My Anarchism by Armando Diluvi

A while ago, in an issue of Umanitá Nova, there was a debate between comrades Enzo Martucci and Malatesta. They topic was individualism. The one who is writing this understands anarchism from an individualistic perspective and is therefore jumping in.



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And I will immediately declare that I don’t even agree with Martucci. For example, where he maintains: “if there are individuals who have to cooperate with others to satisfy their needs, there are also strong individuals who are sufficient in themselves for the preservation and development of their personality.” This, I repeat, I do not believe. I think that, by character and temperament, I am one of those who tries to be as sufficient in myself as possible. But I am not able to do this. The material needs of life are so numerous that I still have need of others for some things.

And spiritual needs? Intellectual satisfaction and amusement? If, for instance, I would like to make love to one or more women? If I want to go to the theater? If I want to ride in an airplane? And then, when I might do any of these things, what if I don’t want to do it by myself? What is left of my satisfied I?

For me, the logic of my I is what preserves it from concern for others. Privates and generals aren’t supposed to exist for me, contact counts for nothing to me, I serve myself with them here even when materially instead I serve them. It is either because my concept of slavery is so low and vulgar or because my instinct for rebellion doesn’t have the force of those whom I detest and who enslave me.

However, I can’t conceive of the realization of any anarchist communism like Malatesta yearns for. If the thing remains a desire and aspiration that everyone else does it as I still remain to do it… this is fine. And here perhaps we are in agreement, I—individualist… at least, I think—and communist Malatesta. But why did Malatesta complain in an article a while ago that anarchists were “not organized enough”? Then, how did he come to write in this debate: “We say, and we say it with doubts, that, in our opinion, a communist way of life would respond best to the needs of individualists, but we have never dreamed of imposing our ideas on others and even less concrete way of life”? But the organization you demand to make? To bring down current and coming governments and carry out expropriation? This is logical. But communism would only occur through “the free adherence of human beings.”

I ask, dear Malatesta, if I could consider the anarchist communist form of society to be the best… because it would a society of angels as opposed to today’s society of demons, but I don’t know if it would satisfy me and I don’t know if it would be practical. Is it true, are we pounding a nail back in, one that might be rusty? And what if I want to live without producing anything for you? And what if, by instinct, I don’t particularly want with living together in such a society? It is true, I could by asked: “and what do you do now?” If I make myself strong, I rebel, and society strikes me with… law. But with what will communist society strike me?

***

But I am aware that I’ve gone on about other people’s anarchism, and my own? I understand anarchism from the side of destruction. Its aristocratic logic lies in this. Destruction! Here is the real beauty of anarchism. I want to destroy everything that enslaves me, weakens me and suppresses my desires and I would like to step over the corpses I make of them. When remorse, scruples, conscience exist in me and make me their non-christian slave, my iconoclastic spirit destroys them. And when I don’t feel them, one sees that they don’t exist in me. Yes, iconoclastic negation is the most practical.

And when you realize your communist society tomorrow, would I be satisfied contemplating my navel? Furthermore, I don’t offer a better aspiration where you all would come with us, oh today’s prophecies of tomorrow’s communist society.

The masses? But then, they will never be able to conceive of the individual!

In fact, the singular is what makes the great secrets that are not even conceived by those who enjoy and exploit them, the singular will of the individual is what accelerates progress, the individual is what is emerging and prevailing, the great mass is mediocrity, litter, feed for the ravenous desires of governors and politicians. The lone nihilist is the one who demolishes all the powerful, the iconoclast is the one who destroys all absurd beliefs with his negation. There can be nothing truly free in reconstruction. And this is why all that is not free and destructive is not anarchist. Stirner’s destructive philosophy is undeniably more real that Kropotkin’s reconstruction, no matter how mathematical.


Armando Diluvi
Proletario # 3, August 15, 1922

Of Individualism and Rebelion by Renzo Novatore

There are those who maintain that the human being is by nature a social being. Others maintain that the human being is by nature anti-social.

Well, I admit that I have never been able to clearly understand what they meant by their “by nature,” but I have understood that both sides are wrong, since the human being is social and anti-social at the same time.

Need, want, affection, love and sympathy are the elements that push him toward sociability and union.

The craving for independence and the desire for freedom push her toward solitude and individualism. But, while individualism operates and is realized against society, society defends itself from its attacks. The war between “societarianism” and “individualism” is thus a fertile war of vitality and energy. But, while the individual is necessary to society, this in its turn is necessary to him.

Individualism couldn’t possibly exist if there was no society against which it could affirm itself and live, expand itself and rejoice.



***



Among human beings—only the rebel is the most beautiful figure and the most complete being. He knows how to be the potential tool of his desiring will. He knows how to obey himself and command himself, to preserve himself and destroy himself. Because the rebel is the one who has learned the secret of living and the art of dying.



***



The one who falls rebelling against each and all, prevails even while falling.

And prevailing means instilling the flame of her thought and imposing the light of her ideas in others.

But the fallen rebel’s truest follower is the one who, when falling, knows how to rebel even against the “rebellion” of the already fallen hero.



***



Anyone who wants the spirit of rebellion to become eternal must want the child’s rebellion not to change in its turn into the father’s tyranny.



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If my father rebelled against my grandfather so as not to be a slave of the paternal faith, I rebel against my father so as not to be a slave of the faith that made him rebel in his turn.

How could it make my son be tomorrow what I am today?



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Only from the ruins of everything the rebel has destroyed can the creative genius be born.

But what does the creation of the genius prepare if not a new rebellion?



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I agree with Nietzsche in believing that there has never been any need to question a martyr to know the truth. But desiring force, daring audacity and skillful creative will are treasures inherited only from the genius, the rebel, the hero.



***



I have seen a genius “steal” and an idiot throw a deadly bomb at a state minister.

The first stole so as to live independently and create in freedom. The second killed because of a hidden personal hatred and the will to die.

The first carried out a “vulgar, common crime” and is a “common criminal.” The second carried out a “political crime” and is a “noble and generous political criminal.” I now ask all subversive, political people in general, and anarchists in particular—if in facing this fact, it is a chance to raise another “political crime” up into the splendor of glory and the feasts of the sun so as to cast “common crime” into the mud.



***



Alas! There are still too many who look at the work. But before looking at the work, I look at the creator. Yet even for many—so many—anarchists, it seems that the individual counts for little…

The majority of them are still among the rabble who say: “Human beings don’t count. Events and ideas count.” And this is why, even among us, many higher, sublime beings have been cast into the mud, while many idiots have been raised up in the sun.



