The programmes of group meetings vary infinitely with the tempers and caprices of the members, as well as with the objects of the groups; but they may be said, in general, to consist of the reading of original essays and poems, reports on the progress of the cause at home and abroad, a consideration of the bearing on the cause of the latest events in the world at large, an exchange of journals and brochures accompanied by expositions and discussions of their contents, a volunteering of service for the tasks in hand, and that untrammelled exchange of ideas in which the lines between speech-making and conversation, wrangle and discussion, are not too rigidly drawn.
The group is highly ephemeral. Everything about it being guided by the exigencies of the moment, it rarely survives the accomplishment of the special object for which it is formed. It dies, as it is born, easily; or, rather, yielding to the charm of the untried, it takes to itself a new body when the old body grows cramping or monotonous. Such deaths do not signify complete exhaustion of vitality or even a diminution of strength. By a sort of transmigration of souls the vital force is redistributed, that is all.
This remarkable fluidity makes it practically impossible to get any group statistics that are worth the paper they are written on. An estimate made a few years back by a person who seemed as well situated as any one to know, put the number of groups at about one hundred in Paris and between four hundred and five hundred in the rest of France. The same authority would probably give rather higher figures now. But such figures, even if accurate, are of very slight importance, since the number of groups is no criterion whatever of the number of anarchists. The most militant anarchists hold aloof from the groups in order to have complete freedom of action and escape police surveillance; many are in commercial or administrative situations which counsel reticence; and many labourers are constrained to a similar reticence by the danger of losing their jobs. Furthermore, many anarchists call themselves socialists in order to benefit by the greater tolerance accorded to the socialists, especially since the Combes ministry came into power. In a word, the anarchist has every reason to conceal his identity from the prying statistician, and usually succeeds in doing so. Mark Twain, commenting once on the inadequate census returns of the Jews in America, affirmed that he himself was personally acquainted with several million. The meagre numbers ordinarily assigned to the anarchists in France tempt one strongly to imitate Mark’s facetious audacity. At least, if French anarchists are really so few, one may affirm with safety that he is personally acquainted with them all.