15 Rirette Maîtrejean, “Commissaire Guillaume, Ne réveillez pas les morts!,” in Confessions, 15, March 11, 1937, in Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 71.
16 Susan Weissman, Victor Serge: The Course Is Set on Hope (London, 2001), p. 17; Salmon, La Terreur noir, pp. 300–301. This came much later, as indicated by Victor’s suggestion such values could be found in Russia.
17 BA 1499, report of April 18 and August 28, 1913.
18 André Girard, Anarchistes et bandits (Paris: Publications des Temps Nouveaux, 1914), pp. 3–9.
19 La Société Nouvelle, August, 1913.
20 See, above all, George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, first published in 1938.
21 Anne Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise (Tulle, 2013), pp. 66–69, noting that Rirette was not consulted about the form that her memoirs would take in Le Matin; Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 81, which first appeared in the series in Le Matin.
22 Victor Serge, “Méditation sur l’anarchie,” Esprit, 55, April 1, 1937, p. 39; Victor Serge, Les hommes dans la prison. Preface by Richard Greeman (Paris, 2011), p. 10; Victor Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, 1901–1941, edited by Jean Rière (Paris, 1978), pp. 44, 56.
23 Victor Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, p. 50.
Chapter 21: The Violence of States; the Clouds of War
1 Paul B. Miller, From Revolutionaries to Citizens: Anti-Militarism in France, 1870–1914 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 161–167.
2 Victor Serge (Le Rétif), “La Guerre au service de la vie,” L’Anarchie, November 2, 1911, p. 130.
3 See Vivien Bouhey, Les anarchistes contre la République: Contribution à l’histoire des réseaux sous la Troisième République (1880–1914) (Rennes, 2008), especially pp. 363–439.
4 Eugen Weber, France Fin de Siècle (Cambridge, MA, 1986), p. 120.
5 Vivien Bouhey, Les anarchistes contre la République, pp. 425–428.
6 Miller, From Revolutionaries to Citizens, pp. 161–167.
7 L’Anarchie, October 11, 1911.
8 L’Anarchie, March 30 and October 10, 1911.
9 Hubert Juin, Le Livre de Paris 1900 (Paris, 1994), p. 52.
10 Charles Rearick, Pleasures of the Belle Epoque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn-of-the-Century France (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 208–213; Louis Chevalier, Montmartre du plaisir et du crime (Paris: Payot, 1995), pp. 295–297; Michel Winock, Les derniers feux de la Belle Époque (Paris, 2014), pp. 54–59; Mary McAuliffe, Twilight of the Belle Epoque: The Paris of Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Renault, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein, and Their Friends Through the Great War (New York, 2014), p. 206.
11 Michel Winock, Les derniers feux de la Belle Époque (Paris, 2014), pp. 16–19, 38–42.
12 David Schoenbaum, Zabern 1913: Consensus Politics in Imperial Germany (Boston, 1982); Stephen L. Harp, Michelin: Publicité et identité culturelle dans la France du XXe siècle (Baltimore, 2008), p. 14; Winock, Les derniers feux à la Belle Époque, pp. 38–39.
13 Victor Serge, Le Rétif, pp. 132–133, L’Anarchie, April 6 and November 2, 1911.
14 BA 1499; Miller, From Revolutionaries to Citizens, pp. 153–154; F7 13053, Le Libertaire, June 29, 1912; Mary McAuliffe, Twilight of the Belle Epoque, p. 212.
15 L’Anarchie, December 12, 1912, and January 9 and March 20, 1913.
16 Antoine Prost, Si nous vivions en 1913 (Paris, 1914), p. 123. James Cannon, The Paris Zone: A Cultural History, 1840–1944 (Farnham, UK, 2015), pp. 102–105; Miller, From Revolutionaries to Citizens, pp. 150–151; Vivien Bouhey, Les anarchistes contre la République, pp. 426–432. Miller writes, “Antimilitarism had not become the ‘self-standing’ ideology that its leaders hoped it would.… But it succeeded brilliantly as a rallying cry against social and political inequities on behalf of ordinary citizens” (p. 212).
17 Michel Winock, Les derniers feux de la Belle Époque (Paris, 2014), p. 278.
18 Mark S. Micale, “France,” in Michael Saler, ed., The Fin-de-Siècle World (New York, 2015), p. 103; Winock, Les derniers feux de la Belle Époque, p. 110; Marie-Claire Bancquart, Paris “Belle Époque” par ses écrivains (Paris, 1997), pp. 41–43.
19 Winock, Les derniers feux à la Belle Époque, pp. 166–168; Edward Berenson, The Trial of Madame Caillaux (Berkeley, 1992), pp. 1–2, 241.
20 Miller, From Revolutionaries to Citizens, p. 207; Chevalier, Montmartre du plaisir et du crime, pp. 294–295, “l’Europe tout entière entraînée vers la violence par le contraste entre l’écrasante richesse des uns et la misère des autres.”
