Untitled

SEEKING THE CAUSES 113
money of one of your prefects of police.
. . . That
is how you have fought in the past this anarchistic danger
of which you make use to-day to commit, what shall I
say
. . . real crimes, not only against socialism, but
against the Republic itself." (24)
For the last forty years police agents have swarmed
into the socialist, the anarchist, and the trade-union
movements for the purpose of provoking violence. The
conditions grew
so bad in Russia
that every revolutionist
suspected his comrade. Many loyal revolutionists
were murdered in the belief that they were spies. In
the belief that they were comrades, the faithful intrusted
their innermost secrets to the agents of the police. Every
plan they made was known. Every undertaking proved
abortive, because the police knew everything in advance
and frequently had in charge of every plot their own
men. Criminals were turned into the movement under
the surveillance of the police.*
the International it
All through the days of
was a common occurrence to expose
police spies, and in every national party agents of the police
have been discovered and driven out. It has become
almost a rule, in certain sections of the socialist and labor
movements, that the man who advocates violence must
be watched, and there are numerous instances where such
men have been proved to be paid agents of the police.
Joseph Peukert was for many years one of the foremost
leaders of the anarchists. He was in Vienna with Stellmacher
and Kammerer, and devoted much of his time to
translating into German the works of foreign anarchists.
*In "The Terror in Russia" Kropotkin tells of bands of
criminals who, under pretense of being revolutionists and wanting
money for revolutionary purposes, forced wealthy people to
contribute under menace of death. The headquarters of the
bands were at the office of the secret police.