Victor Robinson

“ This is the difference between style and lack of it. Not in the entire range of Kropotkin's writings is there a single sentence in any way comparing with the above one of Gorky's; for he who writes without art holds a crippled pen. I may be mistaken, but in my opinion this single quotation from the Bitter One is worth all Kropotkin's Freedom Pamphlets. It is sublime in its similes and exquisite in its antitheses. There is a power in it which unchains enthusiasm and awakens intensity. "Books fell over the land like flakes of snow, but their effect was as sparks of fire." It is art. ”

“ Since that unlucky day when Ryleev, Pestel, Bestuzhev, Kakovsky and Muraviov-Apostol dangled from a tall straight post and a strong [11] crossbar, no revolutionist arose to oppose tyranny. During all the many years of the reign of Nicholas-with-the-Stick, no ray of light brightened a darkened nation, no torch glimmered in the bloody gloom. Hope was dead. Freedom was buried. Literature was in exile. Knowledge lay in a closed coffin. But censorship was alive, and autocracy had more eyes than Argus. ”

“ If the dead could touch the living, Nicholas would have hugged his son. The steps of the scaffold became slippery with the blood of the best. The rope of the hangman was jerked day and night, and the key of the jailer creaked in a thousand locks. Reaction had won, and liberalism lay covered with a crimson shroud.
The Valuev volcano vomited its smothering lava as far as Siberia, and General Kukel who with Kropotkin's help was preparing a long list of necessary reforms, was dismissed from his post because another place had been found for him—in prison. ”

“ History will pay an eternal homage to the victims of the bloody tyranny which now rules Russia.—J. Ramsay MacDonald, M. P.
o the present generation of Russian Revolutionists Kropotkin is not an influence, but an inspiration. He is not a leader but an elder brother. He is to them a type of the man who without a moment's hesitation leaves everything for the Cause. He is a powerful voice crying out loudly against the oppressors of mankind. Voices like these they hear distinctly, and follow eagerly, tho they lead to a cold Siberian grave. ”

“ Only one thing is lacking; indeed, it is the chief omission in the cosmos of Kropotkin—the poetic note. He is good and great, but the passionate fire is denied him. His soul is not aflame with poesy's burning brand. He could never cry out like the student Ivan Kalayev, "My soul is burning with stormy passion; my heart is full of battle-boldness. ”

“ There are at this moment only two great Russians who think for the Russian people, and whose thoughts belong to mankind,—Leo Tolstoy and Peter Kropotkin.—Georg Brandes
storm careered madly over the Northern Sea, its impatient waves heaving and howling, leaping with a burning frenzy, the fuming raging billows surging and swelling, calling and crying, roaring louder and louder, vaulting higher and higher. ”

“ The lime had grown in their bones, and to have these bones crushed by Katkoff in the casemates of the Fortress of Peter and Paul was not pleasant. The fathers withdrew from the society of their sons. Even the older brothers held aloof. At every step the young people heard, "Prudence, young man." Never before was youth so deserted, and never before was youth so splendid, so supreme, so sublime. ”

“ THE NIHILISTS
"He is a nihilist."
"What!" cried his father. As to Paul Petrovitch, he raised his knife, on the end of which was a small bit of butter, and remained motionless.
"He is a nihilist," repeated Arcadi.
"A nihilist," said Nicholas Petrovitch. "This word must come from the Latin Nihil, nothing, as far as I can judge; and consequently it signifies a man who ... who recognizes nothing?"
"Or rather who respects nothing," said Paul Petrovitch; and he began again to butter his bread.
"A man who looks at everything from a critical point of view," said Arcadi. ”

“ But from the foot of the scaffold there comes a cry, and from the steppes of Siberia is heard a voice, and from the saltworks of Usolie rings an answer, and from the gold-mines of Kara comes a response, and from the Butirki of Moscow someone speaks, and from the prison of Akatui, Young Russia utters the same word—Svoboda! Svoboda! Svoboda!
Sometime in the future, when the true historian of the Russian Revolution appears, he will write of men and women of so exalted a nature, that antiquity will be dumb and boast no more her classic heroes. ”

