Read Online The Dynamite Club: How a Bombing in Fin-de-Siecle Paris Ignited the Age of Modern Terror by John Merriman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Merriman
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the last minute), she imagined her martyrdom, thinking of revolutionaries who had perished before: "Pictures of people who had died long ago awoke in my memory, my imagination worked as never before." Even if this account could never be verified, the execution scene itself became an important part of the collective memory of anarchists.
The imperial Russian police crushed People's Will, but its tactics came to be adopted by some anarchists worldwide. And in western Europe, events during the 1880s encouraged anarchists, particularly in wretchedly poor rural regions in southern Spain and Italy. Errico Malatesta was among the optimistic, active, and influential. Born into a landowning family in southern Italy, Malatesta was expelled from medical school in Naples for taking part in a demonstration. He became an anarchist, eventually learned the trade of electrician, and gave away property he had inherited from his parents to the tenants who lived there. Anarchism appealed to poor rural laborers in southern Italy, who retained a strong sense of injustice and suffering at the hands of policemen. Malatesta led armed Calabrian peasants in Benevento, northeast of Naples, in April 1877 as they burned parish and tax records, distributed rifles seized from the national guard and money taken from the safe of a tax collector, and called for the seizure and collectivization of land. The insurgents received some support from nearby villages in a revolt that lasted ten days before being put down.
In 1883, police in Paris broke up an anarchist-inspired march of unemployed people; some of the demonstrators pillaged a bakery, and arrests followed. In Andalusia in southern Spain that same year, peasants murdered an innkeeper they believed to be a police spy. The Civil Guard moved in, using perhaps fabricated evidence of a secret society plot to kill the rich in order to crush anarchism in Andalusia. And in Montceau-les-Mines in Burgundy in 1884, striking workers organized a group called the Black Band and went on a rampage, pillaging the French town.
Several other small-scale events gave French authorities further pause. About the same time, a gardener called Louis Chavès shot to death the mother superior of the convent that employed him, and then fired at police, who killed him. He had already sent a letter to an anarchist newspaper, "You start with one to reach a hundred, as the saying goes. So I would like the glory of being the first to start. It is not with words or paper that we shall change existing conditions. The last advice I have for true anarchists, for active anarchists, is to arm themselves according to my example with a good revolver, a good dagger, and a box of matches." An anarchist newspaper began to raise money to purchase a pistol to avenge Chavès. That same year, a man claiming to be an anarchist tossed a bottle full of explosive chemicals into the Paris Bourse. It exploded, although no one was hurt. He then fired three random shots, without effect. A burglar named Clément Duval, who stole from a wealthy Parisian residence, was transformed into Comrade Duval. His explanation: "The policeman arrested me in the name of the law; I hit [the policeman] in the name of liberty! When society refuses you the right to existence, you must take it." In the eyes of some anarchists—though hardly all—any act that might hasten "social disorganization" and ultimately the revolution was legitimate, including theft and the destruction of private property. An Italian thief called Vittorio Pini announced during his trial in Paris that he was not a thief but had merely taken riches that the bourgeoisie had taken before.
Émile Henry could not help but soak up the charged atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Paris. The plight of ordinary people was growing ever more serious. Someone would have to carry the mantle of visionaries like Proudhon and Bakunin.
CHAPTER 3
"Love Engenders Hate"
DURING THE LATE 1870s and early 1880s, groups of anarchists
The imperial Russian police crushed People's Will, but its tactics came to be adopted by some anarchists worldwide. And in western Europe, events during the 1880s encouraged anarchists, particularly in wretchedly poor rural regions in southern Spain and Italy. Errico Malatesta was among the optimistic, active, and influential. Born into a landowning family in southern Italy, Malatesta was expelled from medical school in Naples for taking part in a demonstration. He became an anarchist, eventually learned the trade of electrician, and gave away property he had inherited from his parents to the tenants who lived there. Anarchism appealed to poor rural laborers in southern Italy, who retained a strong sense of injustice and suffering at the hands of policemen. Malatesta led armed Calabrian peasants in Benevento, northeast of Naples, in April 1877 as they burned parish and tax records, distributed rifles seized from the national guard and money taken from the safe of a tax collector, and called for the seizure and collectivization of land. The insurgents received some support from nearby villages in a revolt that lasted ten days before being put down.
In 1883, police in Paris broke up an anarchist-inspired march of unemployed people; some of the demonstrators pillaged a bakery, and arrests followed. In Andalusia in southern Spain that same year, peasants murdered an innkeeper they believed to be a police spy. The Civil Guard moved in, using perhaps fabricated evidence of a secret society plot to kill the rich in order to crush anarchism in Andalusia. And in Montceau-les-Mines in Burgundy in 1884, striking workers organized a group called the Black Band and went on a rampage, pillaging the French town.
Several other small-scale events gave French authorities further pause. About the same time, a gardener called Louis Chavès shot to death the mother superior of the convent that employed him, and then fired at police, who killed him. He had already sent a letter to an anarchist newspaper, "You start with one to reach a hundred, as the saying goes. So I would like the glory of being the first to start. It is not with words or paper that we shall change existing conditions. The last advice I have for true anarchists, for active anarchists, is to arm themselves according to my example with a good revolver, a good dagger, and a box of matches." An anarchist newspaper began to raise money to purchase a pistol to avenge Chavès. That same year, a man claiming to be an anarchist tossed a bottle full of explosive chemicals into the Paris Bourse. It exploded, although no one was hurt. He then fired three random shots, without effect. A burglar named Clément Duval, who stole from a wealthy Parisian residence, was transformed into Comrade Duval. His explanation: "The policeman arrested me in the name of the law; I hit [the policeman] in the name of liberty! When society refuses you the right to existence, you must take it." In the eyes of some anarchists—though hardly all—any act that might hasten "social disorganization" and ultimately the revolution was legitimate, including theft and the destruction of private property. An Italian thief called Vittorio Pini announced during his trial in Paris that he was not a thief but had merely taken riches that the bourgeoisie had taken before.
Émile Henry could not help but soak up the charged atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Paris. The plight of ordinary people was growing ever more serious. Someone would have to carry the mantle of visionaries like Proudhon and Bakunin.
CHAPTER 3
"Love Engenders Hate"
DURING THE LATE 1870s and early 1880s, groups of anarchists
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