A Very Interesting Letter [Marie Le Compte on flags, Louise Michel, translating Bakunin and Jo Labadie]

Comrade Tucker : 

The London mail has just brought me Liberty of June 9. That it was read over and over before anything else was looked at goes without saying. How good is the article on ‘Memorial Day and its Mockeries,’ and very timely it reaches here to-day, our National Buncombe day! Ah! what memories brings this day of my last (three years ago) Fourth of July in America – in Fall River – with its richness and poverty, pride and dirt, hard work and ‘shavings,’ saw-dust and whiskey, politicians! bunting! patriotism! and general vulgarity! The Republic of Switzerland is honoring the day by floating the ‘Stars and Stripes’ everywhere with her own ‘White Cross’ and with the ‘Three Bars’ of the French Republic. And fit companions the pair of them are for the flag of my country! The ‘White Cross’ which floated from the Bundes-Rathhaus across the way while the Federal Council issued its decrees of expulsion of Socialists from Switzerland, and the ‘Three Bars’ of the French Republic which floated from the court house in Paris where was just read the sentence committing Anarchists to prison. ‘Birds of a feather flock together,’ says the old rhyme, and ill-omened birds those republics are for us poor proletaires. They have not left us even the streets! I am feeling terribly the sentence of my dear Louise Michel.[1] It is owing to chance that I am not with her in prison, having been with her on the Esplanade. I was the ‘Anglaise’ who wore the red scarf, and ‘led,’ as they call it, the rioters to pillage the bake-shops and knock the heads off the ‘St. Josephs,’ ‘Virgin Marys,’ and ‘Infant Jesuses’ (horrible monstrosities in plaster that, as an artist, I would clear out of the streets anyway, even if I wasn’t a revolutionist). But in truth I did no ‘leading.’ No one leads a Paris mob. It has its own way, like a tempest. Whoever goes before it gets pushed ahead or trampled down. I got pushed ahead, and the knocking down came when we met the police. I was the first that was wounded in the affray, and my companions bore me to a pharmacy, thence by detour to a place of safety (while the police were knocking down the others and making arrests), and finally I got off to Switzerland to escape arrest and to recover. But a requisition may be made for me any day by the French Republic, or the Swiss Republic may expel me as a dangerous character. Thus I am, poor American proletaire, between those two ruffians of republics which to-day are floating ‘the flag of my country’ – and each other’s flags – in honor of what they call ‘Liberty.’

But I am taking my revenge! I am translating the ‘Dieu et l’Etat’ of Bakounine here beside his grave, where are so many precious memories of his life, of his work, of his genius and audacity, and of his devotion to the cause of the social revolution. It is a great comfort, (now that I am hardly able to move) that I can still, through him, fight against authority, can still help to destroy governments ; but be sure I long to get back to Paris, especially for the National Féte day, for my friends talk of making their demonstration in the midst of the flags and the fireworks.[2] Their demonstration! What can it be, though, but to hang out the black flag of starvation and – if they are very daring – the red flag of revolt, and have them both cut down by the police in five minutes, and the ‘perpetrators’ arrested, tried before a packed jury, witnessed against by police, and convicted of rioting and sentenced to prison for six or eight years, or, if they’re very, very lucky, escape with their lives to a ‘sister Republic,’ which is ready to do the same justice to their crimes. Ah me! but the flag of the ‘Great Republic of the West’ is well supported to-day by the flag of the Republic of France and the flag of the Republic of Switzerland. Oh! those flags! those flags! those flags! When will the proletariat shoot them down from all the Sumters of the world?[3]

How good is the letter of Joseph A. Labadie![4] I hardly ever read a letter which so made me want to know the writer. The spirit of inquiry, so honest, so modest, and so fresh (when the natural result of such theoretical and practical acquaintance as he has with ‘schools’ and ‘doctrines’ is to make one at once arrogant and blasé): ‘Almost an Anarchist’ you style him; so I’ll not take the trouble to write him on the questions he puts to you, for he will be an Anarchist before long as sure as he has a head on his shoulders, and will answer himself – and others too. Any way, I don’t think his ‘hypothetical cases of individual obstinacy’ were ‘idle suppositions,’ as you do, but every way equal to your own implied question to ‘Le Révolté:’ ‘What’s to be done with such obstreperous individuals as may refuse to be thus summarily ‘collected’?’ But, any way, whether theoretically ‘in order’ just now or not, they’ll be thrown at his head the first thing when he takes the platform for Anarchy – as I feel sure he will. They’ve been asked me a hundred times in working-men’s clubs in England, and many’s the hard fight we’ve had over them. Ah me! how well they fight for their masters, those English working-men!

