The World That Never Was (6 page)

Oct:
Clément Duval, member of the Panthers of Batignolles, commits burglary in the name of anarchism; publication of Verne’s
Robur the Conqueror
and Drumont’s
La France Juive

Russia:
July:
Alexander Kropotkin shoots himself in Siberia, unable to face prospect of release from exile

Britain:
8 Feb:
Trafalgar Square riot ('Black Monday'); Kropotkin settles in England, in
Oct
founds
Justice
with Charlotte Wilson; tensions in the Socialist League between anarchists and Marxists and suspicion of police infiltration; Morris publishes
Pilgrims of Hope
; Henry James,
The Princess Casamassima;
Richard Jefferies,
After London

Other European:

Belgium:
May:
Commemoration of Commune results in a jacquerie

Nov:
Okhrana raid from France destroys Swiss printing presses of the People’s Will

United States:
McCormick strike in Chicago

4 May:
Haymarket bombing; Eleanor Marx speaks ‘brilliant words of fire’ to huge protest meeting in New York

Other:

Date: 1887

France:
Paris police estimate more than 150 revolutionary groups in the city; Boulanger posted to Clermont-Ferrand; fall of Grévy’s government owing to scandal of honours-selling by son-in-law; return of General Boulanger to Paris; bankruptcy of Panama Canal company, previously concealed by bribes; Rachkovsky persuades Lev Tikhomirov,
de facto
leader of People’s Will, to recant

Russia:
Failed attempt to assassinate tsar by Alexander Ulyanov (older brother of Lenin) and others; conspirators hanged in
May
; Kennan revisits the tsarist labour camps in Siberia for
Century
Magazine; Russian population grown by almost 50 per cent in previous twenty years

Britain:
Jan:
Hyndman publishes
A Commune for England

June:
Jubilee Plot against Queen Victoria foiled; questionable role of police provacateurs under Edward Jenkinson; Eleanor Marx withdraws from Socialist League in protest at anarchists

13 Nov:
Trafalgar Square riot ('Bloody Sunday')

Other European:

Germany:
April:
Schnaebele border affair threatens war with France, Bismarck already re-elected; Wilhelm II succeeds to German Imperial Throne;

Belgium:
Provocateur Pourbaix lures socialist leader Defuisseaux into conspiracy and destroys career; Léo Taxil, now fiercely anti-masonic, granted audience with Pope Leo XIII

United States:
11 Nov:
Execution of Haymarket Martyrs

Other:
Malatesta active in anarchist propaganda in Buenos Aires; Auguste Vaillant lured into ‘peon’ labour in Argentina by emigration agents

Date: 1888

France:
Jan:
Louise Michel shot while lecturing in Le Havre; Boulangism at its height

Russia:
De Cyon helps broker transfer of large part of Russian debt from Germany to France

Britain:
Bryant and May matchgirls’ strike;

Aug–Oct:
Jack the Ripper murders in London’s East End; publication of
TheTaking of Dover
, imagining a Franco-Russian invasion; Special Branch no longer specifically ‘Irish’

Other European:
Number of anarchist demonstrations in Belgium outnumber those of all other socialist groups; anarchist James Ensor paints
Christ’s Entry into Brussels

United States:
Publication of Edward Bellamy’s
Looking Backwards
, sells 200,000 copies; arrival of Russian immigrant Alexander Berkman

Other:

Date: 1889

France:
April:
Panama promoters provide slush fund for anti-Boulangist campaign: Boulanger forced into exile; Paris Exposition and centenary of French Revolution of 1789, Eiffel Tower; two concurrent socialist congresses in Paris plan for May Day 1890 and eight-hour-day demands

Nov
: Lecturing in Paris, Tarrida del Marmol demands ‘Anarchism without adjectives’

Russia:
April:
Yakutsk massacre of internal exiles; Kara Outrage; Volkhovsky escapes from Siberia; after an appeal to the tsar, Tikhomirov received back into Orthodox, conservative fold

Britain:
Publication of Charles Booth’s poverty maps of London

19 Aug:
London Dock strike; publication of Stepniak’s
Career of a Nihilist
;
Fabian Essays
; arrival of Rochefort; in flight from treason charges as a Boulangist, attacked by Communard; return of Malatesta from Argentina

Other European:

Switzerland:
Feb:
Bomb testing kills one radical, injures another

Belgium:
Trial of ‘Grand Complot’ reveals dynamite supplied by police; Publication of
La Revue Blanche

Italy:
First in a series of bank failures that La Civita Cattolica will blame on Jewish interests

United States:
Violent strikes in Colorado and American west

Other:

Date: 1890

France:
May Day passes off without predicted confrontations; troops posted to Paris

May:
Arrest and trial of mainly Russian conspirators in bomb plot organised by ‘Landesen’

Dec:
Assassination of Seliverstoff in Paris

Russia:
Rapprochement with England suggested by Salisbury; Lazarev escapes from Siberia; Chekhov visits penal colony on Sakhalin