21 Frédéric Lavignette, La bande à Bonnot à travers la presse de l’époque, p. 56, from L’Excelsior, May 5, 1912; F7 13053, “Mouvement anarchiste,” 1913.
22 Louis Chevalier, Montmartre du plaisir et du crime, p. 309.
23 Michel Winock, La Belle Époque (Paris, 2002), pp. 278–279; Bouhey, Les anarchistes contre la République, pp. 458–459; Jean-Jacques Becker, 1914: Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre. Paris: presses de la foundation nationale des sciences politiques (1977), pp. 190–192, 211, 338–339, 405–406, 574–575, 582–583.
24 Becker, 1914: Comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre, p. 588; Victor Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, 1901–1941, edited by Jean Rière (Paris, 1978), p. 56.
25 Winock, Les derniers feux de la Belle Époque (Paris, 2014), pp. 30–34; Stephen Romer, Times Literary Supplement, February 6, 2015.
26 In January 1915 (in an account not published until 1922 for reasons of censorship), Lorulot denounced the Socialists and the CGT for supporting the war by placing it in the context of national defense against an imperial, autocratic regime: “Allez, les brutes, laissez la bride à vos instincts.… La déclaration de guerre est officielle et dans les bars qui regorgent, l’absinthe coule à flots. Les faces alcoolisées suent la brutalité et la haine.… Á Berlin!… Ah! Les chauvins! Ils triomphent! Qui oserait leur résister? La rue est à eux.” André Lorulot, Le crime de 1914 (Paris: Éditions de la Revue L’Idée Libre, 1922), pp. 5, 9, 15, 22, 25.
27 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York, 1977), p. 29.
Chapter 22: Aftermath
1 Victor Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, 1901–1941, edited by Jean Rière (Paris, 1978), pp. 52–54; Luc Nemeth, “Victor Serge, marqué, par son passé,” in Rirette Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie (Quimperlé, 2005), p. 103.
2 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 94.
3 Anne Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise (Tulle, 2013), pp. 72–73.
4 Serge, Mémoires d’un révolutionnaire, pp. 57–58; J(ean) Maitron, “De Kibaltchiche à Victor Serge. Le Rétif (1909–1919),” Mouvement social, 47, avril–juin 1964, p. 58, including letter of February 16.
5 Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 73–74.
6 J(ean) Maitron, “De Kibaltchiche à Victor Serge. Le Rétif (1909–1919),” Mouvement social, 47, avril–juin 1964, pp. 62–63, letters of March 3, March 28, and April 13, 1917. As for the memoirs, “J’y suis étranger. J’y reste étranger.”
7 Luc Nemeth, “Victor Serge, marqué, par son passé,” in Rirette Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 104; Victor Serge, Le Rétif, p. 14; J(ean) Maitron, “De Kibaltchiche à Victor Serge. Le Rétif (1909–1919),” Mouvement social, 47, avril–juin 1964, p. 56; Steiner, Les En-dehors, p. 185; J(ean) Maitron, “De Kibaltchiche à Victor Serge. Le Rétif (1909–1919),” Mouvement social, 47, avril–juin 1964, pp. 45–80. While responding to reproaches on his attitude during his time in Barcelona, Victor corresponded with Émile Armand over the criticism that had come his way from Lorulot over Victor’s attitude toward illegalists during the trial. The latter had severely criticized his denunciation of illegalists. Raymond now insisted “que j’étais écoeuré de voir nos idées, si belles et si riches, aboutir à tel gaspillage crapuleux de jeunes forces dans la boue et le sang” and that he had asked to be judged not on what others did “mais pour mes propres actes et mes propres idées”; (J(ean) Maitron,
“De Kibaltchiche à Victor Serge. Le Rétif (1909–1919),” Mouvement social, 47, avril–juin 1964, p. 61, letter of March 28, 1917.
8 Victor Serge, “Méditation sur l’anarchie,” Esprit 55, April 1, 1937, p. 41.
9 Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 95; Richard Greeman, “The Novel of the Revolution,” in Susan Weissman, ed., The Ideas of Victor Serge: A Life as a Work of Art (Critique Books, 1997), p. 49. He would write in his memoirs, “Poets and novelists are not political beings because they are not essentially rational. Political intelligence, based though it is in the revolutionary’s case upon a deep idealism, demands a scientific and pragmatic armour, and subordinates itself to the pursuit of strictly defined social ends” (p. 63, from Greeman).
10 J(ean) Maitron, “De Kibaltchiche à Victor Serge. Le Rétif (1909–1919),” Mouvement social, 47, avril–juin 1964, pp. 56–57 and 73, the latter letter of May 6, 1917, in which he wrote “Je suis, en effet, beaucoup moins distant que toi des rév[olutionnaires’] et des comm[unistes] (quoique je m’abstienne absolument de poser la question soc[iété] future). Mais individualiste dans le sense liber[aire], éclectique, éducation[niste]—et surtout subjectif du moi.”