Is it ‘Le Révolté’ of Geneva that you are breaking a lance with now, or have you an American contemporary of the same name? I have not seen our ‘Révolté’ since Kropotkine was imprisoned, but will be at the office in a few days and will look over the files.[5] Since the arrest of Kropotkine, and Reclus having so much to do for the prisoners of Lyons and the prisoners of Paris, I can believe that different shades of thought have taken a fling in its columns. I am glad you made the challenge, because the question is fundamental; otherwise, I wouldn’t like to see just now an engagement between ‘Liberty’ and ‘Le Révolté.’ But I can answer for Kropotkine, who will not see Liberty (no papers being allowed in prison), that he would never want to ‘erect barriers between A. B., the shoemaker, and C. D., the tailor, to prevent the exchange of the shoes made by the one for the coats made by the other.’ How could he make such a mistake as that? Impossible! He knows too well his ‘Qu’est-ce que la proprieté?’ and, besides knowing it too well to begin with, is ever reading it anew. In a private letter telling how he spends his time, he writes: ‘At 10 I read Proudhon half an hour, then take five minutes’ exercise by whirling my chair over my head, then read Proudhon… At 2 the guard comes to say promenade in the court. I promenade half an hour, then write on my ‘Prisons of Siberia’ for two hours (all I am ever able), then read Proudhon.’ Kropotkine must have read Proudhon through at least a dozen times in his life, but reads it still, – I should say, therefore reads it still, – for Proudhon’s pages are like the very eyes of Liberty, into whose depths of light the fascinated gazer looks, and looks, and looks, and finds new depths of light.

The prison authorities take great credit to themselves that they allow prisoners to read what ‘books’ they please, knowing that in a few months their poor victims will be too weak to read any; but they do not allow any copying or discussion of what they read with any one outside, for that would be ‘politics.’

Now I want to consult you particularly about my Bakounine.[6] I am translating it for the benefit of the Red Cross Society (English branch).[7] The secretary writes me: ‘There is but one chance to get it – here, The Free Thought Publishing Company. All the others are too shy to touch such strong stuff.’ From my knowledge of Free Thought in England I am not very hopeful of the ‘Company’ taking hold of Bakounine who knocks the very ground from under its feet. So I ask you to see what you can do about publishing it in America. For it must be published. There is a demand in England for such a book, but it is a demand so out of the usual line that the publishers don’t know it; and I think from the letter of Joseph A. Labadie, and from other indications, that there must be a demand for such a book in America. It might be well to give it the title, ‘Anarchy, or, God and the State,’ as the inquiry now is directly about Anarchy. When that is in the market, I’m sure we’ll not hear any more of a man like Joseph A. Labadie stuffing his pockets – and his fellow creatures – with the gingerbread of Henry George. For Mr. George furnishes simply gingerbread, which excites, but does not nourish, while Bakounine gives us wheat from the virgin uplands of the world, which makes us strong, bold, rugged, and qualified to do the work that this century is called on to do, – destroy absolutely the old order of society and lay the foundations of the new.

My address is always ‘London, care of Tchaikovsky,’ to whose fraternal thought of me I am indebted for Liberty.

Marie Le Compte, Proletaire

Berne, Switzerland, July 4, 1883.

Notes

1, Michel was given a six-year sentence for her part in the demonstration of 9 March 1883.

2, ‘Many of the flags displayed Saturday in honor of the national fete were draped with crepe for Louise Michel. After the unveiling of the statue of the republic two Anarchists stuck a black flag upon the statue. The people surrounding the statue immediately seized the flag and tore it to pieces. One arrest was made. Black flags were displayed in some of the more obscure streets of the city.’ ‘France at the Fete’ Savannah morning news (Savannah), July 17, 1883.

3, The Union flag was shot down during the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 which began the American Civil War.

4, Liberty, 9 June 1883.

5, Kropotkin was imprisoned in 1883 for five years for belonging to the International Working Men’s Association. The book he was at work on was In Russian and French Prisons.

6, Le Compte’s translation of Bakunin’s God and the State was projected to be published by the International Publishing Company. The version serialised in Truth (San Francisco) was translated by ‘Miss K. […] at Le Compte’s suggestion.’ See ‘Radical reading: Print culture and the San Francisco labor movement, 1880-1889’ by Marie Louise Silva. https://doi.org/10.31979/etd.ucxp-cm3h  

7, i.e the Red Cross of the Russian Revolutionary Party or Red Cross of the People’s Will (no connection to the International Committee of the Red Cross). Nikolai Tchaikovsky in London worked for this Red Cross, founded by Vera Zasulich and Pyotr Lavrov.

Source: https://archive.org/details/sim_liberty-1881_1883-08-25_2_13