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The fifth class, the doctrinaires, must be urged forward; while the sixth and most important class consists of the women, for making use of whom for the purposes of the revolution Netschajew gives explicit directions. It is the tactics of the Jesuits in all their details that are here recommended for the inauguration of the most moral ordering of the universe.
The deeds of people like Jacques Clement, Ravaillac, Corday, Sand, and Caserio, are all of the same kind; hardly anyone will be found to-day to maintain that Sand's action followed from the views of the Burschenschaft, or Clement's from Catholicism, even when we learn that Sand was regarded by his fellows as a saint, as was Charlotte Corday and Clement, or even when learned Jesuits like Sa, Mariana, and others, cum licentia et approbatione superiorum, in connection with Clement's outrage, discussed the question of regicide in a manner not unworthy of Netschajew or Most.
"Repeat after me," she adjured her hearers, "the Catechism of Sergei Netschajew, but begin with Herzen's noble motto: 'Long live chaos and destruction!" "Long live chaos and destruction!" was heartily roared. The terrific catechism of the apostle Netschajew made Arthur shake with alternate woe and wrath. It was bloody-minded beyond description.
He had also established cheap eating-houses for poor students, and one day these were closed by the police, and their founder vanished, because Netschajew had placarded revolutionary appeals in them. In despair at this, Iwanow wished to retire from the secret society.
The older form of Anarchism is marked by that lofty idealism which was the general mental attitude of civilised Western Europe in the first half of this century. The modern Anarchism of Bakunin, Netschajew, Kropotkin, and others, is branded by the semi-civilised culture of Russia, whose only object is the destruction of every existing state of things, and indeed under existing circumstances it cannot be otherwise. Dislike of, and discontent with real or fancied grievances, combined with a stiff-necked, doctrinaire attitude unprepared for any sacrificio del intelletto, may indeed lead the children of Western civilisation to a logical denial of the existing order of society. But from this to the actual overthrow of all existing conditions is a still farther step; and the positive intention of annihilating the infinite mental and material inheritance which is the outcome of civilisation, and which is not even denied by Anarchists themselves, could only be conceived by a few degenerate individuals who could only wish to see themselves vis-
Among these is a Catechism of Modern Freemasonry, the Revolutionary Catechisms, not to be compared with the later catechism of Netschajew, which was wrongly ascribed to Bakunin; also the wordy essay on Federation, Socialism, and Anti-theology, which as a proposal designed for the central committee of the League of Freedom and Peace at Geneva, but never published, presents a short reprint of Proudhon's Justice; and lastly, a fragment published in 1882 by C. Cafiero and Elisée Reclus, after his manuscript, Dieu et l'État, which seems intended to lay a philosophic foundation for Bakunin's Anarchism.
Netschajew, believing that he might betray its secrets, enticed Iwanow one evening into a remote garden, and with the help of two fellow-conspirators, Pryow and Nicolajew, shot him, and threw the corpse into a pond. He then fled, and arrived safely in Switzerland, where, in conjunction with Bakunin, he produced the literary efforts referred to above.
Since then nothing more was heard of him; Netschajew disappeared, like the demon in a pantomime, "down below." "Seek not to found your comfort and freedom on the servitude of another; so long as you rule others, you will never be free yourself. Increase your power of production by studying nature; your powers will grow a thousandfold, if you put them at the service of Humanity.
It was formerly thought that Bakunin was the author, but now it is pretty well agreed that it was Netschajew. The Catechism is reproduced in the before-mentioned memoir, L'Alliance de la Démocratie Socialiste, viii.
Grave is the Netschajew of Kropotkin. In the year 1883 he published, under the name of Jehan Levagre, a production entitled Publication du Groupe de se et 43e Arrondissements, wherein he maintained the thesis that public propaganda must serve the secret "propaganda of action" as a means of defence; it must offer it the means of action, namely, men, money, and influence; and especially must contribute to place these actions in the right light by commenting upon them.
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