Anarchy 70/Anarchist anthologies
After the histories of anarchism come the anthologies. We have already had Anarchism by George Woodcock, and The Anarchists by James Joll, which were reviewed in anarchy 28 and 46. Now we have The Anarchists (no connection) edited by Irving L. Horowitz, and Patterns of Anarchy edited by Leonard I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry, which are reviewed together now.
Both books are American paperbacks edited by American academics. Horowitz is Associate Professor of Sociology at Washington University, St. Louis, and The Anarchists is published by Dell as Laurel Book 0131 (1964, 95c.). Krimerman is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Louisiana State University, New Orleans, and Perry is Lecturer in History at New York State University, Buffalo, and Patterns of Anarchy is published by Doubleday as Anchor Book A501 (1966, $1.95).
Both books come from outside the anarchist movement. The Anarchists originated when C. Wright Mills, the left-Patterns of Anarchy originated when Krimerman and Perry “began to discuss, in deep ignorance, the likelihood that the anarchist position had not been given its due.” Well, it is probably better to have no ideas than wrong ideas. “Agreed on the likely value of anarchism, we were almost stymied by the paucity of available materials. Slowly the idea of an anthology took hold, as we continued to uncover interesting but neglected anarchist writings. Our amazement at the wealth of anarchist literature has been growing ever since.”
The Anarchists has 640 pages. It begins with a Preface and an Introduction and ends with a Postscript by the editor. The rest of the book is divided into two parts containing 35 passages.
“The Theory” is divided into three sections. “Anarchism as a Critique of Society” contains extracts from Diderot’s Supplement to Bougainville’s “Voyage” (1772)*; Malatesta’s pamphlet Anarchy (1891)*; Proudhon’s book What is Property? (1840); Godwin’s book Political Justice (1793); Bakunin’s essays “Science and the Urgent Revolutionary Task” (1870) and “The Programme of the International Revolutionary Alliance” (1871)*, both from G. P. Maximoff’s book The Political Philosophy of Bakunin (1953); Kropotkin’s book Modern Science and Anarchism (1903)*; Benjamin Tucker’s article “State Socialism and Anarchism” from his magazine Liberty (1886)* and his book Instead of a Book (1893); and Rudolf Rocker’s essay “Anarchism and Anarcho-
“Anarchism as a Style of Life” contains extracts from Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent (1907); Dostoevski’s novel Notes from Underground (1864)*; Tolstoy’s book What Then Shall We Do? (1886)*; Albert Camus’s book The Rebel (1951)*; Emma Goldman’s essays “The Tragedy of Women’s Emancipation” (1906)* and “Marriage and Love”,* both from her magazine Mother Earth and her book Anarchism and Other Essays (1910); and the letters of Sacco and Vanzetti (1927), from the edition by Frankfurter and Jackson.
“Anarchism as a System of Philosophy” contains extracts from Max Stirner’s book The Ego and His Own (1845)*; Thoreau’s essay “Resistance to Civil Government” (1848)*; Josiah Warren’s book True Civilisation (1869); William Hocking’s book Man and the State (1926); Herbert Read’s article “Anarchism and Capitalist Society”, from the magazine Reconstruir (1962); and Paul Schilpp’s article “In Defence“The Practice” is divided into two sections. “The Historical Dimension” contains accounts of the anarchist movement in Spain up to 1902 (by Gerald Brenan), in Italy during the 1870s (by Richard Hostetter, in the United States during the 1880s (by Samuel Yellen), in France, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States during the 1890s (by Barbara Tuchman), in Russia up to 1883 (by Thomas Masaryk, in America outside the United States and in northern Europe outside Britain up to the 1930s (by George Woodcock), and in Spain during the 1930s (by Hugh Thomas), together with Alexander Berkman’s diary of the Kronstadt Rising (1921).
“The Sociological Dimension” contains extracts from Sorel’s book Reflections on Violence (1906)*; Paul Goodman’s book Drawing the Line (1946); Robert Presthus’s book The Organisational Society (1962); Philip Selznick’s article “Revolution Sacred and Profane”, from the magazine Enquiry (1944); and Karl Shapiro’s article “On the Revival of Anarchism”, from the magazine Liberation (1961).
Patterns of Anarchy has 570 pages. It begins with a Foreword and ends with an essay called “Anarchism: The Method of Individualisation” by the editors. The rest of the book is divided into seven sections containing 63 passages.
