formed and accordingly this was done.” The anarchists attacked the Electoral League and its sponsors and “finally told the people that no policy should be entertained but physical force.”[312]
Though the dispute was bitter and relations remained cool the Socialist Club did not break up. A separate anarchist group was not formed until August 1892, probably in response to more successful attempts to organize electoral activity which culminated in the formation of an Independent Labor Party in Leeds in November of that year.
In Glasgow a split in the Socialist League ranks did not take place until late 1892 or early 1893. “A few-of the members had become Parliamentarians and the remainder (the majority by far) who were really Anarchists for some time, in order to make their position clearly understood, resolved to abandon the name of Socialist,” which the parliamentarians had besmirched “and declared themselves Anarchists.” The group evidently had a shaky start, because it was not until October 1893 when the group reorganized itself that they really set to work. In March 1894 they were announcing that they had “five times the members we started with. … The Labor Party from whom we have been draining a number of recruits have become so alarmed” that no anarchist speakers were being allowed on their platforms or being allowed to speak in discussions. All anarchist literature was banned from their halls. The anarchists were working closely with the S.D.F., “many of whom are Anarchists in all but name.”[313]
In their success and their recruiting ground the Glasgow group were typical, though the London situation was somewhat different since the I.L.P. (of which the Scottish Labor Party was becoming a constituent part) did not make ground in the capital in the early 1890s. There the anarchists were most successful in recruiting from the S.D.F. — the cause of some bitter faction fighting. We can understand bitterness in the S.D.F. when we consider the London report in Freedom in June 1894: “The whole Canning Town branch of the S.D.F. have embraced Communist Anarchist principles and have formed a most energetic group and we hear that a Communist Anarchist group is in formation at Horton and Woolwich. The Wimbledon S.D.F. branch have been so disgusted by the reactionary policy of the Central Council in sending a circular to all their branches calling upon all Anarchists in the S.D.F. to resign that all the branch but two (who are still Social Democrats) sent back a resolution condemning them …” A report the following month somewhat modified its statement concerning the whole Canning town branch of the S.D.F. becoming anarchist and now called it a split — but also added Mile End to the list of anarchist influenced S.D.F. branches. At Canning Town the anarchists and the S.D.F. held open-air meetings in close proximity. In August the Times reported: “Lately the attendance at the gatherings has largely increased, and between the Socialists … and the Anarchists considerable friction has been caused, the various speakers accusing each other of treachery and backsliding. These scenes have nearly led to a serious breach of the peace.”[314]
A more or less independent paper, the Weekly Times and Echo, assessing the progress of anarchist propaganda, had already said in December 1893 that the social democrats were being considerably influenced by the anarchists — “we are by no means so sure that the anarchist is not covering two miles to the Social Democrat’s one.” It suggested that the workers were beginning to think that the anarchist was “the practical man, the only social reformer who goes to the root of the matter.”[315] As far as estimating the number of anarchists at this time we can only make an informed guess. One of a series of articles (which it has to be said were not taken very seriously by the anarchist press) which were published in December 1894 gave the following figures for London.[316] There were at that time, it says, some 7,000 to 8,000 anarchists, of whom 2,000 were Russian Jews in the East End, 1,000 were Germans living mainly round Soho Square and the Middlesex Hospital plus a small and violent colony of 400 French anarchists living in the Charlotte Street area. Of the English anarchists it said:
they number between 3,000 and 4,000 … the latest adherents being in Canning Town and Deptford with groups of over 100 each. … Their ranks are recruited largely from the extreme socialists especially those of an ‘Individualistic’ tendency and among the classes such as tailors, shoemakers, cabinet makers whose work allows greater freedom of ideas. The dockers and the hard toilers and moilers remain for the most part stolid soldiers in the ranks of Socialism where their thinking is done for them and their will power delegated.
Yet it is significant that recently a band of comrades headed by a young and highly intellectual lady have been pursuing their work at the docks with absolutely fanatical earnestness and have swept into their associations considerable numbers, notably of the younger men.