***


I deny the right to judge me to all those who don’t understand the voice of my yearnings, the howl of my needs, the flights of my spirit, the sorrow of my mind, the thrill of my ideas and the anguish of my thought. But only I understand all this. Do you want to judge me? Okay then! But you will never judge my real self. Instead you will judge the “me” that you yourself have invented. When you believe you have me between your fingers to crush me, I will be up there, laughing in the distance.

from Proletario # 4, September 17, 1922

Enemies of Society An Anthology of Individualist & Egoist Thought by Various Authors

Various Authors. Enemies of Society: An Anthology of Individualist & Egoist Thought. Ardent Press

This book tells the story of the most neglected tendency in anarchist thought; egoism. The story of anarchism is usually told as a story of great bearded men who had beautiful ideas and a series of beautiful failures, culminating in the most beautiful failure of them all in the Spanish Civil War. A noble history of failed ideas and practice.

Egoism, and individualist anarchism, suffers a different kind of fate. It is not a great history and glorious failure but an obscure series of stories of winning. Victory defined by the only terms that matter, those who lived life to their fullest and whose struggle against the existing order defined them. This struggle was not one of abstractions, of Big Ideas, but of people attempting to claim an authentic stake in their own life.

Inspired by the writings of Stirner's "The Ego and His Own" the assertion these people make it not of the composition of a better world (for everyone) but of how the machinations of society, especially one of abstractions and Big Ideas, have shaped the individual members of that society. How everything that we know and believe has been shaped by structure and intent into a conformed, denatured shadow of what we could be.

Individualists anarchists have always argued that anarchism should not be a version of heaven on earth but a "plurality of possibilities". This has relegated their activity to the actions that people make in their lives rather than participating in political bodies and formations that shape, and participate in, society. Egoists have gone to war with this world, robbed banks, practiced free love, and won everything except those things worth nothing: history, politics, & acceptance by society.

People like you have been denounced as "enemies of society". No doubt you would indignantly deny being such and claim that you are trying to save society from the vampire of the State. You delude yourselves. Insofar as "society" means an organized collectivity having one basic norm of behavior that must be accepted by all (and that includes your libertarian communist utopia) and insofar as the norm is a product of the average, the crowd, the mediocre, then anarchists are always enemies of society. There is no reason to suppose that the interests of the free individual and the interests of the social machine will ever harmonize, nor is it desirable that they should. Permanent conflict between the two is the only perspective that makes any sense to me. But I expect that you will not see this, that you will continue to hope that if you repeat "the free society is possible" enough times then it will become so.

Preamble: First Blood vii

1. Rejecting the Stamp of Group Approval: first wave individualists in the US and Europe

James L. Walker: A Unique One 2
What is Justice? by James L. Walker 3
On Rights, by James L. Walker 6
Stirner on Justice, by Tak Kak 7
Selfhood Terminates Blind Man?s Bluff, by Tak Kak 11
Egoism in Sexual Relations, by Tak Kak 13
Egoism, by John Beverley Robinson 14
Biographical note: John Beverley Robinson 17
The Land of the Altruists: a parable for the infant class, by John Beverly Robinson 18
Posterity: the New Superstition, by Benjamin De Casseres 20
Zo d'Axa's Heresy 24
Individualism, by Pierre Chardon 31
Biographical note: Pierre Chardon 33
What do the Individualists Want? by The "Reveil De L'Eschlave Group of Paris 34
Renzo Novatore Outlaw Anarchist, by Daniel Giraud 36
Iconoclasts, Forward! 38
Cry of Rebellion, by Renzo Novatore 39
In the Kingdom of the Spooks, by Renzo Novatore 47
Biographical note: Renzo Novatore 45
The Bonnot Gang: A Reminiscence, by E. Bertran 49
Notes on Individualism, by E. Bertran 53
Three European Invidividualists: some notes on Armand, Martucci, and Novatore, by S.E. Parker 57
Individualist Perspectives, by E. Armand 63
Is the Anarchist Ideal Realizable? by E. Armand 67
Biographical note: E. Armand 68
An Introduction to E. Armand; what he was for, what he was against, by S.E. Parker 70
E. Armand: sexual liberationist, by Catherine Campousy 75
Letter to E. Armand, by Améca Scarfó83
On Sexual Equality: Edward Carpenter & Oscar Wilde, by E. Armand 87
Individual Differences: my polemic with E. Armand, by Enzo da Villafiore 93
In Praise of Chaos, by Enzo Martucci 98
Manifesto dei Fuorigregge 103
Individualist-Anarchism, by S.E. Parker 107

2. Rebels Building Dreams: second wave individualists reflect on their predecessors

John Henry Mackay's Appreciation of Stirner 112
poem: Anarchy, by John Henry Mackay 117
poem: To Max Stirner, by John Henry Mackay 117
Biographical note: John Henry Mackay 120
John Henry Mackay, by E. Armand 124
The Anarchists, by Jim Kernochan 125
Men against the State: the expositors of individualist anarchism in America, 1827-1908,
a review by S.E. Parker 130
Pioneering Egoist Texts, by S.E. Parker 132
The Influence of Tucker?s Ideas in France, by E. Armand 137
Stirner on Education, by S.E. Parker 141
Voltairine de Cleyre, by S.E. Parker 145

3. Smashing Fossils: individualists & egoists critique leftism and its heritage

Anarchism vs Socialism, by S.E. Parker 150
Social Totalitarianism, by Francis Ellingham 154
Stirner, Marx, and Fascism, by S.E. Parker 158
Enzo Martucci on Communism 163

4. Savage Summit: egoist perspectives on Nietzsche Nietzsche, by Enzo Martucci 168

Notes on Stirner & Nietzsche, by S.E. Parker 172
Stirner on Nietzsche, by J.N. Figgis 176
Stourzh on Stirner and Nietzche, by Herbert Stourzh 178
Nietzsche: Antichrist? by S.E. Parker 181
5. A Maze to Trap the Living: society & the unique one
Anarchism and Individualism, by Georges Palante 190
Biographical note: Georges Palante 212
Anarchism, Society, and the Socialized Mind, by Francis Ellingham 204
A Note on Authority, by Enzo Martucci 217
A Letter to a Friend, by Laurance Labadie 218
Superstition and Ignorance vs Courage and Self-Reliance, by Laurence Labadie 224
Joseph Labadie: Archivist, Poet 235
poem: Imperialism, by Joseph Labadie 227
Some Notes on Anarchism and the Proletarian Myth, by S.E. Parker 229
Enemies of Society: An Open Letter to the Editors of Freedom, by S.E. Parker 234
Anarchism, Individualism, and Society: Some Thoughts, by Scepticus 238
Anarchy and History: An Existentialist View, by N.A.W. 241
Freedom and Solitude, by Marilisa Fiorina 245
The Morality of Cooperation, by S.E. Parker 246
In Defence of Stirner, by Enzo Martucci 250
Enzo Martucci: Italian Lightbearer 264
Brief Statements, by Renzo Ferrari 269
Malfew Seklew: The Jester Philosopher of Egoism, by S.E. Parker 270
Brand: An Italian Anarchist and His Dream, by Peter Lamborn Wilson 274
Down with Civilization, by Enrico Arrigoni (aka Frank Brand) 312
My Anarchism, by S.E. Parker 317

Appendix A:

Archists, Anarchists and Egoists, by S.E. Parker 323
Flaming Resurrections of a Charred Alphabet 328
(a glossary of basic terms)
To Sketch the Echo and To Paint the Link! 360
(a reading list)

link to the publisher of this nice compliation

Émile Armand and “la camaraderie amoureuse”: Revolutionary sexualism and the struggle against jealousy* by Gaetano Manfredonia and Francis Ronsin

Ernest Juin, known as E. Armand (1872-1962), was a member of the Salvation Army when he discovered anarchism around 1896 while reading Les Temps nouveaux, a journal recently launched by Jean Grave. He contributed to Sébastien Faure’s Le Libertaire before founding L’Ere nouvelle with his companion Marie Kugel. From 1901 to 1911 the journal evolved from mystical Christian socialism to philosophy and the Communist libertarian morale, culminating in individualist anarchism.