“ In the soul of every libertarian swings a fragrant censer which offers up olibanum to the stainless character of the great revolutionist. Put those who love Kropotkin on one side, and those who don't on the other, and you will have separated the heralds of the morning from the spooks of the night. It is no [119] more necessary to be an anarchist-communist to have a warm spot in your heart for Peter Kropotkin, than it is necessary to believe in Adam and Eve to enjoy Milton's Paradise Lost. ”

“ He does not bury the flower of his thought in a wilderness of words.
It cannot be contended that Kropotkin gave up his style because he writes for workers who are unable to appreciate the beauty of literary composition. A man may refuse a title with an oath as Carlyle did, or give it up as Kropotkin himself did, but he who has a style relinquishes it not, for this is a gift besides which the 'boast of heraldry' is as a puppy's snappish yelp unto the lion's mighty roar.
Neither can it be claimed that Kropotkin's stylistic deficiency is due to the fact that he is an economist. ”

“ His is a great spirit—it has cast out flam. "Kropotkin is one of the most sincere and frank of men," says Stepniak. "He always says the truth, pure and simple, without any regard for the amour propre of his hearers, or for any consideration whatever. This is the most striking and sympathetic feature of his character. Every word he says may be absolutely believed. His sincerity is such, that sometimes in the ardour of discussion an entirely fresh consideration [112] unexpectedly presents itself to his mind, and sets him thinking. ”

“ Buzinsky, Gellis, Ignatius Ivanoff succumbed in the Key-Town Fortress; to Federoff was reserved a fate worse than death, worse than torture, worse than madness, for it was his destiny to become a dupe of the Black Hundreds and unwittingly slay Georg Iollos—lover of liberty; [68] Ludmila Volkenstein,—but why continue an unhappy list which has neither beginning nor end? I could fill a library with such cases.
Such individual torments fell not to the lot of Peter Kropotkin. Personally he has been favored by fortune. He has touched existence on every side and lived every life. ”

“ Of Demetrius Lisogub, the millionaire who lived like a pauper, giving everything to the Cause and spending nothing on himself, grudging every coin he had to pay for his bread, dressing in rags even during the severest winters, supporting for a time the whole revolutionary movement, but continually sorrowing that in order not to forfeit his wealth he could take no active part in the battle, and smiling with happiness only when brought to the scaffold in the hangman's cart, for at last he could bestow more than money—he could sacrifice himself ”

“ It is the manner of expression—it is style—it is art.
There is no reason why one man should be a stylist and another should not, but so it is. Huxley was a stylist; Darwin was not; Herzen, yes; Kropotkin, no.
Being anxious to know Kropotkin's exact attitude towards Art, I wrote to him asking categorically: "In your opinion, have [86] exquisite poets like Keats and Pushkin—who never touched social questions, but celebrated only beauty—been of much benefit to mankind?" ”

“ In all the history of the human race, from the day that primitive man roamed the untamed forests, and stubbing his naked toe against a root, fell down to worship it, to placate it, to appease it, until the scientific time that a biologist like Haeckel absolutely denied the existence of god and soul,—there has [101] been nothing more horribly cruel than the czarish treatment which the Russian government meted out to the gifted youth who produced a work in his early twenties that caused Nekrasov to cry out to Belinsky, "A new Gogol is born to us!" ”

“ No language can be [6] too strong when condemning the Russian Bureaucracy, no judgment can be too severe when pronounced on czardom and its cruel minions. In fact the English language sometimes seems inadequate....
A remarkable commentary on the conditions in Russia is the fact that he who studies them carefully and thoroly, be he the gentlest and sweetest youth who would not harm a fly or tread on a worm, becomes saturated with the conviction that in Russia, the rebel's bomb and pistol and dagger are not only legitimate and necessary, but even noble weapons of defense and offense. ”

“ Once in a while the report of a particularly atrocious massacre, or a particularly cruel torture inflicted upon a young girl revolutionist will shock our sensibilities, will cause a pang in our hearts, will perhaps make our hair stand on end,—but in a day or two we forget all about it. ”

“ Look at him; exhausted by hunger, broken down by toil, the eternal slave of the privileged classes, working without pause, without hope of redemption. For the government purposely keeps him ignorant, and every one robs him, every one tramples on him, and no one stretches out a hand to assist him. ”

