Editor’s Note: Bishop Emeritus Fabian Bruskewitz wrote a series of columns on the history of anarchy in 2004. This is “The Black Flag – II” which was published Oct. 8, 2004.
Historic Anarchism
The ideology of anarchism, which often rests dormant and latent for periods of time here and there in some intellectual circles, but then emerges violent and perplexing, has a long history. In the Middle Ages, for instance, there arose a group of anarchists who called themselves “Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit.” They claimed to be following various selected biblical texts as they rejected all human authority in every sphere of life. They also advocated and practiced what they called “communal ownership of all goods, including women.” During the Hussite time in Czech history, an anarchical activist named Petr Chelcicky taught that all laws of Church and state originate from Lucifer in hell, and therefore laws must be disobeyed, and the state and all class distinctions must be destroyed since they are totally evil.
In the 16th century, in the midst of the great disorder in Europe caused by the Protestant revolt, some Protestants who called themselves “Anabaptists” (“Rebaptizers”) moved into the practice, for the most part, of civil and ecclesiastical anarchy, stimulated by the antinomian writings and speeches of Martin Luther, based on his misunderstanding of and misinterpreting parts of the Bible, particularly the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. The Anabaptists gathered adherents especially from the ignorant peasantry in Holland and Germany. The most infamous leaders of the sect were Thomas Munzer and John of Leiden, who set up what they called “kingdoms of God,” which involved communal ownership of all property and the polygamous sharing of all wives. The Anabaptists, in some ways the doctrinal forerunners of today’s Protestant Baptists, also believed in slaughtering the “Canaanites” when they had the chance, meaning any people under their control who did not adhere to their doctrines. They claimed to be free from any obligation to obey any laws because they were “Protestant men of the Gospel who were saved by grace apart from the law and were following their consciences.”
Enlightenment
Ideas which circulated in 16th and 17th century Europe, especially in France, laid some of the groundwork for a later systematic and atheistic treatment of anarchism and for its development. The French writer Rabelais, for example, proposed many anarchist concepts in his works. The primary mover toward making anarchism a respectable intellectual position, however, was Jean Jacques Rousseau. Directly and indirectly, consciously and unconsciously, American public education and popular culture even today are heavily influenced by his philosophy. It has been pointed out also that he was a major influence on the romantic movement, on the French Revolution, on the philosophy of Kant and Schopenhauer, on the plays of Schiller, and on the poetry of Goethe, Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelly, as well as on the thoughts of Marx and Tolstoi.
Rosseau popularized the exaltation of feeling and imagination over thought, along with a strong dislike for all laws, customs, manners, and conventions, as well as with a deep distrust of reason. From him have come the modern romantic and utopian views about the alleged genius and perfection of the “noble savage” and the “common man,” both of whom, according to his opinion, never show any symptoms of original sin, but only display signs of corruption from human social structures, such as religion, governments and families. Current extreme environmentalists, who regard the human species as no better than proliferating rodents and polluting vermin, also draw inspiration from him. Rousseau taught that even knowledge and art usually were instruments of corruption for men, and that civilization itself is a serious disease. His anarchic outlook was expressed in his first writing, his prize- winning essay at the Dijon Academy, and proceeded from there: “Men are born free, but are everywhere in chains.” Initially the anti-Christian “philosophes” of the Enlightenment, such as Voltaire and Diderot, welcomed him into their circle, but eventually his anarchism became too much for their taste.
Thinkers
Anarchism, following the work of Rousseau, began to be systemized in the 19th century, by such philosophers as Ludwig Feuerbach, William Goodwin, and Max Stimer, who taught that the state, property, religion, and abstract thought are all detriments to human beings and to human development. Using the slogan “property is theft,” Pierre Joseph Proudhon maintained that all private property is obtained only by stealing and monopoly and therefore should be completely eliminated along with all governments and states. However, he suggested to his disciples that they go about doing this incrementally and slowly. His views still have many adherents in the world today. It was Proudhon who first coined the word “anarchism” as an accepted philosophical term.
Count Leo Tolstoi, the Russian writer, although professing anarchism, was something of an anomaly in that he did not totally reject religion. He denied the divinity of Jesus Christ and the immortality of the human soul, but he tried to use the Christian Gospels as teaching tools for human betterment, which always is impeded, so he claimed, by every political structure and by all authority. His fellow 19th century Russian anarchist, Mikail Bakunin, had a different perspective. He held that the sciences, such as anthropology and sociology, have proved that humans are social beings by nature. But, he maintained that religion, political authority, and private property belong to the lower levels of human social evolution. Now in modern times, he said, these must be replaced by voluntary communes and associations as a higher stage of human evolution. His slogan was the oxymoron “anarchists unite!” To bring this about he recommended violence and terror, especially the assassination of prominent personages. He was strongly associated with the nihilistic thought found in Russia in that era, pushed by his pupil, Sergei Netschayev.
Murder
Following these anarchist doctrines, an Italian anarchist in 1898 stabbed to death the Austrian Empress Elizabeth as she was boarding an excursion steamer in Switzerland, and Leon Czolgosz, a Polish emigrant who at first flirted with Marx but later converted to anarchism, shot to death our American President William McKinley in 1901, in Buffalo. Political bombings and killings by ardent anarchists became widespread. The Russian Prince Petr Kropotkin tried to wed anarchism to some of the concepts of Marx. Because of this he too advocated “the eloquence of the deed,” that is, terroristic acts to galvanize fellow anarchists and to capture the imagination of the unthinking and politically inert masses of people.