In 1907 he wrote his first pamphlet on sexuality: De la liberté sexuelle, where he advocated not only a vague free love but also multiple partners, which he called “plural love.” Although the publication’s tone was considerably more outspoken than most others like it, Armand’s theses did not differ significantly from the ones repeated incessantly by the male and female companions that supported free love.

Only after founding L’en dehors (1922) did Armand elaborate an increasingly original conception of libertarian sexuality.

1. The establishment of l’en dehors and the campaign for revolutionary sexualism

L’en dehors did not champion revolutionary sexualism from the outset. During its first twenty months, few articles referred explicitly to issues concerning sexual ethics. Armand tried at first to state his view of anarchist individualism by repudiating both the vegetarian movement and the “heroic” interpretations of individualism. He also opposed André Lorulot, who was accused of ridiculing the shady circles in which Bonnot’s group emerged, as well as Victor Serge and the anarchists who supported the Bolsheviks.

In issues 6 and 7, however, he began to criticize the practice of the free union (which he called unicity in love) that prevailed in the colony “L’Intégrale.” He contrasted this experience — deemed “imperfect in educational respects” — with the superiority of “free plural unions.” Only in the course of 1924, however, did the debate about issues concerning “sexual ethics” become permanently ensconced in L’en dehors. The theme continued to be addressed there until the periodical ceased publication in October 1939.

In the letters from readers that he published and in his responses to them, Armand shared increasingly radical theses on sexuality. The debate arose from a letter signed “Raphaële” that he printed in February 1924. The woman writing this letter echoed the habitual view of free love by stating that she found “making love without being in love” impossible, as doing so would be tantamount “prostituting” herself. Armand seized this opportunity to outline his theses supporting revolutionary sexualism and camaraderie amoureuse that differed from the traditional views of the partisans of free love in several respects. Armand submitted that from an individualist perspective nothing was reprehensible about making “love,” even if one did not have very strong feelings for one’s partner. Camarades such as Raphaële were wrong to attribute excessive importance to various erotico-sexual manifestations. Biologically, after all, these acts were “entirely healthy and normal.” They were therefore not to be regarded as an “exceptional or extraordinary action.” Moreover, he urged “our female congenerics” not to exaggerate the value they associated with “granting their favours.” In particular, Armand failed to understand why a young girl with modern ideas would refuse on principle — invoking a petit-bourgeois view of sexual relations — to share the joys of love with un camarade that she merely respected or liked. Agreeing out of comraderie to satisfy the sexual desires of others with the same ideological views seemed to him no more dishonourable than accepting an appointment as a state official. Armand continued that if he were a woman, he would feel “tremendous inner joy” if he “believed” he were “the object of desire to share amorous delights” with a friend who was “not entirely repugnant” and with whom he “sensed a common mood and spirit.” The debate on camaraderie amoureuse had begun.

The tenor of such proposals obviously shocked the majority of militants who considered free love more an ideal standard moderately influenced by romanticism than an actual practice. Exercising this broad conception of comraderie encompassing sexual relations presented a range of theoretical and practical problems (even for the supporters of individualist theses), which Armand’s opponents were quick to observe both in the columns of L’en dehors and in other publications of the libertarian movement. Should a physically attractive female camarade, for example, consent to sexual relations with all camarades who were not absolutely repulsive to her? Under what circumstances might she (or he) reject the advances? Was consenting to sexual relations with somebody to whom one was not physically attracted a sacrifice for the person offering his or her body? Did this practice entail the risk of imposing a type of sexual communism that would stifle individual freedom?

During the following months, Armand progressively elaborated and stated his ideas more specifically, while trying to make them appear more systematic. His reflections culminated in the L’en dehors issue of 10 July 1924, which featured a preliminary study entitled “Comment nous concevons la liberté de l’amour” [Our perception of free love], which was published as a pamphlet as well.[1]

In a polemic with Han Ryner, Armand observed that the objective of his campaign in L’en dehors was to “tear down the impenetrable partition, which, even in surroundings such as ours, distinguishes amorous expressions from other manifestations of comraderie.” He noted with surprise that some comrades tried to differentiate between “having fun” in intellectual or economic endeavours and “having fun” with sex. “I have often asked comrades who had invited friends that they knew to be ‘sensual’ [...] why they had not tried to find them a delight that matched their amorous disposition. I never received a satisfactory answer.”[2] Armand then became far more specific and stated that he would refuse “a limited comraderie, an incomplete hospitality,” as, “wanting no part of a welcome that made me feel comfortable in all respects except sexually, I exercise my freedom of choice as much as the most individualist of all individualists.”[3] In “Lettre d’un philosophe à un camarade qui l’avait invité à une partie de plaisir”: “You will not be surprised if I ask you whether among your close friends or your circle of acquaintances, a lady camarade might be willing to spend two days in my company to partake in camaraderie amoureuse.[4]

Nonetheless, Armand denied advocating that people (whether male or female) should have sexual relations against their will. “[...] Our conception of love, he explained, implies complete freedom to give ourselves to whomever we want, absolute freedom to reject someone who displeases us.” [5] Far from giving rise to “sexual communism,” camaraderie amoureuse is by definition an act of free will. He was equally adamant that “beyond the issue of a single amorous temperament,” this must be the standard prevailing in relations between camarades. Accordingly, he wrote: “[...] no healthy, normal [underlined by us] male or female camarade will refuse to try camaraderie amoureuse if proposed by a male or female camarade that he or she likes or toward whom he or she feels enough affection, warmth or intellectual admiration. Your counterpart will derive immense pleasure, and so will you.” [6]

Armand aimed to show that camaraderie amoureuse was simply the implementation in the specific area of sexual-affective relations of the contractual and associationist ideas he had elaborated in 1923 in his principal theoretical text L’Initiation individualiste anarchiste. He envisaged camaraderie amoureuse in the same context as other types of camaraderie between anarchist individualists: a voluntary association in which the constituents have agreed tacitly “to spare each other any avoidable suffering.” [7] In keeping with his theses on the practice of providing guarantees, this interpretation of camaraderie amoureuse is an additional means for individualists, subject to constant “worries, (...) abuses, (...) assaults, and (...) persecutions from the ‘archists’ (who, as everybody knows, are the opposite of the anarchists), to protect, aid, and comfort each other. [8]