“Defining Anarchism” contains extracts from D. Novak’s article “The Place of Anarchism in the History of Political Thought”, from the magazine The Review of Politics (1958); John Mackay’s novel The Anarchists (1891); Senex’s article “Whither the Libertarian Movement?”, from the magazine Vanguard (1933); George Woodcock’s pamphlet Railways and Society (1943)*; James Estey’s book Revolutionary Syndicalism (1913); Ammon Hennacy’s Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist (1954); and Paul Goodman’s “Reply”, to Richard Lichtman on pornography and censorship from the magazine Commentary (1961).
“Criticising Socialism”—
“Philosophical Foundations” contains extracts from Adin Ballou’s Non-
“Constructive Anarchism” contains extracts from Josiah Warren’s book Equitable Commerce (1846); Charles Dana’s articles “Proudhon and His Bank of the People”, from the New York Tribune (1849)*; Alexander Berkman’s pamphlet What is Communist Anarchism? (1929)*; Senex’s article “Decentralisation and Socialism”, from the magazine Vanguard (1938); Rudolf Rocker’s book Anarcho-
“The Anarchists on Education” contains extracts from Herbert Read’s books Education through Art (1943) and Education for Peace (1949); Francisco Ferrer’s book The Origins and Ideals of the Modern School (1908)*; Bayard Boyesen’s pamphlet The Modern School (1911)*; William Godwin’s books The Enquirer (1797) and Political Justice (1793); Tony Gibson’s pamphlet Youth for Freedom (1951); Josiah Warren’s Equitable Commerce (1846); Paul Goodman’s book The Community of Scholars (1962); and Tolstoy’s essays “The School at Yasnaya Polyana” and “Are the Peasant Children to Learn to Write from Us?”*
“How Sound is Anarchism?”—
General discussion of the books must unfortunately begin with general criticism. My first criticism is of their bibliographical and biographical apparatus. In both books—
Patterns of Anarchy has many more and much shorter passages, and manages to give a much wider view of anarchist thought, but there is still some distortion. Why is there nothing written before 1793, when the first passage in the book traces the anarchist tradition back to ancient Greece, and when even Horowitz goes back to 1772? Why is there nothing from outside Europe and North America? Why are there three passages about religious anarchism, and none about antireligious anarchism? Why are there eight passages about authoritarian socialism, and eleven about education?
To begin with The Anarchists. Horowitz’s Preface is promising. He says that he speaks “not as an anarchist but as a social scientist.” He considers that “the anarchist tradition is a particularly fruitful and frightfully neglected source in the common human effort to overcome manipulation,” and he adds that his “sympathies for the anarchists shall not be disguised.” He agrees that anarchism is not what it was once, but “the collapse of anarchism as a social movement does not signify its annihilation as an intellectual force.” Anarchism may have failed, but “the anarchist does not live in terms of criteria of success, and neither should his views be judged in such terms,” for “we inhabit a world of dismal success and heroic failure.” He comments that “this sort of orientation may not qualify me as a bona fide anarchist, but it is my belief that at least it does not disqualify me from writing on and introducing the reader to the wealth of anarchist literature.” No indeed.
After this, his Introduction is disappointing. It is full of the sort of abstract generalisation that disfigures much modern sociological writing—
Horowitz’s Postscript was published in anarchy 50, and readers will remember it as a useful survey of some of the problems of anarchism—
“The Theory” contains some of the basic texts of anarchism, but readers who are unfamiliar with the movement should have been told about the passages which are not really anarchist, or even anarchic, or else they might get a rather confused impression. The contributions by Diderot, Tolstoy, Camus, and Thoreau have all been found valuable by anarchists, but they are hardly as central as those my Malatesta, Proudhon, Godwin, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tucker, Rocker, Goldman, and Stirner. Read’s essay is a useful summary, and the letters of Sacco and Vanzetti provide a tragic glimpse of living—
** These two stories have been demolished by Vernon Richards in his article “Anarchism and the Historians” (anarchy 46) and his book Malatesta: His Life and Ideas (1965).
† Thomas Masaryk’s Spirit of Russia may have been a good book when it was published, nearly half a century ago, but it has been completely superseded by Franco Venturi’s Russian Populism—