“ But leaving divine enthusiasm aside, this volume is perfection. He who peruses its loving pages, gains a [97] tender brother whose body is unseen, but whose memory becomes imperishable. When you read it, you cry a little, because the man who wrote it was so kind. Across the miles you seem to hear his fraternal voice, and you know if you write to him, he will answer you thus: "Dear Comrade."—If you have time to read but a single volume a year, and desire one by a Russian, and ask my advice, I say: Read one of these—Underground Russia, by Stepniak; or Memoirs of a Revolutionist, by Kropotkin. ”

“ Yet is it not well that we cannot lift the mysterious veil and peer behind the darksome curtain? Otherwise would not we see future tragedies that would rob us of all strength to live thru the present?
Certain it is that had Kropotkin guessed the fate that was to befall Sasha, he would soon have left the fortress—carried out.
It may be a mooted point as to whether cossacks or gendarmes have been more successful in violating women, but all will agree that the former are pre-eminent in sabering students, while the latter receive the palm when it comes to searching houses. ”

“ Such rare-souled characters formed this Circle, that Kropotkin spent here the two happiest years of his life. To pass whole days with Nicholas Chaykovsky, to speak with the Kornilov sisters, to work with the young Kuprianov, to grasp the honest hand of Stepniak, to enter the room at night in top-boots after lecturing to peasants, and [47] see sweet Sophia Perovskaya say severely, "How dare you bring so much mud in this house!"—what life could be intenser? ”

“ He will take off the fine clothes that burn into his very flesh; he will put on the rough coat and the wooden shoes of the peasant, and abandoning the splendid paternal palace which oppresses him like the reproach of a crime, he will go forth "among the people" in some remote district, and there, the slender and delicate descendant of a noble race, he will do the hard work of the peasant, enduring every privation in order to carry to him [24] the words of redemption, the Gospel of our age,—Socialism. ”

“ A wonderful and terrible thing is happening in the largest empire on earth; a downtrodden people is engaged in a death-grapple with its merciless rulers; and never were masters so inhuman, and never were people so heroic. ”

“ A man who can say in effect, "Let the officials do whatever they want to do, let them shoot you down as often as they please, let them fill every prison in vast Russia with your bodies, let them rape your mothers and daughters and wives, let them hang your young children, but never resist in any way, only think of Jesus and read the Gospels,"—such a man is what the doctors call non compos mentis. ”

“ It was only when the ultimatum, "No schools allowed!" [16] was for several years rammed down their throats at the point of the bayonet that the Nihilists became Terrorists. It was only when the prisons overflowed with their young warm blood that Sophia Perovskaya waved her handkerchief.
The shaft of truth is naked, and so armored with bias is the mind of man, that the missle cannot pierce the mail. In spite [38] of the unanswerable array of historical data, many will still exclaim, "We do not believe in using force in Russia. We believe in education." ”

“ It was in the autumn of 1871, as he looked over the hillocks of Finland, and saw with his scientific eye the ice accumulating in the archipelagos at the dawn of mankind, that he received this telegram from the Geographical Society: "The council begs you to accept the position of secretary to the society."
At last Kropotkin was in a position to realise his old dream, but he pondered much before answering, for he now dreamed a new dream—how to lighten the burdens of the overworked people.
A voice in the wind said, "To work for Science is great." ”

“ It is not for a faltering pen to chant praises to those whose glory is unrivalled. History has not seen their equals. They deserve the worship of a better world than this. We who have no faith in God or reverence for Government, may well bow our heads at the recollection of men who left [32] comfortable firesides to expose themselves to maddening tortures. We may well fall right down on our knees at the thought of women who bade farewell to wealthy parents to bare their breasts to the sabre of the gendarme and the embrace of the cossack. ”

“ Already the sentry—doing just what Kropotkin expected him to do—was at his heels. Three soldiers who were sitting on the doorstep, followed. The athletic sentinel was so confident he could outrun the invalid that he did not fire, but flung his rifle forward, trying to give the fleeing patient a bayonet-blow in the back. But it is never safe to take chances with even a sick runner, when he is sprinting for his life.
"Did you ever see what a big tail that louse has under the microscope?" asked the scientific comrade of the soldier at the gate. ”