Terrorism in Europe (RLE: Terrorism & Insurgency)

Yonah Alexander, Kenneth Myers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317449324
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This study places terrorist acts in Europe in their historical perspective by examining terrorist and anarchist movements in late nineteenth century Europe. The political and legal aspects of modern terrorism are discussed in detail and the themes and variation in political terrorism are examined fully. In addition, selected case studies of contemporary terrorist movements are considered in the context of the political tradition of the particular country. A comprehensive picture of European terrorism, in its historical and more contemporary ideological and political aspects emerges from this work.

1 PROPAGANDA BY THE DEED: TERRORISM AND ANARCHIST THEORY IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE*

Marie Fleming

There have been instances of terrorist activity throughout the course of history, but terrorism as an integral part of a revolutionary strategy to overthrow the established order dates from late nineteenth-century Europe. Since this period the terms anarchism and terrorism have sometimes been closely linked and frequently used interchangeably. Yet strangely, however, there has also emerged a fierce denial of any necessary relationship between anarchism and terrorism. In 1894 the social scientist and anarchist sympathiser Hamon insisted that the ‘true’ anarchists were men such as Peter Kropotkin, Elisée Reclus and Jean Grave, lovers of liberty, altruistic, sensitive and intelligent, while the terrorists of that time who claimed to be acting in their name were a small minority with imperfectly formed brains.¹ George Woodcock, whose study of anarchism is one of the most authoritative to appear in the post-World War II period, maintains that: The association of anarchism with political terrorism is still well established in the popular mind, but it is not a necessary association, nor can it be historically justified except in a limited degree.’² In his recent book on the Spanish anarchists, Murray Bookchin has asserted that violence and terrorism are not ‘intrinsic features’ of anarchism.³ So, to put it mildly, there is a mixed opinion on terrorism and anarchist theory (and practice) as these developed in late nineteenth-century Europe.

Certainly, many modern anarchists, as well as scholars and publicists who sympathise with certain of the anarchist points of view, deeply resent a direct and simple identification of the terms anarchist and terrorist. Violent acts, and the terror which is their psychological counterpart, it would be maintained, are not peculiar to anarchism; almost all political groups, from the far left to the far right, the legal and the extra-legal, have, at one time or another, sanctioned the use of such practices. None the less, in their justifiable exasperation at the notion that anarchism and terrorism are equivalents, writers such as Woodcock and Bookchin have surely been overly hasty in dismissing the role of violence within anarchism. They do not make it clear how one is to judge what would constitute a ‘necessary association’ or what would represent an ‘intrinsic feature’. Their approach merely denies the importance of violence and terror within anarchism, without leading to a resolution of what is obviously an important issue for an understanding of anarchism and/or the lineage to anarchism claimed by some terrorists.

This paper is an attempt to establish the links between terrorism and anarchist theory in late nineteenth-century Europe, since, I shall submit, the issues at stake in the controversy were adumbrated then and there. Thus, I shall examine anarchist Communism or socialist (non-Marxist) anarchism, wherein we find the ideological foundations of the anarchist movement. The focus will be upon the thought of Peter Kropotkin and the well-known geographer Elisée Reclus, and the emphasis will be placed upon French events, though an attempt will also be made to assess developments elsewhere. I am convinced that, if we are to uncover the links between European anarchist theory and practice in this period, it is important to begin where they are most evident. This is not to deny that contributions were made by figures such as Michael Bakunin, Errico Malatesta, Johann Most, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, nor that events outside France, especially in Spain and the United States, had a significant impact in shaping the thought of Kropotkin and Reclus. However, in the other cases the relationship between theory and practice was more indirect.

For example, Bakunin had given a powerful thrust to the direction which the theory of anarchism was to take, but he did not live to participate in the debate on theory and practice which led to the adoption of political terrorism by self-professed anarchists. Malatesta’s assumptions, as I shall indicate, steered him in a somewhat different direction from that taken by Kropotkin and Reclus. From 1880 Most’s Freiheit and his incitement to violence had a significant impact upon anarchist activities in Germany and Austria, but he left Europe for the United States as early as 1882. And after the unfortunate Haymarket affair in 1887 he, as well as Goldman and Berkman, increasingly lost touch with aspirations among the native American working class and were reduced to an American following composed largely of immigrant families. In contrast, Reclus and Kropotkin developed their theories in response to events happening around them. They were especially influenced by developments in France. Reclus was of French origin; Kropotkin who had adopted France as his native land was probably even more attached to it than Reclus. Both men, with more than a touch of traditional French chauvinism, expected that France, which had always played a leading role in revolutionary theory and practice, would provide the clues to future revolutionary successes.

For these reasons, then, I shall examine the theory of anarchist Communism, give particular attention to the thought of Reclus and Kropotkin and explore the significance, for their theories, of acts of violence, especially those in France. I shall show why, from the late 1870s, propaganda by the deed was central to the elaboration of their theory of anarchism and how a philosophical justification of violence and terrorism developed logically out of it. This becomes especially apparent in the thought of Reclus whose writings, until recently largely neglected, reveal important dimensions of European anarchism and help to clarify how propaganda by the deed fits into the larger framework of anarchist theory.⁴ Those anarchists who were frequently ambivalent and even contradictory when confronted with the reality of acts of violence, notably Kropotkin, but also Most and even Goldman, misunderstood the nature of their own conception of such ‘propaganda’ techniques.

