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VISIONS OF VICTORY 351
spirators is purely selfish or wholly altruistic.
It matters
little whether their program is to build into a system
private monopoly or to save the world from that monopoly.
Their methods outrage democracy, even when they
are not actually criminal. The oldest anarchist believes
that the people
must be deceived into a worse social
order, and that at least is a tribute to their intelligence.
On the other hand, the Bakouninists, old and new, believe
that the people must be deceived into a better social
order, and that is founded upon their complete distrust
of the people.
And, rightly enough, the attitude of the masses toward
the secret and conspiratory methods of both the^idealist
anarchist and the materialist anarchist is the same. If
the latter distrust the people, the people no less distrust
them.
If the masses would mob the terrorist who springs
forth to commit some fearful act, the purpose of which
they
cannot in the least understand, they would, if
possible, also mob the individual responsible for manipulation
of elections, for the buying of legislatures, and for
the purchasing of court decisions. They fear, distrust,
and denounce the terrorist who goes forth to commit arson,
pillage,
or assassination no less than the anarchist
who purchases private armies, hires thugs to beat up
unoffending citizens, and uses the power
of wealth to
undermine the Government. In one sense, the acts of
the materialist anarchist are clearer even than those of
the other. The people know the ends sought by the
powerful. On the other hand, the ends sought by the
terrorist are wholly mysterious; he has not even taken
the trouble to make his program We clear. find, then,
that the anarchist of high finance, who would suppress
democracy in the interest of a new feudalism, and
the anarchist of a sect, who would override democracy