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58
VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
measures.
By order of the Ministry, a state of siege was
proclaimed in Vienna and district from January 30, 1884,
by which the usual tribunals for certain crimes and
offences were temporarily suspended, and the severest
repressive measures were exercised against the anarchists,
so that anarchism in Austria rapidly declined, and
at the same time it soon lost its leaders. Stellmacher and
Kammerer were executed, Peukert escaped to England,
most of the other agitators were fast in prison, the journals
were suppressed and the groups broken up." (13)
While these events were taking place in Austria, anarchist
agitation was manifesting itself in several great
strikes that broke out in the industrial centers of Southern
France. At Lyons, Fournier, who shot his employer
in the open street, was honored in a public meeting by the
presentation of a revolver. A great demonstration was
planned for Paris, but, as there happened to be a review
of troops on the day set, the anarchists decided to abandon
the demonstration. In the autumn of the same year
(1882), troubles arose in Monceau-les-Mines and at
Blanzy, where the workers were bent under a terrible
capitalist and clerical domination. Under the circumstances,
the anarchist propaganda was very welcome, and
it was only a short time until it
produced an anti-religious
demonstration. Three or four hundred men, armed with
pitchforks and revolvers, spread over the country, breaking
the crosses and the statues of the Virgin which
were placed at the junctions of the roads. They called
the working classes to arms and took as hostages landlords,
cures, and functionaries. These riots were the
childlike manifestations of exasperated and miserable
men, destined in advance to failure. Numerous arrests
followed, and in the mines the workers suffered increased
oppression.