The Anarchists: A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century

by John Henry Mackay, Gabriele Reuter, George Schumm (Translator)

Fiction. Germany's Poet-Anarchist John Henry Mackay (1864-1933) wrote this thinly-disguised fictional account of his sojourn to London in 1887. A journey of transformation from revolutionary self-martyrdom to radical self-ownership, the book follows Carrard Auban (a French revolutionary firebrand turned anarcho-individualist) through late-19th century Paris, Chicago, and London. "THE ANARCHISTS is one of the very few books that have a right to live.... For insights into life and manners, for dramatic strength, for incisiveness of phrase, and for cold pitiless logic, no book of this generation equals it"— New York Morning Herald , quoted in Liberty , December 5, 1891.

Genres: Fiction

253 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1891

About the author

John Henry Mackay grew up in Germany with his German mother after the early death of his Scottish father. His long literary career included writings in a variety of forms, though he was best known as a lyric poet and anarchist. His biography of Max Stirner revived interest in that 19th century philosopher of egoism.

Also wrote under the pen name of "Sagitta"

Reviews

[Jee Koh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Anarchists is the first of a pair of books that Mackay himself called propaganda, not novels. (The other book is called The Dreamseeker.) The polemic advocating Anarchism is thinly fictionalized. Carrard Auban, the intellectual who walks with a limp, clearly represents Mackay and his political philosophy. His best friend Otto Trupp, always described as a well-built fellow, is the Communist agitator whom Auban tries to convert. Mackay is at pains in this book to distinguish Individualist Anarchism from so-called Anarchic Communism.

The former proceeds on the fact and value of egoism, whereas the latter, in Mackay's, and so in Auban's, view, builds Utopia on the false idea of human altruism. According to the Individualist Anarchist, the State is the problem because it protects the oppressors against the oppressed. His solution is to get rid of the state, in order to free competition not only in labor but also in capital. To the Anarchic Communist, the problem is the market. His solution is to get rid of the market and then get people to behave according to their noblest impulse, as captured in the formula, from each his best, to each his need. The breach between the two friends, Auban and Trupp, is inevitable. The unspoken attraction of Auban for Trupp, who is in a way a younger, better, version of himself, lends that breach some poignancy.

I have been influenced by my life in the States in a too-unthinking manner to question the current link between anti-statism and rightwing politics. The call to reduce Government seems to come from either the rich who are resentful of taxation, or from social conservatives who reject top-down changes to their social beliefs. The progressives, on the other hand, see the government as a bulwark against economic and social injustice. What Mackay's book argues is that the State protects the status quo, which always favors the powerful and the privilege. Whatever little redistributive justice that it performs is a mere sop to the exploited who cannot obtain the full value of their labor as long as there is no full competition in capital markets as welll.

The Anarchists accompanies its social arguments with horrifying pictures of the condition of the poor in London in the 1880's. On his own, and also led by Trupp, Auban wanders through hellish neighborhoods in the East End. He sees the corpse of a homeless man who died of starvation. A group of children, so morally distorted by their misery, torture a cat by gouging out its eyes and hanging it up by its tail. Mackay also records the radical workingmen's clubs of the time, hospitable to German, Russian and Jewish immigrants. He is very good at giving a sense of the heated discussions that swirled around the Haymarket trial in Chicago of the eight anarchists accused of throwing a bomb against the police. A chapter is devoted to a vivid account of the clash between protestors and police around Trafalgar Square when the authorities suspended the freedom of assembly at the square.

What comes through these descriptions is a deep compassion for the poor and oppressed. Anarchism must be understood as a political philosophy rooted in that compassion, and not in the winner-takes-all mentality too often associated with American libertarianism. But is the State really the source of all evil, as Mackay contends? Will its dissolution bring about not just liberty, but equality of opportunities, as he seems to promise? Even without the help of the State, what is to stop the rich and powerful from forming their own private army to guard the gains that they have made or inherited? It would be nice if everyone respects the liberty of others, as they wish their own liberty to be respected. But isn't that wish as idealistic as the Communist hope for altruism? Who will guarantee our liberties?

[Dimitrii Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Роман идей, который отстаивает точку зрения автора, но при этом отражает и взгляды его оппонентов, а также вписывает полемику анархистов-индивидуалистов и коммунистов в контекст - нищета трущоб (вскоре прославленных Джеком-Потрошителем) рядом с роскошью, полицейское насилие, казнь чикагских анархистов, собрания и митинги социалистов и т.д. Перевод устарелый по транскрипции топонимов, но живой.

[MauroMC · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is amazing.
Mackay writes a propaganda book but is doing this in such a good way that at the end "Die Anarchisten" is much more.
An overview of the situation of the working class during the time short after the industrial revolution. You really feel social degradation, poverty and despair.
And Mackay is not only writing about the anarchist movement but also refers about thoughts struggles and ideas of the socialist and comunist movement.
Many stuff to think about.
Good book.

[Trixie B · Rating 3 out of 5]

These days, it is easy to think of Anarchy as just one more fashion statement you can pick up at Hot Topic and sew onto your school bag. In reality, anarchy was a labor movement and, as John Henry Mackay outlines in his fictionalized first-person account, violently opposed by the powers that ruled London and other centers of commerce at the turn of the century.

This book is really dense, and mostly a vehicle for JHM's theory of anarchy, which he seeks to distinguish from Communism - a distinction that most people, including many within the movement, deemed irrelevant. Regardless, he paints a detailed portrait of a metropolis in poverty, and the idealists that rose up to speak against the dominant paradigm of capitalism.