Development of an Anarchist Framework for Action

The notion of propaganda by the deed can be traced to some Italian anarchists in the 1870s. It began to gain recognition in anarchist circles in other parts of Europe after the famous Benevento affair of April 1877 when Carlo Cafiero and Errico Malatesta provoked an uprising among the peasants of southern Italy in which tax records were burned and the deposition of Victor Emmanuel declared. The strategy was outlined by one of Malatesta’s comrades who described how a small group of armed men could ‘move about in the countryside as long as possible, preaching war, inciting to social brigandage, occupying the small communes and then leaving them after having performed there those revolutionary acts that were possible and advancing to those localities where our presence would be manifested most usefully.’⁵ For some anarchists, propaganda by the deed came to be accepted as a suitable means of ‘educating’ the masses (especially when many were not able or had no time or desire to read), to stimulate them to action and to draw them into the movement.

In August 1877 an article entitled ‘Propaganda by the Deed’ appeared in the Swiss-based revolutionary journal, Bulletin de la Fédération Jurassienne. The article was written by Paul Brousse, with the support of Kropotkin, and it heralded the new age of propaganda. Traditional forms of propaganda, discussion and personal contact, it was explained, were inherently limited in their ability to reach the masses; these, it was argued, must henceforth be supplemented by deeds. The Paris Commune was offered as a powerful example of what ordinary men might achieve, by way of spreading the anarchist message, but even more modest performances, such as the demonstrations which were being held around that time at Berne, were thought immensely worthy of emulation.⁶ Anarchist ideas had to be spread not only by speech and by the pen, Kropotkin insisted in 1879, but also and especially by action.⁷

What precisely was meant by propaganda by the deed was not clear. But it is not difficult to understand the dilemma of those wanting to do something about what they perceived as wrong, and being virtually impotent to do anything. It would have been well within anarchist principles to have provided a forum for the discussion of the moral and political implications of specific kinds of deeds which might be used as propaganda, and the failure to do so must be seen partly as a reflection of the existing state of anarchist revolutionary practice. Even giving consideration to the notion of propaganda by the deed, however, might seem to imply that there had already been either too much, or only, discussion. In general, it should be said, anarchists continued to think in terms of the rising at Benevento; they did not foresee that propaganda by the deed might be used by self-appointed individuals as a theoretical justification for acts of political terrorism, as was to happen in the years to come. This uncritical acceptance of the conception of propaganda by the deed becomes more understandable when we consider the peculiar historical, intellectual and psychological position in which the anarchists found themselves in the late 1870s.

Up until the mid 1870s European anarchism had represented one wing of the wider socialist movement. More specifically, it had been part of the ‘anti-Authoritarian’ International which had been established in Switzerland in 1872, in essence a protest against Marx’s call for tighter control of the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association (or First International) over the Association’s sections.⁸ However, as ideological positions within the anti-Authoritarian International became more sharply defined, the anarchists became ever more isolated until they emerged as a separate group among the anti-Authoritarians, with a fairly coherent ‘non-authoritarian socialist’ philosophy, but lacking a plan of action.

The effectiveness of modern means of repression at the disposal of governments, as demonstrated during the Paris Commune, had placed severe limitations on the value of the tradition of the barricades. Anarchists rejected the Marxist approach to politics after 1871 as an attempt to introduce the element of authority into the struggle for a socialist society.⁹ Those such as Kropotkin and Reclus who were emotionally and intellectually repulsed by the savage repression and violence of the Paris Commune, also dismissed any other possibility for political agitation within the existing political system, as condemned, by definition, to failure.¹⁰ (Reclus rejected violence to the point of being, from his youth, a deeply committed vegetarian.) The anarchists in Switzerland were soon faced, therefore, with bleak prospects. On the one hand, police harassment and the failure to establish a popular base encouraged many of their number to find an outlet in some form of municipal or parliamentary socialism, while on the other, the more deeply committed painted themselves into a corner where they had to accept the status quo and/or any way of showing their total rejection of it.

In the late 1870s, with no hope of a successful wide-ranging revolution, the core which persisted in its anarchism, none the less, generally restricted its activities to spreading the word, mainly through the press, and via addresses to the already initiated. For those whose aim was to foment universal social revolution, such scope for action was exceedingly narrow; in fact, the anarchists looked as though they might be reduced to a small band of impotent and eccentric ideologues totally out of touch with the demands of modern society and politics. The inherent appeal of propaganda by the deed becomes apparent once we understand that it appeared to point the direction of resolving the paradox of a non-authoritarian revolution. In the early 1870s, Frederick Engels had argued that a revolution without organisation and authority was an impossibility, but the socialists grouped around Bakunin (who was to live until 1876) had remained adamant that there would be no revolution at all if it were to be carried out in an ‘authoritarian’ fashion, as this would automatically create a new force for oppression. As positions within the socialist movement hardened, this difference of view became ever more pronounced. In the late 1870s Kropotkin and Reclus were singularly insistent that it was not sufficient that the masses support the revolution; they must also make it. Propaganda by the deed appeared in some way to provide a framework for action which promised to expose the vulnerability...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Propaganda by the Deed: Terrorism and Anarchist theory in Late Nineteenth-Century Europe
• 2. Some Aspects of Individual Terrorism: a Case Study of the Schwartzbard Affair
• 3. Political Terrorism in Western Europe: Some Themes and Variations
• 4. The European Community and Terrorism: Political and Legal Aspects
• 5. The Red Brigades and the Italian Political Tradition
• 6. Spain’s Internal Security: The Basque Autonomous Police Force
• 7. Germany: From Protest to Terrorism
• 8. The Abrogation of Domestic Human Rights: Northern Ireland and the Rule of British Law
• Notes on Contributors
• Index