“The camaraderie amoureuse thesis,” he explained, “entails a free contract of association (that may be annulled without notice, following prior agreement) reached between anarchist individualists of different genders, adhering to the necessary standards of sexual hygiene, with a view toward protecting the other parties to the contract from certain risks of the amorous experience, such as rejection, rupture, exclusivism, possessiveness, unicity, coquetry, whims, indifference, flirtatiousness, disregard for others, and prostitution.” [9]

This contractual interpretation of camaraderie amoureuse was undoubtedly Armand’s chief theoretical argument for including his theses in the field of anarchist individualism. From that point onward, he repeatedly expressed his support for camaraderie amoureuse and wrote several articles on the subject, most of which were published separately or in anthologies. In 1926 he published Le Combat contre la jalousie et le sexualisme révolutionnaire, followed over the years by Ce que nous entendons par liberté de l’amour (1928), La Camaraderie amoureuse ou “chiennerie sexuelle”(1930), and, finally, La Révolution sexuelle et la camaraderie amoureuse (1934), a book of nearly 350 pages comprising most of his writings on sexual issues.

These texts contain many redundancies. In each publication Armand added new input or qualified his theses. As a result, he modified his initial argument noticeably during the debate and, even if he preferred not to admit it, included a form of solidarity in his perspective on camaraderie amoureuse that was far closer to the mutual aid advocated by the anarchist communists than to the association of Stirner’s egotists. In L’Initiation individualiste anarchiste in the chapter on reciprocity, he presented theses repudiating the links of solidarity that unite individuals as “the result of a simple calculation of accounting equivalence between what is given and received. [...] The notion of reciprocity no longer appeared as purely utilitarian in the gregarious and common sense of the word,”[10] he explained. Errico Malatesta, in a review of Armand’s work, wrote that Armand had supplied “a manual reflecting an anarchist morale — not simply individualist anarchist but anarchist in general. In addition to being anarchist, the morale was largely humane, as it was based on human sentiments that rendered anarchy desirable and possible.”[11]

Logically, Armand then described the associations of camaraderie amoureuse as “cooperatives of amorous production and consumption.” “Producers and consumers,” he wrote, “participate only to derive the expected benefits, with the understanding that they will bear any costs as well.” [12] It is therefore inconceivable that the “co-operator,” except in the event of force majeure, would refuse to produce or abstain from consumption. Behind these rather strict requirements lies the Fourierist ideal of the universal right to enjoyment.

Camaraderie amoureuse means not stopping at outside appearances. Armand was inexhaustible on this issue: “Like all serious comraderie, [camaraderie amoureuse] is not based on skin tone, shape of the nose, eye colour, a Grecian physical stature, or the share of grey or coloured hairs”[13] (he was 58!). In Notre individualisme, a text from 1937, Armand mentioned a “compensation principle” intended to prevent the practice of free love from arbitrarily favouring those who were more intelligent, more beautiful, or stronger to the disadvantage of those less well-endowed externally.” [14]

Finally, “sexual amoralism destroys in human unity values of servitude, such as vice, virtue, purity, chastity, reserve, caution, fidelity, and many other attributes that necessitate the state or the church as guardians or teachers of morals. Wherever amorality figures in sexual relations, people who uphold moral traditions and good values are no longer required. That is what makes the sexualism we propagate revolutionary.”[15] Revolutionary and educational: “As individualists, we should explore a conception of inter-sexual relations that makes us more anarchist, more “neither gods nor masters,” more ex-morality, more ex-legality, more ex-sociability — but also more sociable when we form associations.”[16]

Based on these convictions, Armand elaborated multiple views in favour of adopting a new sexual ethic in L’en dehors from 1925 onward. Need led him to combine the defence of his theses on camaraderie amoureuse with increasingly direct attacks on the family and on countless sexual prejudices shared by most of the libertarians. Among them, the contemporary ones were especially important and for good reason! He wrote that no anarchist individualist could be considered too young or too old to “want to experience all delights, all pleasures, all sensations.”[17] Accused of legitmizing and condoning paedophilia, Armand was far from offended and invoked arguments from both sexology and Fourier to show how, parallel to paedophilic desires, similar sentiments were discernible among certain young girls attracted to old men — an attraction known as presbyophilia. Consequently, “in logically constituted surroundings,” rather than repressing these different inclinations, he recommended bringing together paedophiles and presbyophiles. Mastering the issue, he concluded, reveals that every passion can be reciprocated without causing any moral disturbances to the surroundings.”[18]

The importance of promoting a new sexual ethic also led him to broaden his field of concern in the course of several issues. In 1931 he published the pamphlet L’homosexualité, l’onanisme et les individualistes on homosexuality, which received little consideration in the early volumes of L’en dehors.[19] As an advocate of greater tolerance in this field as in any other, Armand still viewed homosexuality (whether masculine or feminine) as a sexual anomaly. In a text from 1937, however, he mentioned among the individualist objectives the practice of forming voluntary associations for purely sexual purposes that might be comprised of heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual temperaments or of a combination thereof. [20] He also supported the right of individuals to change sex and stated his willingness to rehabilitate forbidden pleasures, non-conformist caresses (he was personally inclined toward voyeurism), as well as sodomy. This led him allocate more and more space to what he called “the sexual non-conformists,” while excluding physical violence. Armand considered sensualist research on sexual relations justified only if the results of such practices did not deprive the one who lavished them — as well as the recipient — of self-control or permeate his or her personality. [21] On incest, however, he was more outspoken: “Any view of freedom of sexual relations that condemns incest is freedom in name only [...]. [...] Nothing is more moral than engaging in incest with a view toward deriving mutual pleasure and nothing more immoral than acts intended to prohibit this pleasure, of which the consummation harms nobody.”[22]

2. Camaraderie amoureuse: ‘les Compagnons de l’en dehors’

As a consistent individualist, Armand refused to participate in the groups established to deal with sexual issues. In France they included the Association d’Etudes sexologiques and internationally the Ligue mondiale pour la Réforme sexuelle sur une base scientifique. He gathered news and articles from the European and American press that he believed provided at least partial corroboration for his theses. He translated and reproduced writings by Kollontaï and Reich. He also published columns by Italian anarchist militants in exile, such as Ugo Treni (Ugo Fedeli) and especially Camillo Berneri, who wrote a series of studies for L’en dehors on religious and sexual issues, of which the most important one addressed incest.

Finally, Armand’s conception of sexual freedom lent itself to immediate “experimentation” between individuals sharing the same beliefs without needing to be deferred until “the day after the revolution.” “Any ethical realizations that can be accomplished immediately are sexual by nature; they are optimally suited for being tried between friends, without publicity or upheaval.”[23] The proof was all that remained!

