two works
published by the General Council of that organisation: _Les Pretendus
Scissions dans l'Internationale_, and _L'Alliance de la Democratic
Sociale_. See also Engels' article _Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit_,
reprinted in the recently published pamphlet, _Internationales aus dem
Volkstaat_ (_i.e._, a series of articles published in the _Volkstaat_,)
1873-75. Berlin, 1894.

CHAPTER VII

THE SMALLER FRY

Among our present-day Anarchists some, like John Mackay, the author of
"Die Anarchisten, Kulturgemaelde aus dem Ende des xix. Jahrhunderts,"
declare for individualism, while others--by far the more numerous--call
themselves Communists. These are the descendants of Bakounine in the
Anarchist movement. They have produced a fairly considerable literature
in various languages, and it is they who are making so much noise with
the help of the "propaganda by deed." The prophet of this school is the
Russian refugee, P. A. Kropotkine.

I shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the
Individualist-Anarchist of to-day, whom even their brethren, the
Communist-Anarchists, look upon as "bourgeois."[47] We will go straight
on to the Anarchist-"Communist."

What is the standpoint of this new species of Communism? "As to the
method followed by the Anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that
of the Utopists," Kropotkine assures us. "The Anarchist thinker does not
resort to metaphysical conceptions (like 'natural rights,' the 'duties
of the State' and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best
conditions for realising the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows,
on the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of
evolution.... He studies human society as it is now, and was in the
past; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate
individuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he
merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find
out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of
cooperation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries
to discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs,
intellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which
direction evolution goes."[48]

So the Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with the Utopians.
They do not, in the elaborating of their "ideal," turn to metaphysical
conceptions like "natural rights," the "duties of the State,