o_195qg5dto17o4rbc85q1ge61i84a.pdf

anarchist rejections of the state 59
institutions is balanced in different ways. States governed by
‘coercion’ are more likely than those governed by ‘deceit’ to have very
well-developed systems of enforcement and will rely more heavily on
these systems to secure compliance than on the rule of law. In his
classic analysis of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, Victor Serge
showed how the autocracy had employed a range of powers, from
surveillance techniques to systematic execution and disappearance, to
defend itself against revolution. In the inter-war period Alexander
Berkman raised a similar case, this time showing how Tsarist methods
had been imported into Bolshevism in defence of Lenin’s revolution.
The view famously developed by Proudhon is that these instruments
of power are a necessary feature of all government:
To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon,
directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached
at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded … to be
GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted,
registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed,
licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected,
punished. It is … to be placed under contribution, trained,
ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified,
robbed … to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked,
abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged,
condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to
crown it all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. 37
Tolstoy (who also borrowed from Proudhon the title of his
masterwork, War and Peace) similarly emphasized the physical
aspect of power.
The possibility of exercising physical violence is given by organization
of armed men, wherein all act in unison, submitting to one will.
Such assemblies of armed men submitting to one will constitute the
army. The army has always been and is still the basis of power.
Power is always in the hands of those who command the army,
therefore all rulers, from Roman Caesars to German and Russian
Emperors, are engrossed in cares for the army, whom they flatter
and cajole, for they know that if the army is with them, power also is
in their hands. 38
Altering the focus of discussion, Kropotkin identified law as one
of the most effective instruments of government power. His attack