From October 1924, Armand proposed forming several associations, including one that would address “issues concerning sexual education and ethics.” Although the formulation was vague, the same issue contained a most opportune reprint of a certain Club Atlantis outside Europe, where the members engaged in swapping, claiming that Armand’s theses were their source of inspiration.[24]

In June 1925, the articles of association of the Compagnons de L’en dehors (CED) appeared in L’en dehors. This association was defined as a setting of practical comraderie.[25] It served individuals who shared Armand’s views. Article 7 stipulated that in sexual matters the group condoned plural love, as well as the struggle against jealousy. The number of female members was expected to equal the number of male members. The only membership requirement was having a subscription to L’en dehors, and membership requests could be deferred. The association charged an annual fee and issued cards that served as passports for companions travelling in France or abroad to visit each other. Lists of the names of male and female companions were available on request. Hosts were to be notified a week before the visit. Those invited were not allowed to back out, except for health problems or publicity needs. The visits were restricted to 12 hours in the city and 24 hours in the countryside. Although no grounds for exclusion existed, membership could be revoked in the event of physical violence or prostitution.

These articles of association abounded with nitty-gritty details for preserving the autonomy, personal freedom, and even the anonymity of each of the parties to the contract in an effort to avoid last-minute cold feet with respect to the actual practice of comraderie, including the amorous variety. The provisions served to reinforce inter-individual relations in a very rigid and even distinctly bureaucratic framework, engulfed in legalities, which contrasted with the intentions of those involved to foster the freest and most complete forms of comraderie. The internal operations of the CED were rather obscure in other respects. All information requests and membership applications were to be directed to Armand, who was solely responsible for the project and was both the instigator and the driving force according to the criteria that he had defined and had no intention of abandoning.

Nor did the members seem upset. In April 1926, L’en dehors reported that 33 people had joined the Compagnons de L’en dehors, distributed throughout France, Germany, the United States, Brazil, Switzerland, the Republic of Argentina, and Morocco, including about twenty in France. By mid-July 1926 membership had climbed to 45 and reached 53 in mid-February 1927.

Failure became manifest with the decision in January 1928 to bar men from joining (given the minute number of female companions), “unless their applications coincided with ones from female candidates.” In addition to the shortage of female applicants, the CED encountered two general problems. One was the refusal of several companions to observe the overly rigid stipulations in the articles of association. The other was the pattern of couples emerging from this type of association. For these three reasons, Armand had a purely personal view of the operation of the companions, which underlay the disaffection and the repeated conflicts. Nor did he ever express the slightest intention to modify his project or make it less sectarian. On the contrary, he responded to the mounting reproaches by reaffirming that his decisions were well reasoned.

These meagre results did not prevent Armand from increasing his efforts by founding a society against jealousy (late May 1926): the Association internationale de combat contre la jalousie sexuelle et l’exclusivisme en amour (AICCJEA) (50 members by mid-February 1927). In March 1927 he established the Club Atlantis, which was restricted to members from the Paris area, a “group for selected realization.” In April-May 1928, he started Les Amis de L’en dehors, which was dedicated to disseminating and funding the journal. From 30 June 1928, the AICCJEA admitted only subscribers to the review that had been members of Les Amis de L’en dehors for a while. Only after having belonged to these two groups successively, were individuals eligible to join L’en dehors.[26]

In mid-February 1930 amendment the articles of association for 1931-1935 was proposed.[27] Henceforth aspiring companions of L’en dehors had to supply medical certificates, and wanderers were denied membership. The association also tried to compensate for the lack of female members by proposing intermediate arrangements. Companions could thus start by convening a “forum of camaraderie amoureuse” to overcome the reluctance of less sophisticated women, starting with “undressing in a small group” to enable them to “contemplate their mutual aesthetic qualities.”[28] Concurrently, the Atlantis Club became a group reserved for couples (September 1933). In January 1936 the Association contre la jalousie registered its 186th member. By May, however, the advertisements for companions were gone, as were those for the Association internationale de combat contre la jalousie, which seemed to have united to form the Compagnons du combat contre la jalousie et pour une nouvelle éthique sexuelle.[29]

The war interrupted Armand’s publicity campaigns and his assorted initiatives. On the eve of World War II, the August-September 1939 issue reported that the Compagnons du combat had registered its 199th member, marking the culmination of Armand’s dreams.

His activities remained highly diverse. Information from the police reports provides distinctive but fairly good corroboration of the signs we gleaned from Armand’s publications. A report issued in March 1933 and addressed to the police prefect by the director of general information (B/a 1900) emphasized that L’en dehors was thriving. “Unlike most other anarchist periodicals, L’en dehors has no deficit. (Its circulation is 6,000.) The proceeds of the conferences organized for its benefit and the returns from subscription sales are sufficient for the publication to appear on schedule. Moreover, most of the readers are anarchist intellectuals who remain loyal to the publication.” On the other hand, the publication contained a merciless description by Armand of the chronic anaemia of the associations he had established.

A report from 1928 read: “Individualist anti-revolutionaries, partisans of the ‘ability of individuals to manage on their own’ even advocate prostitution and sodomy. The theoretician is Emile [sic] Armand, who founded the free-love organizations Compagnons de L’en dehors and Groupe Atlantis. The members of these groups agree to discard jealousy and are expected to engage in licentious sexual acts during their excursions and gatherings. Armand contributes personally and, under the pseudonym Fred Esmarges, advertises in pornographic magazines to recruit members. In Paris Armand’s theories have about a hundred supporters, although the membership of Compagnons de L’en dehors numbers barely a score there.”

A report from 1933 read: “About fifty individuals, including several with special morals, attend these meetings addressing issues related to sexuality, vegetarianism, and the like. (...) On the other hand, the Amis de L’en dehors oppose sentimental jealousy and demand complete sexual freedom. They do not ruin their reputations by engaging in violence, fraud, misrepresentation or bribery. During the summer they organize country excursions outside Paris. Only a few members participate. Overall, the Amis de L’en dehors are not revolutionaries; they do not attend the meetings or demonstrations of the other anarchist movements in the Paris region.”

The theory was more alluring than the practice. Armand’s crazy dreams confirmed that only worldwide dissemination of camaraderie amoureuse would enable eradication of totalitarian dictatorships, while ensuring “a better understanding, either between sociable entities or between peoples.” [30] The true reasons for this failure lie both in his operation’s innovative and excessive nature and in the approach taken by Armand, who refused to envisage his accomplishments in any way other than emanating directly from his goodwill. By refusing to develop his initiatives and trying to constrain them too much, however, he suppressed any truly subversive aspects of his ideas. As the facts revealed, Armand’s lofty ideals about strengthening the bonds of comraderie through the practice of camaraderie amoureuse proved to be merely the small plans of a grocer interested in remaining in charge of his shop and deriving primary benefit from the hypothetical advantages that he envisaged for others.

