some measure have carried out his wish. Without, however, either wealth
or numbers behind him, Bakounin preached a polity that, up to the
present, only the rich and powerful have been able even partly to
achieve. The anarchy of Proudhon was visionary, humanitarian, and
idealistic. At least he thought he was striving for a more humane social
order than that of the present. But this older anarchism is as ancient
as tyranny, and never at any moment has it ceased to menace human
civilization. Based on a real mastery over the industrial and political
institutions of mankind, this actual anarchy has never for long allowed
the law, the Constitution, the State, or the flag to obstruct its path
or thwart its avarice.

Moreover, under the anarchism proposed by Proudhon and Bakounin, the
maintenance of property rights, public order, and personal security
would be left to voluntary effort, that is to say, to private
enterprise. As all things would be decided by mutual agreement, the only
law would be a law of contracts, and that law would need to be enforced
either by associations formed for that purpose or by professionals
privately employed for that purpose. So far as one can see, then, the
methods of the feudal lords would be revived, by which they hired their
own personal armies or went shares in the spoils with their bandits,
buccaneers, and assassins. By organizing their own military forces and
maintaining them in comfort, they were able to rob, burn, and murder, in
order to protect the wealth and power they had, or to gain more wealth
and power. For them there was no law but that of a superior fighting
force. There was an infinite variety of customs and traditions that
were in the nature of laws, but even these were seldom allowed to stand
in the way of those who coveted, and were strong enough to take, the
land, the money, or the produce of others. Indeed, the feudal duke or
prince was all that Nechayeff claimed for the modern robber. He was a
glorified anarchist, "without phrase, without rhetoric." He could scour
Europe for mercenaries, and, when he possessed himself of an army of
marauders, he became a law unto himself. The most ancient and honorable
anarchy is despotism, and its most effective and available means of
domination have always been the employment of its own personal military
forces.

It will be remembered that Bakounin developed a kind of robber worship.
The bandit leaders Stenka Razin and Pougatchoff appea