The “young and highly intellectual lady” was Olivia Rossetti and the “comrades” were the Torch group with which Ted Leggatt, a carman in the East End (and later a union official), was connected.
Yet the figures given here seem far too high. We have some confirmation for the suggested numbers in the Canning Town group and perhaps in the Deptford group at around the one hundred mark. Yet these were exceptional groups. For there to be 3,000 to 4,000 anarchists in London there would have to be 25 to 35 groups of a similar size, allowing for the isolated, the unorganized and hardy independents. This was certainly not the case. The English anarchists could mobilize 600 people in London on a working day and upwards of 1,000 on a Sunday, when there were rival attractions. Larger numbers on special occasions can be accounted for by foreign anarchists and other socialist sympathizers. This would seem to indicate a maximum of 2,000 English anarchists in London at that time — a generous estimate. Equally generously we could double that number for a national total. As far as the circulation of English-language anarchist newspapers goes, there seems to be little reason to dispute George Woodcock’s figure of a total of 10,000 for all of them. Thus, though these suggested figures indicate that the anarchists had not broken out from the status of sect into that of movement, there had been something of an explosion in numbers since the time William Morris had calculated the membership of the London Socialist League to be 120 in 1891.
For two years, in 1894 and 1895, the anarchists seemed poised for take-off into a self-nourishing movement. The collapse of the Commonweal and the closure of the Autonomie Club had been a blow to the ultra section of the movement. The events surrounding these occasions had had a disruptive effect on the movement in the West End, tending to split the exiles and the English anarchists. In political terms this largely meant the end of the influence of the advocates of bombing and more random acts of terror. By no means did such propaganda cease, however; it merely became less prominent. And in point of fact there were several anarchist bomb explosions in London after this time. In August 1894 the first of a series of post offices in South London was blown up at New Cross. A member of the Deptford anarchist group, Rolla Richards, was eventually arrested for causing these explosions. He was brought to trial in April 1897 and sentenced to seven years in prison. On 4th November 1894, at 11pm, a bomb exploded on the doorstep of the Tilney Street, Mayfair, house of Reginald Brett, M.P. The door was blown in and many windows in the surrounding houses were smashed. The bomb seemed to have been of the French anarchist style of manufacture, and the whole business was rather bungled insofar as it was generally assumed that the bomb was really intended for Justice Hawkins who lived at another house in Tilney Street. There was no particular reason why anyone should bomb Brett, but Justice Hawkins was detested in anarchist circles for his savage sentences on the Walsall anarchists and Farnara and Polti. Another explosion took place in April 1897 in an underground train, killing one person and injuring several others. While the anarchist press ignored this bomb or denied any part in it — David Nicoll went so far as to accuse the police of planting it — it was generally attributed to an anarchist. There were certainly lunatics in the movement capable of such an act; but the question has to be put as to what point, if any, could be made by such an explosion in such a place. Since no one was arrested for the bomb in Mayfair or the train the question remains open in both cases.
With the decline of the influence of the ‘bombing’ faction the movement became dominated by what might be termed (as in Nicoll) the ‘revolutionist’ faction. A simple expression of their position can be found in the Manifesto in the first number of the Anarchist which Nicoll published from Sheffield in March 1894:
We are Revolutionary Anarchists and declare for the complete destruction of the existing society. We seek to put in its place free cooperative associations of workmen who shall own land, capital and all the means of production. We would sweep away all forms of Government and we desire neither to rule others or to be ruled ourselves.
We seek to realize that freedom which is only possible by every man being ready to defend his own liberty without seeking to trample on the liberty of others.
We are Communists. We do not seek to establish an improved wages system like the Fabian Social Democrats. We do not see that it is possible to reward a man according to his deeds; nor do we think that lack of skill or ability shall be any reason why any man should lack the necessaries of life. There is enough for all; then all who are willing to work should have enough …
DYNAMITE IS NOT ANARCHY
It is the weapon of men driven to desperation by intolerable suffering and oppression. Our ideal can be realized without it, if the rich will let us. Our work for the present lies in spreading our ideas among the workers in their clubs and organizations as well as in the open street. So long as we can express our ideas freely we shall be content with advocating
PASSIVE RESISTANCE
All we need can be obtained by the general refusal of the workers to pay rent to a landlord or to work for a capitalist.