His publicity efforts served their purpose, as he indisputably revealed the fears and prudishness that prevailed, even in his own libertarian circle of the era.
Footnotes

[1]^ This text appeared as a pamphlet issued by L’en dehors and was entitled: Entretien sur la liberté de l’amour.

[2]^ L’en dehors, n° 44, 1 October 1924.

[3]^ Le Combat contre la jalousie et le sexualisme révolutionnaire. Poèmes charnels et fantaisies sentimentales, Orleans: published in L’en dehors, [1926], pp. 8-9.

[4]^ L’en dehors, n° 61-62, 30 June 1925. The following anecdote addresses this subject. In several of my conversations with Jeanne Humbert, she told me: “Armand was quite extraordinary, but what a nuisance! Whenever he was invited to dinner, he would answer: ‘Thank you, but I do not dine with members of the bourgeoisie. If I share your bread and your wine, I must share your bed as well!’” She clearly expected a question from me. Each time I teased her by not asking whether Armand had dined with Humbert. It’s too late to find out now! [Note by Francis Ronsin]

[5]^ L’en dehors, n° 40, 30 July 1924.

[6]^ Ibid.

[7]^ Ibid., n°39, 10 July 1924.

[8]^ Ibid.,

[9]^ Ibid., n° 136, mid-June 1928.

[10]^ L’Initiation individualiste anarchiste, Paris and Orleans: published in L’en dehors, 1923, p. 202.

[11]^ L’en dehors, n° 40, 30 July 1924.

[12]^ La Camaraderie amoureuse, Paris and Orleans: published in L’en dehors, 1930, p. 3.

[13]^ L’en dehors, n° 155, mid-March 1929.

[14]^ Notre individualisme: ses revendications et ses thèses par demandes et réponses, [1937], pp. 6-7.

[15]^ Ibid., n° 79-80, mid-May 1926.

[16]^ Ibid., n° 70, 15 November 1925.

[17]^ Ibid. n° 77-78, late April 1926.

[18]^ L’Emancipation sexuelle, l’amour en camaraderie et les mouvements d’avant-garde, Paris, Limoges and Orleans: published by L’en dehors, [1934], p. 18.

[19]^ Gérard de Lacaze-Duthiers, E. Armand, Abel Léger, Des préjugés en matière sexuelle. L'Homosexualité, l'onanisme et les individualistes. La Honteuse hypocrisie, Paris and Orleans: published in L’en dehors, 1931, p. 32

[20]^ Notre individualisme, op. cit., p. 7.

[21]^ Cf. L'Homosexualité, l'onanisme et les individualistes, op. cit., p. 28.

[22]^ L’en dehors, n° 270, mid-May 1934.

[23]^ L’Emancipation sexuelle, op. cit., p. 4.

[24]^ L’en dehors, n° 44, 1 October 1924.

[25]^ Ibid., n° 60, 12 June 1925.

[26]^ Ibid., n° 135, late May 1928.

[27]^ Ibid., n° 176-177, mid-February 1930.

[28]^ Ibid., n° 242-243, mid-November 1932.

[29]^ Ibid., n° 301, mid-December 1936.

[30]^ Les Tueries passionnelles et le tartu/fisme sexuel, Paris, Limoges and Orleans: published in L’en dehors, [1935], pp. 8-9.

*Written for the workshop ‘Free Love and the Labour Movement’
Second workshop in the series ‘Socialism and Sexuality’
International Institute of Social History
Amsterdam, 6 October 2000

Anarchism and Law by Alexei Borovoi

SEE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON ALEXEI BOROVOI

Biographical Note

Alexei Borovoy. Brilliant Russian Anarchist theoretician, writer and orator. Professor of Political Economy at Moscow University, prior to and after the Revolution, until ousted by the Bolsheviks. Known and respected throughout Russia, where he had great influence among workers, students and intellectuals. In 1920 the students of Sverdlov petitioned the university administration to permit a series of debates on “Anarchism versus Marxism,” Borovoy representing the Anarchist viewpoint. The local Communist Party, designated the famous Bolsheviks, Bukarin and Lunacharsky, to defend Marxism. The Central Committee of the CP of Russia at the last minute overruled the local CP and forced cancellation of the debates.

Because of his great popularity, the Bolsheviks postponed the silencing of Borovoy until 1929 when he was arrested and deported to Viatka, Siberia, where he died in 1936, the victim of persecution, cold and hunger.

Alexei Borovoy
Anarchism and Law


In literature concerning anarchism there is a general opinion that anarchism, which negates existing society and existing legal codes, has an equally negative position concerning social codes in general. This opinion is absolutely false.

The reasons for this error are:

1.

confusion over the problem of the relationship between social codes and the State in the writings of anarchists themselves;
2.

the variety of definitions of society and social codes in the writings both of anarchists and of their critics;
3.

rash statements by certain anarchists who, because of a certain sociological naivete, are sincerely convinced that anarchy is the absence of any sort of regulation;
4.

the laziness of those who consider themselves critics of anarchists but do not bother to learn even the essential elements of anarchist thought;
5.

finally, conscious distortion, characteristic of the philosophy called “scientific socialism.”

The Problem of Law and the State

The problem in which we are interested can be presented as follows: Can a society exist in which nothing limits the individual, where all regulation is an affair of the individual and not of the collective will?

Anarchism favors the establishment of a society

“of brothers, each of whom contributes his share, living harmoniously, not because of a legal system which severely punishes those who disobey, but because of the force of interpersonal relations, the inevitable force of natural laws.” — Reclus

How restrictive are these natural laws? Do they permit of a society in which each individual is free to do as he pleases, or on the other hand, do they require the existence of a State for the preservation of an orderly society?

Impartial sociologists have found that the State (the authoritarian society with an established power) is not the first form of human society. The State appeared as the result of complex phenomena: of a particular material and intellectual culture, of the progressive differentiation of society, of conquest and at the same time of a progressive consciousness of the advantages of solidarity among large groups. The same sociologists have pointed out the parallel growth of the institution of power, which progressively engulfs functions which previously belonged to local and autonomous social organisms. If some of these functions have been better executed by the new power, others have been executed badly and with a constant disregard for the fundamental rights of the individual.

The process of governmental hypertrophy is well described by Durkheim:

“The governmental power tends to pre-empt all forms of social activity. Among them it is obliged to take upon itself a considerable number of functions for which it is unsuited and which it executes in an insufficient manner. Its passion for bringing everything under its jurisdiction is matched only by its inability to regulate human life. It expends enormous amounts of energy which are totally out of proportion to the obtained results.

“On the other hand, men obey no other collectivity before the State, because the State proclaims itself the only collective organism. They acquire the habit of looking upon society as having a perpetual dependence on the State. And meanwhile, the State is situated very far from them, it remains an abstract entity which cannot exercise an immediate influence, so that in a great part of their lives they move in a void.”

It is on this terrain — the tendency of the State to engulf all things, the human person, his social needs, to paralyze his will with threats and sanctions, that the anarchist revolt is born.

