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SEEKING THE CAUSES
91
thousands of yearning and impressionable minds.
They
have been drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry.
Yet one anarchist at least denies that the writings of
these terrorists have moved men to violence. "My con-
were im-
tention is," says Emma Goldman, "that they
pelled, not by the teachings of anarchism, but by the
tremendous pressure of conditions, making
life unbearable
to their sensitive natures." (1) Returning again to
the same thought, she exclaims, "How utterly
fallacious
the stereotyped notion that the teachings of anarchism,
or certain exponents of these teachings, are responsible
for the acts of political violence." (2) To this indefatigable
propagandist of anarchist doctrine, those who have
been led into homicidal violence are "high strung, like a
violin string." "They weep and moan for life, so relentless,
so cruel, so terribly inhuman. In a desperate moment
the string breaks." (3)
Yet, if it be true that doctrines have naught to do with
the spread of terrorism, why is it that among many million
socialists there are almost no terrorists, while among
a few thousand anarchists there are many terrorists
The pressure of adverse social conditions is felt as keenly
by the socialists as by the anarchists. The one quite as
much as the other is a rebel against social ills. The indictment
made by the socialists against political and economic
injustice is as far-reaching as that of the anarchists.
Why then does not the socialist movement produce
terrorists Is it not that the teachings of Marx and
of all his disciples dwell upon the folly of violence, the
futility of riots, the madness of assassination, while, on
the other hand, the teachings of Bakounin, of Nechayeff,
of Kropotkin, and of Most advocate destructive violence
as a creative force "Extirpate
the wretches!" cries
Most. "Make robbers our allies !" says Nechayeff.