Not long ago Count Malesta, leader of the Italian anarchists, in his suave, gentle, aristocratic attitudes, deplored the use of bombs, pistol, and knife. Yet who will question that Herr Most has drawn inspiration from this teacher, and this schooling was behind that rabid creature’s utterance, following the assassination of Carnot, when Most said:
“Whosoever wants to undertake an assassination should at first learn to use the weapon with which he desires to accomplish his purpose before he brings that weapon definitely into play. Attempts by means of the revolver are utterly played out, because out of twenty-five attempts only one is successful, as experience has thoroughly shown. Only expert dead shots may thoroughly rely on their ability to kill. No more child’s play! Serious labor! Long live the torch and bomb!”
This is the pupil of the school. Of its tutors, even Kropotkin has been described as a “gentle, courtly, aristocratic patriarch of revolt.” He was wealthy, famous, and furiously aristocratic when, in 1872, studying the Swiss glaciers, he stumbled upon the Geneva convention of internationalists and became an anarchist. He returned to the Russian court. His work on the glaciers of Finland became a classic. His lectures on geology and geography were attracting crowds, even while a red revolutionist, Borodin, was stirring police and military with his utterances to workingmen. One night the police trapped Borodin—and Kropotkin. For three years he was confined in prison until he escaped, making his way to London and to the world, which still listens to his voice.
Louise Michel, even, is described as an eager, enthusiastic old woman of much gentleness of manner. She is credited with an unselfishness and self-abnegation that would fit the character of a sister of charity. Virile and keen of intellect, her presence is said to attract, rather than repel, and yet her cry is for freedom, based on force against the machinery of law.
Johann Most has been recognized as the link between the German and English anarchism and the representative of the “propaganda of action.” He is the avowed patron of the bomb, and in the present case of Czolgosz some of the instructions which he has vouchsafed to readers of his journal, Freedom, may have a bearing, as for instance, the rule that “never more than one anarchist should take charge of the attempt, so that in case of discovery the anarchist party may suffer as little harm as possible.”