Anarchists seek to abolish the State and in general to replace it, not with chaos, but with anew form of organization. They seek to organize society not on the principle of class power, but on the principle of mutual aid.

Imposed and Spontaneous Codes

There has not been a single society, even prior to the birth of the State, that has not made certain demands upon its members. While specific regulations may vary from society, some form of regulation is always necessary.

Aside from legal codes, there exist in all societies what can be called codes of convention. Shtamler points to these:

“In rules of ethical conduct, in interpersonal relationships.., in collective norms such as the chivalric codes of the Middle Ages or the codes of the guilds.”

The force of these codes is perhaps greater than the force of laws. The fundamental difference is that these codes are based on a collective accord:

“Men consent to a collective agreement, perhaps an unconscious one, like the majority of social phenomena, but an agreement nevertheless.”

Meanwhile, legal codes are created by a specialized body, detached from society, having as its primary aim the preservation of the established order, which imposes its “sovereignty” without regard to the needs of individual human beings. Genuinely collective codes, based on the free agreement of human beings, can be correctly called anarchist codes. This is recognized by the foremost representatives of anarchist thought, and follows necessarily from the fact that neither social organization nor social progress are consistent with unlimited individual liberty.

After this brief theoretical exposition, we would do well to see what the more important anarchist thinkers have to say about the role of collective codes in future society.

1. Godwin

According to Eltzbacher, Godwin opposes all forms of social regulation. However, while he opposes government in all its forms, he speaks of communes as organizations for the collective benefit of all, and points out the necessity of accepting such organizations. Considering the possibility of anti-social acts on the part of particular members of a commune, he speaks of a committee of wise men which would have the power to punish these people or expel them from the group. Furthermore, he envisages regional conferences for the discussion of conflicts betwen communes and for the necessities of defense against the attacks of common enemies. He feels that such institutions would be much more effective than existing ones. Thus he favors the replacement of existing legal codes with the regulation of society by communal organizations.

2. Proudhon

There are many seeming contradictions in the work of Proudhon concerning centralization and the State. One can call the institutions advocated by Proudhon “anarchist” and “federalist,” but these institutions carry with them certain governmental characteristics. Even the word “anarchism” is used by Proudhon in two senses: one is the ideal, the vision of a society totally without coercion; the other is simply a form of organization characterized by a preponderance of individual liberty. Proudhon compromises the ideal of anarchism even further. He envisions a society built largely on the principle of centralization, and his federalism follows largely from the overt recognition that anarchy is impossible. In realizing that a realistic solution of social problems must start with a principle of federalism, he makes a realistic compromise between anarchy and democracy.

3. Bakunin

No one has written such passionate criticisms of the State as Bakunin. For him the State is an absolute evil:

“The State is an immense cemetery, the scene of the suicide, death and burial of all manifestations of individual life or collective life — briefly, of life. It is the altar for the sacrifice of liberty and wellbeing, and the more complete this sacrifice is, the more perfect is the State. The State is an abstraction which destroys the life of the people.”

But the State, he insists, is a “historically necessary” evil, in the same way that the bestiality of the first humans or the theological imagination of men is necessary. But the State must disappear. It must be replaced by a free society built on the basis of total autonomy; starting with the small commune and building toward a worldwide union joining all men. The relation between different organizations will no longer be violent — it will be imposed not by law but by the free consent of all. The voluntary commune — that is the source of Bakunin's social norms.

4. Kropotkin

Kropotkin, like his predecessors, accepts social norms in relations between men, for example, the obligation to fulfill a freely accepted contract. In “The Conquest of Bread,” for example, he deals extensively with the objections to and false notion of anarchist communism. In his answers he shows himself to be above all a humanist, believing more in human nature than in logic. He correctly insists that the most effective way to deal with antisocial behaviour is to find and remove the reasons for its existence. Meanwhile, such problems as the refusal of some men to work or the refusal to submit to a collective decision can appear even in the most perfect society. In this case, the recalcitrant can always be banished. But in a communist society this can be a terrible punishment, even for the perpetrator of a despicable crime. Unless, of course, the banished criminal simply finds another commune. We must find other solutions.

5. Tucker and the Individualists

In his philosophical constructions, Tucker follows the reasoning of Stirner and Proudhon. From Stirner he takes the principle of the absolute sovereignty of the individual; from Proudhon he takes his methods for achieving a free society constructed on the principle of individual agreement.

Like all extreme individualists, Tucker rejects all imposed organization. From there he launches a violent attack on the State:

“The State is the greatest criminal of our time. It acts not for the defense of its most important unit, that is, the individual, but on the contrary, to limit him, to oppress him, to attack him.”

Tucker vehemently criticizes all monopolies: government, the classes it protects, money, laws. Against monopolies he opposes the principle of unlimited competition:

“General and unlimited competition leads to absolute peace and true cooperation.”

From there begins the battle of the anarchist individualists against state socialism — they reproach it as being the victory of the mob over the individual. Under state socialism power arrives at its culminating point, monopolies wield their greatest power. At the same time, the anarchist individualists fail to distinguish between state socialism and anarchist commuism. For them, the latter is a phase in the development of state socialist doctrine.

The characteristic trait of anarchist individualists is their acceptance of private property. The problem they face is the following: can they accept the monopoly of the individual over the product of his labor? If they reply negatively, they give society the right to infringe upon the individual. They have therefore chosen the other response and therefore reintroduce the private ownership of land and the means of production.

From the principle of egoism as the sole motive force of men, Tucker derives the law of equal liberty for all. The limit of the power of each is found precisely in this egoism. The source of social norms based on the will of all is the necessity to accept and honor the liberty of each. Thus the anarchist individualists not only accept certain social norms, but they tend to defend them.

Therefore, in anarchist individualism, as in anarchist communism, we are faced with the tragic impossibility of resolving the incompatibility of the individual and society, the choice between absolute individual liberty or the necessity of a harmonious society.

If anarchism accepts this incompatibility, it turns to the principle which is the proper basis of its theories: the principle of the equality of all members within a free organization. If anarchism does not accept this, it must then accept other social norms.

Conclusion

This article follows from the fact that anarchism is not an imaginary dream, but a reality which gives logic and a realistic sense to the revolt of the human spirit against violence. To be anarchist one does not have to speak of fictions such as “absolute, unlimited liberty” and the negation of duty and responsibility. The eternal contradiction, the incompatibility of the individual and society, is insoluable, because it is rooted in the nature of man himself, in his need for independence and his need for society.

Let us openly admit that anarchism admits social norms. The norms of a free society resemble neither in spirit nor in form the laws of contemporary society, the bourgeois society, the capitalist society. Neither do they resemble the decrees of a socialist dictatorship.

These norms will not seek the detachment of the individual from the collectivity, neither will they serve such abstractions as a “common good” to which the individual must sacrifice himself. Anarchist norms will not be a torrent of decrees from a higher authority. They will1 come organically from the restlessness of the spirit which feels in itself the force of creation, the thirst for the creative act, for the realization of its desires in forms accessible to men.

