The World That Never Was (5 page)

Switzerland:
Death of Bakunin, Reclus delivers eulogy; title ‘anarchist’ adopted by Italian anti-authoritarians at Berne Congress, and subsequently the strategy of ‘propaganda by deed’

United States:
Chaikovsky and Godmen join Frey’s colony at Cedar Vale, Kansas; centenary of American Independence, French promise of Statue of Liberty as gift

Other:

Date: 1877

France:

Russia:
Trial of the Fifty: many more await trial; beating in prison of Bogoliubov for insolence; Russia declares war on Turkey over its activities in the Balkans

Britain:
Disraeli uses British fleet to deter Russian march on Constantinople

Other European:

Italy:
Kravchinsky and Malatesta in Naples preparing for failed Matese insurrection in April

Switzerland:
Kropotkin returns

Belgium:
April:
Universal Socialist Congress in Ghent

Bosnia:
Death of Madame Novikoff’s brother provides her with martyr

United States:
Disputed election of President Rutherford, with support of robber Barons

July/Aug:
Great Railroad Strike and Great Upheaval; Chaikovsky leaves Cedar Vale and is on the tramp; foundation of paramilitary Society for Education and Defense in Chicago; Edward Carpenter visits Walt Whitman in Camden

Other:
Malatesta active in Egypt

Date: 1878

France:
Verne publishes
The Begum’s Millions
; Exposition Universelle in Paris: much of best work from exiled Communards; retirement of President MacMahon, succeeded by Jules Grévy

Russia:
Trial of the 193 produces mixed result, followed by repression

24 Jan:
Zasulich attempts to assassinate General Trepov

4 Aug:
Kravchinsky assassinates General Mezentsev

Britain:
Disraeli attracts anti-Semitic comment in Russia for his role in Berlin Congress

Dec:
Most starts publishing
Freiheit

Other European:

Italy:
Jan:
Death of King Victor Emmanuel brings amnesty for socialist prisoners;

Feb:
Death of Pope Pius IX

Germany:
May:
Hoedel attempt on life of Kaiser Wilhelm, followed by that of Nobeling. Severe crackdown results. Expulsion of Johann Most

Italy:
Attempt on life of Umberto I by Passanante; Pope Leo XIII inveighs against ‘Deadly pestilence of communism’

Spain:
Attempt on life of Alfonso XII

United States:

Other:
June:
Kanack revolt in New Caledonia brutally suppressed by April 1879

Date: 1879

France:
Retirement of President MacMahon

July:
Amnesty of exiled Communards agreed

Russia:
9
Feb:
Assassination of Dmitri Kropotkin, governor of Kharkov; wave of strikes in St Petersburg; Rachkovsky recruited as informant by Third Section

April:
Attempt on life of Alexander II in Winter Palace garden by Soloviev; birth of group Freedom or Death

June:
Voronezh Congress, radicals adopt strategy of violence, out of which the People’s Will founded in Aug

Nov
. Failed bomb attack on tsar’s train

Britain:

Other European:
Kropotkin and Reclus publish
Le Révolté
; Malatesta forced out of Switzerland under threat of arrest

United States:
Benjamin Tucker begins publication of
Liberty

Other:
Nationalist revolt in Egypt; tension high between Russia and Britain on Afghan border

Date: 1880

France:
Feb:
Arrest of Lev Hartmann, would-be assassin of tsar, deported to England

May:
Violent demonstration in Père Lachaise on anniversary of Bloody Week

June:
Return of Henri Rochefort from Swiss exile

Nov
. Return of Louise Michel from New Caledonia

Russia:
Feb:
Bomb in Winter Palace kills many guards; near-dictatorial powers for Loris-Melikov

June:
Death of tsarina and tsar’s remarriage to mistress Catherine Dolgorukaya; appointment of Loris-Melikov as chief of the Supreme Administrative Commission; attempt on his life

Oct:
Trial of the Sixteen, three of whom executed for conspiracy; police reform: Third Section disabled to be replaced by Okhrana

Britain:
April:
return of Gladstone, Madame Novikoff’s friend, as prime minister; corruption scandal in British and Belgian police prompts reform

Other European:
Reclus publishes pamphlet
Evolution and Revolution

Oct:
Kropotkin and Reclus in Switzerland prepare agenda for London Congress

Germany:
Cologne Cathedral completed after 600 years; Belfort Bax attends ceremony

United States:

Other:
Young Egypt active in nationalist cause, on model of Young Italy

Date: 1881

France:
Jan:
Funeral of Blanqui, Michel delivers oration; France occupies Tunisia; first issue of shares in Panama Canal