NO RENT AND THE UNIVERSAL STRIKE …
This represented more or less the line of the anarchist papers in existence after the collapse of the Commonweal. In 1894 these were Freedom, the Anarchist, Liberty and the Torch. (The Torch was founded by the Rossetti sisters, Helen and Olivia, and seems to have been designed to continue the work of the Commonweal. Both sisters had contributed articles on Italian affairs to the Commonweal and one, at least, had been present at the meeting which had expelled Samuels. The group producing the paper included some Italian exiles, Ernest Young and Cantwell when he was released from prison.)
Yet the situation was, in fact, wildly unstable for the anarchists. They still spoke to the real desperation of sections of the working class. Their commitment to revolution was a severe embarrassment to those erstwhile revolutionaries who were now busily trying to get themselves elected to various bodies. As a result the socialism of these people had become transformed into ‘practical proposals’ which would be stepping stones to socialism via a series of reforms. Electoral activity tended to force this kind of presentation on socialists thus involved. Beckoning careers tended to confirm this approach. ‘Class war’ rhetoric was rather pushed into the background, because mass passivity — or at least partial demobilization — was implied by electoral representation. The resulting fragmentation of electoral socialism meant in effect that the anarchists with their ‘impossibilist’ position had greater theoretical clarity than their rivals. But when the militancy of the working class had shrunk back from its flood tide their ‘impossibilism’ left them with no activity but propaganda. Individually they were involved in every aspect of working-class life except those areas which could be described as ‘political’ — that is, as an administrative part of the status quo. Thus there were anarchists who were active trades unionists, anarchists who were cooperators, anarchists who organized clubs. Yet it was only within the anarchist movement, for better or worse, that the anarchist word became flesh. Group meetings were held on the Quaker pattern: “Anarchists do not have a Chairman, but when enough people had assembled, a man stood up and began to speak,”[317] “anyone could speak when and how he pleased, so long as he received the approbation of the meeting. Generally speaking the meetings were very orderly!”[318] Groups within which this democracy operated were autonomous, freely federated without hierarchy. The movement could contain men with a considerable will to power, though the terms in which this was expressed were somewhat mutated. As Nettlau remarks of one conflict: “The aim is always a periodical without an editor, i.e. without X, which is produced spontaneously, i.e. by Y.”[319] Yet if the anarchists had made a movement which demonstrated something of its principles within itself, it had no new methods to offer the workers once open class conflict diminished.
While the anarchists presented a critique of existing forms of struggle it was a critique which assessed these forms against one yardstick: the bringing of the revolution. And since trades unionism or cooperation were not revolutionary in any sense that implied violent, immediate and massive class conflict or the construction of the new society they were dismissed as anarchist forms of struggle though it was readily admitted that such activities were inevitable and necessary under capitalism. Thus, as individuals they were involved in them and were always ready to urge direct action in trades union struggle; yet collectively there was a distinct carelessness in their analysis of such struggle, a carelessness which applied in other similar areas too. Yet despite this, anarchists through dogged courage or a more finely attuned sensitivity to spontaneous developments were able to make contributions which will be given in more detail in a later chapter. Yet on any criteria of success the anarchists were to be hopelessly outpaced by the reformist politicians in the later 1890s. Despite the inauspicious beginnings of the electoral strategy in the Tory gold scandal in 1885, by 1895 the situation was more encouraging for the reformists. It was true that the parliamentary road was not altogether encouraging: in the 1895 election the I.L.P. put up twenty-eight candidates and the S.D.F. four and they were all defeated. Yet these were no joke candidates; the I.L.P. was becoming a mass organization and despite its defeats had a high morale. The S.D.F. remained relatively small, with an estimated membership of between 2,000 and 4,000. Yet both organizations achieved significant electoral success in local bodies. As far as vestries, boards of guardians, school boards and councils were concerned, in the nation as a whole in 1895 the I.L.P. held 800 such positions and the S.D.F. 250.[320] It was from this developing base in local affairs that successful Labor candidates were to be launched on some scale in 1906.
