There has recently been a renewal of interest in anarchism. Books, pamphlets, and anthologies are being devoted to it. It is doubtful whether this literary effort is really very effective. It is difficult to trace the outlines of anarchism. Its master thinkers rarely condensed their ideas into systematic works. If, on occasion, they tried to do so, it was only in thin pamphlets designed for propaganda and popularization in which only fragments of their ideas can be observed. Moreover, there are several kinds of anarchism and many variations within the thought of each of the great libertarians. Rejection of authority and stress on the priority of individual judgment make it natural for libertarians to "profess the faith of anti dogmatism." "Let us not become the leaders of a new religion," Proudhon wrote to Marx, "even were it to be the religion of logic and reason." It follows that the views of the libertarians are more varied, more fluid, and harder to apprehend than thos...
TURGUÉNEFF: The main features of his Art-A Sportsman's Notebook-Pessimism of his early novels-His series of novels representing the leading types of Russian society--Rúdin-Lavrétskiy-Helen and Insároff -Bazároff-Why Fathers and Sons was misunderstood-Hamlet and Don Quixote-Virgin Soil: movement towards the people-Verses in Prose. TOLSTÓY: Childhood and Boyhood-During and after the Crimean War -Youth: In search of an ideal-Small stories-The Cossacks-Educational work-War and Peace-Anna Karénina-Religious crisis-His interpretation of the Christian teaching-Main points of the Christian ethics-Latest works of Art-Kreutzer Sonata-Resurrection. TURGUÉNEFF...
II THE STATE UNDER the influence of socialism, most liberal thought in recent years has been in favor of increasing the power of the State, but more or less hostile to the power of private property. On the other hand, syndicalism has been hostile both to the State and to private property. I believe that syndicalism is more nearly right than socialism in this respect, that both private property and the State, which are the two most powerful institutions of the modern world, have become harmful to life through excess of power, and that both are hastening the loss of vitality from which the civilized world increasingly suffers. The two institutions are closely connected, but for the present I wish to consider only the State. I shall try to show how great, how unnecessary, how harmful, many of its powers are, and how enormously they might be diminished without loss of what is useful in its activity. But I shall admit that in certain directions its functions ought to be...