Oct:
Bomb thrown into Bellecour Theatre in strike-bound Lyons

Dec:
Short-lived Gambetta premiership

Russia:
1 March:
Assassination of tsar

10 March:
Letter of executive committee to Alexander III; trial of conspirators and execution of five leading figures

April:
Anti-Jewish pogroms sweep the south; creation of the Holy Brotherhood

Britain:
Jan:
Fenian bomb attack on Salford barracks, then in
March
on Mansion House

June:
London Anarchist Congress

18 June:
Trial of Johann Most, arrested March for celebrating tsar’s assassination; inaugural meeting of Henry Hyndman’s Social Democtratic Federation; Edward Carpenter proclaims as marking ‘a great new tide of human life’

Other European:
Pressure on Switzerland to act against political émigrés; Kropotkin expelled

United States:
2 July:
Assassination of President Garfield

Other:

Date: 1882

France:
Jan:
Crash of the Catholic Union Générale bank; Violent strikes and activities of the ‘Black Bands’ around Lyons

Oct:
Cyvoct imprisoned for life for the Bellecour bombing

Dec:
Arrest of Kropotkin, who had recently published
Memoirs of a Revolutionist

Russia:
May:
Sudeikin recruits Rachkovsky, following disbandment of Holy Brotherhood

Britain:
6 May:
Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin

Other European:

Spain:
The supposed activities of the ‘Mano Negra’ groups provoke savage repression

United States:

Other:
Malatesta back in Egypt to fight British

Date: 1883

France:
March:
Arrest of Louise Michel and Emile Pouget for inciting Paris bread riot; spate of writing, in France and elsewhere, concerned with degeneracy and decadence; Jules Ferry’s government begins policy of colonial expansion in South East Asia; young Melville as port watcher in France, dealing with Fenian provocateur Millen

Russia:
Arrest of 250 officers in Kronstadt garrison for People’s Will sympathies

December:
Murder of General Sudeikin by Degaev

Britain:
Fenian bombing campaign

March:
Death of Karl Marx

April:
Edward Carpenter sets up Millthorpe smallholding near Sheffield; publication in English of
Underground Russia
by Kravchinsky, now to be known as ‘Stepniak', who settles in London; William Morris and Edward Carpenter join Social Democratic Federation

Other European:
Anarchist bomb at Ganshoren, carried by Cyvoct

Switzerland:
Plekhanov and Zasulich create ’Emancipation of Labour’movement;

Spain:
hundreds arrested and tortured over alleged ‘Mano Negra’ conspiracy

United States:
Johann Most publishes
The God Pestilence

Other:

Date: 1884

France:
Rachkovsky arrives in Paris to hunt Degaev, subsequently takes over Okhrana bureau; Signac and Seurat meet and work together developing ‘post-Impressionist’ techniques

Russia:
Arrest of German Lopatin, elected leader of rump People’s Will following Vera Figner’s capture two years earlier

Britain:
Fenian bombing campaign; Morris leads 4,000 on commemorative march to grave of Marx; split in SDF, formation of Socialist League; Greenwich adopted as site of prime meridian; Reclus publishes
An Anarchist on Anarchy
in
London Contemporary Review

Other European:

Germany:
Attempt by Reinsdorf to blow up kaiser and government at Germania ceremony; Johann Neve’s network of activists uprooted; Pope Leo XIII issues encyclical
Humanum genus
urging a new inquisition against Freemasonry, socialism and anarchism

United States:
Pittsburgh meeting of American Federation of the Working People’s Association

Other:
Jan:
General Gordon’s expedition to subdue Egypt

Date: 1885

France:
May:
Death of Victor Hugo; Rachkovsky writes to French police chief of his plans to disrupt émigré revolutionaries;
Le Révolté
transfers from Switzerland to Paris, now the centre of anarchism

Russia:
Myshkin, outspoken at Trial of the 193, shot in Schlüsselburg for assaulting a warden; visit of Frey, meets Tolstoy

Britain:
Fenian bombing campaign

Sept:
Dod Street clashes between socialists and the police: Morris arrested; first edition of Socialist League’s
Commonweal
published

Other European:
Jan:
Police chief Rumpf assassinated in Frankfurt; International Congress of Criminal Anthropology; war between Serbia and self-declared Greater Bulgaria

United States:
Publication of Johann Most’s booklet
Revolutionary Warfare
; police captain Bonfield issues shoot-to-kill orders regarding streetcar strike amid mass unemployment, Chicago; Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor

Other:
Jan:
General Gordon trapped in Khartoum by Mahdi and killed; Malatesta travels to Argentina; prospects for gold in Patagonia

Date: 1886

France:
Release of Louise Michel and Peter Kropotkin from prison, the latter a cause of diplomatic confrontation with Russia; troops stationed at strike-bound Decazeville mines in Aveyron

March:
Gallo throws Prussic acid into the Paris Bourse; General Boulanger appointed minister for war in Freycinet’s cabinet