Britain:
The Society of Friends of Russian Freedom founded and
Free Russia
first published; publication of Morris’
News from Nowhere
, Morris withdraws from
Commonweal
leaving it in anarchist hands

July:
Arrival of Louise Michel in London; Dr John Creagh, Auguste Coulon and Fred Charles in Sheffield, Carpenter absences

Oct
: Collapse of Barings Bank

Other European:
Burtsev in Bulgaria at time of bomb arrests in Paris; fall of Bismarck

United States:
Dec:
Stepniak begins a visit and lecture tour of several months

Other:
Dec:
Carpenter sails through Suez to Ceylon

Date: 1891

France:
Jan:
Rachkovsky and Minister of Interior Durnovo meet in Nice to discuss Okhrana strategy; Zo d’Axa founds
L’En Dehors
; doctrine of live according to instincts

May:
Violent clashes in Clichy and Fourmies; early macabre crimes by Ravachol; theft of explosives

Russia:
April:
Jews expelled from Moscow; in St Petersburg for Exposition, for which exhibits borrowed from 1889 Paris, Flourens has meeting with tsar, arranged by back channels

July:
Visit of French naval squadron to Kronstadt

Aug:
Secret letters of Franco-Russian agreement’ de Mohrenheim to St Petersburg to take credit; widespread famine, denied by authorities

Britain:
Delivery of Russian Memorandum to Lord Salisbury’s government

May:
Inspector Melville of Special Branch informs Italian authorities of Malatesta’s travel plans; Melville offers his services, unofficially, to the Okhrana; recruitment of Coulon as Special Branch informant, who instigates Walsall bomb conspiracy; Oscar Wilde expresses anarchist sympathies in
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
; anarchist friend of Oscar Wilde, Barlas, fires revolver at Houses of Parliament

Other European:

Switzerland:
Rachkovsky uses forged documents to disrupt Russian émigrés

Spain:
Malatesta on lecture tour, advised to avoid violence in Cadiz

Belgium:
Suicide of General Boulanger in Brussels

Italy:
Malatesta expelled

United States:
Evalenko aka Sergeyev sent to infiltrate Society of Friends of Russian Freedom

Other:
Most again imprisoned on Blackwell’s Island

Date: 1892

France:
Feb and March:
Bombings by Ravachol and others, Ravachol arrested at Café Véry

25 April:
Café Véry bombing by Meunier; Malatesta and Emile Henry dispute in print the validity of terror tactics;
L’En Dehors
speaks out against police conspiracy to talk up bomb risks

Sept:
Scandal of Panama Canal bribes in Drumont’s
Libre Parole

Nov:
Henry targets Carmaux Mining Company with bomb that explodes in police station; flees to London

Russia:
Sergei Witte becomes influential finance minister; as a young lawyer in Samara, among exiles, Lenin assimilates People’s Will ideas

Britain:
7 Jan:
Arrest of Walsall conspirators; influx of French and Italian anarchists swells the émigré colonies; Sûreté officials follow; Russian immigration to East End at high levels

6 May:
Trial of Nicoll and Mowbray on incitement charges, latter acquitted

July:
Inspector Houllier to London

Other European:

Spain:
Jan:
Insurrection in Jerez; four ringleaders executed

Belgium:
Rochefort visiting Ostende and duelling nearby; three days of bomb attacks in Liège

Switzerland:
Documents forged by Okhrana circulating, including one accusing Stepniak of selling out to England

Germany:
Cholera epidemic in Hamburg

United States:
March:
Documents forged by Okhrana circulating, including one accusing Stepniak of selling out to England

June:
Henry Clay Frick becomes chairman of Carnegie Steel Company; strike begins at Homestead steelworks, Pinkertons deployed

13 July:
Berkman wounds Frick in assassination attempt; Most horsewhipped by Goldman

Other:

Date: 1893

France:
July:
Riot follows Bal des Quat'z'Arts in Paris; election of government with ‘socialist’ representation; expropriations carried out by anarchists operating out of London, many arrested

12 Oct:
Russian fleet visits Toulon and sailors later received in Paris

12 Nov:
Leauthier stabs Serb ambassador

9 Dec:
Vaillant throws bomb into Chamber of Deputies;

12 Dec:
Enactment of the ‘Lois Scélérates’ the Wicked Laws

Russia:
Jan:
Russian commission of inquiry into Panama visits Paris and London; recruitment of Evno Azef into the Okhrana; secret military agreement signed with France

Britain:
Five Russian nihilists deported to Dover by the French authorities

April:
William Melville appointed head of Special Branch

Sept:
Strikes and riot at Featherstone; publication of Griffith’s
Angel of the
Revolution

Dec:
Publication of attacks on anarchists by ‘Z’ and ‘Ivanoff’

Other European:

Spain:
10 Feb:
garrotting of supposed Jerez ringleaders

Italy:
Peasant revolts in Sicily, anarchists active in Carrara marble quarries

Sept:
Attempted bomb assassination of Captain-General of Catalonia by Paulino Pallas