The anarchists could stand on the sidelines of this activity and snipe — and they did, sometimes to great effect. Yet in the face of their inability to provide practical proposals to go with their critique of electoral reformism the latter made steady progress. The dilemma had been summed up in a hostile way in Justice. In a reply to a letter from an anarchist criticizing election activity it said, “If our correspondent means that he objects to political and municipal action as expressed by running candidates and voting in parliamentary and municipal elections, then we fear that no organized body can be kept together or fed on mere abstractions.”[321] To say the least this puts the cart before the horse and their choice of a tactic designed to preserve the organization rather than achieve the revolution marks a considerable change from their earlier brave remarks that all methods must be tried to achieve socialism, whether bomb, bullet or ballot box. They were perceptive enough, though, to ask what the anarchists were going to do if they eschewed elections. The anarchists had found a nourishing environment in the bitter aftermath of the 1889–1890 boom and had no desire to preserve anarchist organization for the sake of it. They found themselves scattered, stranded and impractical when the wave subsided. As the 1890s progressed the circumstances which encouraged free-speech fights, the window smashing of C.C. Davis, the anti-broker brigade of W.B. Parker, the No Rent campaign, not to mention expansive and confrontation-oriented trades union organizing, seemed to have passed. The anarchists were left with propaganda activity only.
And even when that propaganda was directed against attempts to achieve socialism through elections it was no less reduced to ‘mere abstractions’. Whereas electoral socialists could argue that they were at least “doing something practical” the anarchist contention that this would give practically nothing to the working class was as yet only a prediction and not a demonstrable fact. Taken together with the rising tide of imperialist-inspired popular patriotism, which was to reach its peak in the Boer War period, this caused a catastrophic drop in anarchist numbers and morale in the later 1890s. Sporadic local revivals would take place where exceptional agitators were active. But the continual complaint was to be working-class apathy and lack of activity and response. By the end of the nineteenth century history seemed to have passed the English anarchists by. David Nicoll wrote in 1898:
‘There is desperit fightin in the streets of Milan; the roar of the cannon resounds; barricades rise on all sides. Bread or Death is the cry of the masses. Comrades prepare for the Westry elections and all will be well.’ This is the cry of the Sosherlists of the Parliamentary School. … The Sosherl Revolution by means of vestry elections is advancing by rapid strides.
And it’s having a great influence on the party. Ten years ago they were rough blokes like you and me and they used to fight the police like winking. They wore courduroys and ’obnailed boots. Now they are nice-looking, Sunday School young men; they part their ’air in the middle, wear clean collars and cuffs and a top ’at and frock coat on Sunday, and when you attend a branch meeting you think you are in the Young Men’s Christian Association …
But there ain’t the go about the propegander the way there used to be. The ’obnailed boots and courduroys ’as gone for ever but something else ’as gone and that’s the spirit of revolt. If you talk about the Sosherl Revolution the young men snigger. They don’t believe in it, they don’t want it. They are too damned respectable. But the ’obnailed boots and courduroys was ’ungry sometimes and they got wild; they broke winders and sacked shops and made things lively.
They did believe in the Sosherl Revolution, they did.[322]
As the 1890s proceeded all the symptoms of a decline were to appear. Papers closed down. Propaganda activity became sporadic. Bitter disputes based more on personalities than politics had a lasting and damaging effect. Yet despite it all, anarchism, though badly bruised, was not fatally injured by the experience and made something of a comeback in the years before World War One. That is worth remembering while we relate the events of the lean years of the anarchist movement.
From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.
Chronology :
February 12, 2021 : Chapter 10 -- Added.
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