My dear Jacques:
It’s a long time since I've written to you. Work has been tough for the past few months, and I came home in the evening so exhausted that I didn’t have the heart to read. I went to bed and slept like a log until the time to go back to the factory. I have to admit that during these days of hard labor I envied you your fate; and while I sweated in front of the furnace I had a vision of you peacefully standing before your cases composing a book you would then read.
The last couple of weeks things have finally calmed down, so I once again took up my reading, and I naturally need your advice. Benoit the bookseller — you know him, I think; the little old man who has a store at the corner of your st... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Preface
PORTIONS of this book, which at various times appeared in the newspapers and periodicals, received the honor of being noticed and discussed. This has induced me to write the few lines that follow.
It has been my intention to write neither an apology nor a diatribe, but an impartial study in history and sociology. I dislike antisemitism; it is a narrow, one-sided view, still I have sought to account for it. It was not born without cause, I have searched for its causes. Whether I have succeeded in discovering them, it is for the reader to decide.
An opinion as general as antisemitism, which has flourished in all countries and in all ages, before and after the Christian era, at Alexandria, Rome, and Antiachia, in A... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In two brochures I defended Captain Dreyfus, condemned to deportation for life for a crime he didn’t commit.
I defended him basing myself on facts, and not ideology. I showed that there were no charges raised against he who was accused of a shameful and abject crime, only the attestations of experts open to challenge attributing to him a bordereau that he didn’t write, that he couldn’t have written. When I first spoke no one would believe me; it was thought that I hid truth in service to a cause. Nevertheless, if that cause had not been defendable, if it hadn’t been that of an innocent, I would never have accepted to support it.
The most benevolent said that I raised my voice in favor of Jews, upon whom... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Gathered together here, we are individuals from the most diverse countries; from Russia and Poland, from Romania and Austria, from France and doubtless from other countries. Nevertheless, we don’t form a heterogeneous assembly; surrounding us is an atmosphere in which, whatever our country of origin, we move with equal ease.
What is the tie that unites us and thanks to which our meeting is homogeneous?
It is our quality as Jews. From whatever city we come, far or near, whatever the social conditions under which we have been or are subject to, we feel ourselves to be brothers because we are Jews. It isn’t enough to state this fact; its meaning must be understood.
When I affirm that I am a Jew in the same way ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) A propos of Russian Jewry, whose cause some French journalists took up with too much ardor, or at the very least in too intemperate and unjustifiable a fashion, Monsieur Paul de Cassagnac, in an excellent article, said:
“Jewish writers here have an excellent occasion, by ceasing to compromise the Russian alliance by their unjust diatribes, to prove – what I have never doubted – that they are falsely accused and slandered when they are reproached for being cosmopolitans and for only making a mediocre – or at least secondary – case of what is commonly called the fatherland.”
That recent affair and these words put in question that famous solidarity of Israel that though once justifiable, wrongl... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) If that tragedy that occurred so long ago of a family, worn down by hunger and poverty and seeking in death the supreme refuge; if that drama, due to its having occurred so far in the past – nearly two months – can no longer inspire the pity that the souls of its contemporaries accorded it for a moment, it can at least still serve as a theme for useful reflections.
I don’t know if upon reading this story M. Drumont felt the profound stupor that struck me: Eight people of the Semitic race reduced to suicide by destitution as perfectly noted as is was insufficiently relieved. If one person of that confession had come to that extremity it could have been explained by a certain exaggerated love for paradox, or by a stra... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Someone who knew and loved Mikhail Bakunin has published a volume of works of he who is still called the “Father of Nihilism” [1]. This volume contains only fragments, and those volumes that will follow it will also only contain works that were not completed. Nevertheless, we can attempt to explicate Bakunin’s metaphysics and point put his economic concepts. For such a work it would nonetheless be better to wait to possess the complete works, since it wouldn’t be right to commit the errors in judgment and fact already committed by those who have previously spoken of Bakunin.[2] So we will one day return to this subject. We will at that time attempt to precisely determine the influences that worked on Bakunin, notably... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Bourgeois — And you believe in the revolution?
Me — I believe in it. Like you, by the way.
Bourgeois — Me? You must be kidding! Is a revolution possible in our time? The armed forces; the wisdom of the proletarians — resolved to legally obtain the improvement of their lot; the will of the republicans — who have already done so much for the workers — to resolutely march on the path of social reforms: isn’t all of this guarantee enough for you?
Me — No more for me than for you. I know your reasoning, and I know how much you’d like to believe in it. You’re like the sick men who calculate their chances to escape an illness and calm their fears by maintaining ho... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Tolerance is the characteristic of ages without beliefs, it is the virtue of spirits without faith.
Intolerance is the leavening of great ideas; it is the virtue of grand ideas, the virtue of vigorous and great souls. Nothing is worth as much as what we think, otherwise we think nothing, we believe nothing.
The truth of these two axioms only ceased being obvious the day it was desired to base social relations on mutual hypocrisy, when it became necessary to forgive our neighbor’s vises in order to forget our own. And so now the reproach of intolerance has become the most terrible one that can be addressed to any man who, due to the exaltation and affirmation of his own opinions, tends to trouble the customary peace.
... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)