The guarantee of this order of things will be the responsibility for our own liberty and for the liberty of others. Like all social orders, it will have to be defended. The concrete forms of this defense cannot be indicated in advance. They will correspond to the concrete needs of the society at the given moment.

Against Organisation by Giuseppe Ciancabilla

We cannot conceive that anarchists establish points to follow systemically as fixed dogmas. Because, even if a uniformity of views on the general lines of tactics to follow is assumed, these tactics are carried out in a hundred different forms of applications, with a thousand varying particulars.

Therefore, we don’t want tactical programs, and consequently we don’t want organization. Having established the aim, the goal to which we hold, we leave every anarchist free to choose from the means that his sense, his education, his temperament, his fighting spirit suggest to him as best. We don’t form fixed programs and we don’t form small or great parties. But we come together spontaneously, and not with permanent criteria, according to momentary affinities for a specific purpose, and we constantly change these groups as soon as the purpose for which we had associated ceases to be, and other aims and needs arise and develop in us and push us to seek new collaborators, people who think as we do in the specific circumstance.

When any of us no longer preoccupies himself with creating a fictitious movement of individual sympathizers and those weak of conscience, but rather creates an active ferment of ideas that makes one think, like blows from a whip, he often hears his friends respond that for many years they have been accustomed to another method of struggle, or that he is an individualist, or a pure theoretician of anarchism.

It is not true that we are individualists if one tries to define this word in terms of isolating elements, shunning any association within the social community, and supposing that the individual could be sufficient to himself. But ourselves supporting the development of the free initiatives of the individual, where is the anarchist that does not want to be guilty of this kind of individualism? If the anarchist is one who aspires to emancipation from every form of moral and material authority, how could he not agree that the affirmation of one’s individuality, free from all obligations and external authoritarian influence, is utterly benevolent, is the surest indication of anarchist consciousness? Nor are we pure theoreticians because we believe in the efficacy of the idea, more than in that if the individual. How are actions decided, if not through thought? Now, producing and sustaining a movement of ideas is, for us, the most effective means for determining the flow of anarchist actions, both in practical struggle and in the struggle for the realization of the ideal.

We do not oppose the organizers. They will continue, if they like, in their tactic. If, as I think, it will not do any great good, it will not do any great harm either. But it seems to me that they have writhed throwing their cry of alarm and blacklisting us either as savages or as theoretical dreamers.

Expedients by Le Rétif

A collaborator of the “Dépêche de Toulouse,” M. Eugène Fournière, recently commented on the prose of M. Ernest La Jeunesse and the article in response to it that appeared here. M. Eugene Fournière, analyzing my defense of the “bandits” writes that “the murder of a messenger carrying receipts or the violation of a grave” will not “put a stop to the culpable regime.” He adds that if, like me, his sympathies are for “those who fights” he distinguishes between those who fight to satisfy their hunger, like a wolf, and “capital’s oppressed and exploited, who are uniting and learning in order to attain to collective leadership.”

This is more or less how they answer us every time we legitimize the rebellion of the criminal, that economic rebel.

And M. Eugene Fournière exclaims in conclusion: “And I’m too afraid that the wolves will have babies... and that they will devour each other. I prefer to re-read the admirable ‘Mutual Aid’ of the anarcho-socialist Kropotkin.”

I understand all this. I too would have preferred, instead of writing in praise of the implacable rebels, instead of justifying anti-social crime against a society based on crime, instead of calling for violent, often cruel and always painful rebellion, to reveal all the good things I think about “Mutual Aid.” But no; I don’t have the time to talk about it, for there is a fight going on all around me. I am with the wolves — the wolves they are hunting, that they starve, that they are tracking down, and which bite.

And I am with the outsiders and the bandits precisely because I love mutual aid. And these wolves live on the edges of society, precisely because, loving mutual aid, the free life, the free collaboration of generous forces, they detest the production line, the factory, wage labor. M. Eugène Fournière must nevertheless know this: what makes we anarchists rebels is not our laziness, our cruel instincts or our anti-social dreams. Society furnishes the lazy, the cruel and the brutal the means to use their strange aptitudes in the colonies — or in the metropolis — in various uniforms. What makes us rebels is our firm determination to be neither masters nor slaves; it’s our aspiration for free labor that leads us to refuse the infamous salaried task; it’s our desire for true fraternity that leads us to detest hypocritical and misleading social conventions. But above all we are wolves because, thinking perhaps in the same way as M. Eugène Fournière, who for his part is an honest man, we want to live in accordance with our ideas.

We have no illusions about the social scope of our revolts; it’s only that we remain logical. For every obstacle met there must correspond an appropriate method of struggle. In order to transform the social milieu we have confidence only in an education that renovates minds.

We know that force alone is useful in forcing us to respect arrogant masters. In order to conquer our place among the living, in order not to vegetate until the end alongside the sorrowful enslaved, we know that sometimes force is still necessary.

Our objective is twofold. We have often repeated that waiting for the future wastes the present. Well then, without waiting any longer, we intend to profit from the passing moment. Only then will we worry about transforming the social milieu.

Living in the present: what is that? For the anarchist it is, M. Eugène Fournière, working freely, loving freely, every day being able to come to know the beauties of life; to be a man, i.e., to be healthy, strong, good: to work, think, be artistic. As you see, we demand everything of life. And do you know what is offered us?

Eleven, twelve, thirteen hours of labor a day so as to obtain the daily pittance. And what labor for such a pittance! Robotic labor under authoritarian direction in humiliating and filthy conditions, through which life is permitted us in the gloom of poor housing tracts.

And so, M. Eugène Fournière, we have to choose: will we be slaves or rebels? Wolves, as you call it.

Allow me to be indiscreet and ask you what you’d choose?

In principle, we always choose revolt. And yet, in keeping with our possibilities we are wage earners or bandits. We can’t do much about this. We find the two things equally unpleasant, equally disagreeable. We don’t want to be wolves, as I told you, but men. Alas.

Obviously, if we are workers or thieves, we will not, by this fact, transform the social milieu. We know that if leagued together in a union we were to seek to improve the conditions of our subjection, or that if through our daring we were to wrest a few advantages, the social effect of our gestures would be minimal. Nevertheless, individually we would have profited, which is enough.

In order to transform society — if this is possible — we know that something else is needed besides reformist collective movements or acts of banditry. But in order to do these other things one must live; and in order to live one must be a wage earner or a bandit.

Individual education, the popularization of scientific knowledge, the diffusion of the critical spirit and the spirit of revolt, these, in our opinion, are the surest methods of seeing individuals evolve and, through this, to transform society. We have never failed to say this. Wage labor and banditry are for us nothing but deplorable expedients we are forced to resort to in order to survive and fulfill our task in an abominable world.

First Published in L’anarchie, No 354 January 18, 1912