Page:Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov - Anarchism and Socialism - tr. Eleanor Marx Aveling (1906).pdf/81

 of the Jura, on the 12th October, 1879, at Chaux-de-Fonds:—

"There was a time when they denied Anarchists even the right to existence. The General Council of the International treated us as factious, the press as dreamers; almost all treated us as fools; this time is past. The Anarchist party has proved its vitality; it has surmounted the obstacles of every kind that impeded its development; to-day it is accepted." [By whom?] "To attain to this, it has been necessary, above all else, for the party to hold its own in the domain of theory, to establish its ideal of the society of the future, to prove that this ideal is the best; to do more than this—to prove that this ideal is not the product of the dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas. This work has been done," etc. …

This hunt after the best ideal of the society of the future, is not this the Utopian method par excellence? It is true that Kropotkine tries to prove "that this ideal is not the product of dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas." But what Utopian has not tried to prove this equally with himself? Everything depends upon the value of the proofs, and here our amiable compatriot is infinitely weaker than the great Utopians whom he treats as metaphysicians, while he himself has not the least notion of the actual methods of modern social science. But before examining the value of these "proofs," let us make the acquaintance of the "ideal" itself. What is Kropotkine's conception of Anarchist society?

Pre-occupied with the reorganising of the governmental machine, the revolutionist-politicans, the "Jacobins" (Kropotkine detests the Jacobins even more than our amiable Empress, Catherine II., detested them) allowed the people to die of hunger. The Anarchists will act differently. They will destroy the State, and will urge on the