11 Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 187–193; Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 74–78, who suggests this interpretation.
12 Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 77–78; Steiner, Les En-dehors, pp. 193–194.
13 Nemeth, “Victor Serge, marqué, par son passé,” p. 105.
14 EA 141 L’Aurore, June 17, 1968.
15 Susan Weissman, ed., Victor Serge: The Course Is Set on Hope (London: Verso, 2001), p. 15.
16 Victor expressed such views in a 1921 pamphlet: “The anarchists and the experience of the Russian Revolution.”
17 Victor Serge, Les Hommes dans la prison (2011). Preface by Richard Greeman, pp. 22–23; “On the Leninist Tradition,” in Susan Weissman, ed., Victor Serge: The Course Is Set on Hope, pp. 136–159; Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 122–124. Victor refused to accept—from a Leninist perspective—the justifications put forward by Bolshevik leaders following the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion (pp. 144–147). While opposing the repression as reflecting authoritarian tendencies within the Party, unlike anarchists and left-wing Socialist Revolutionaries, he did not accept the rebellion as “the harbinger of a necessary or new third revolution against the Party.” Victor believed that the only alternative to Bolshevism at the time was the unthinkable horror of the White counter-revolution and inevitable military dictatorship (p. 159); Victor Serge, “Thirty Years after the Russian Revolution,” in Susan Weissman, ed., Victor Serge, The Course Is Set on Hope (London: Verso, 2001), p. 240. Serge remained impressed by the spontaneous nature of the February Revolution and remained convinced that the Bolsheviks in 1917 “had shown themselves to be the best equipped to express the aspirations of the masses in a coherent, clearsighted and determined fashion” (p. 242).
18 Victor Serge, Les hommes dans la prison. Preface by Richard Greeman (Paris, 2011), pp. 24, 42; Rachel Polonsky, “Review: Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary,” Times Literary Supplement, June 14, 2013.
19 Victor Serge, Les hommes dans la prison. Preface by Richard Greeman (Paris, 2011), pp. 12–13, 17, 117.
20 Polonsky, “Review: Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary.”
21 Cahier Henry Poulaille, Hommage à Victor Serge (1890–1947) pour le centenaire de sa naissance (Paris: Éditions Plein Chant, mars 1991, nos. 4 et 5), Présentation par Jean Rière, p. 135. The letter was sent to Henry Poulaille, the anarchist writer in Paris. In May 1939, Victor signed a contract for a history of anarchism, but this was never written. Victor’s journal appeared in a monthly review of Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Temps Modernes, June and July of 1949 (77W 4255-487-689, report of June 13, 1950).
22 77W 4255-487-689, report of June 13, 1950.
23 Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 81–83, 124–125; Caruchet, Ils ont tué Bonnot, pp. 198–199. Vlady became an influential artist and lived in Mexico until his death in 2005.
24 Nemeth, “Victor Serge, marqué, par son passé,” in Maîtrejean, Souvenirs d’anarchie, p. 108; Victor Serge, Le Rétif, p. 14; “On the Leninist Tradition,” p. 158; Guy Desolre, “On Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International,” in Susan Weissman, ed., pp. 171, 182; Polonsky, “Review: Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary.”
25 Richard Greeman, “The Novel of the Revolution,” p. 67; Victor Serge, “Thirty Years after the Russian Revolution,” p. 253; 77W 4255-487-689, report of June 13, 1950; Polonsky, “Review: Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary.”
26 Greeman, pp. 32–33.
27 Victor Serge, “Thirty Years after the Revolution,” p. 258.
28 I still find him that. Paul Gordon, Vagabond Witness: Victor Serge and the Politics of Hope (Washington, DC, 2013), p. 102. Gordon offers a particularly moving account.
29 Nemeth, “On Anarchism,” p. 130. Victor assisted anarchists in the Soviet Union during the early 1930s. Although in 1927 Rirette received a letter from Victor: “Madame, je ne puis que vous confirmer ce que vous savez. Je suis fixé en U.R.S.S. où ma vie s’est refaite. Il vous appartient désormais de déduire de ces faits toutes les conséquences légales et morales.”
30 Steiner, Rirette l’insoumise, pp. 83–85; Caruchet, Ils ont tué Bonnot, pp. 201–202. Her daughters both married and moved to Pré-Saint-Gervais, where some of the first logements sociaux had been constructed. When Maud and her husband moved to Spain in 1936, Rirette moved into their apartment.
31 EA 141 L’Aurore, June 17, 1968. Ironically, Rirette passed away in the hospice right across the street from where, in the late 1880s and early 1890s, Émile Henry’s mother had run a little bar and restaurant.
32 The film La Bande à Bonnot, directed by Philippe Fourastié, has Bonnot killing Jouin above Dubois’s garage, not in Ivry-sur-Seine, and has Bonnot dying at the siege in Nogent-sur-Marne, just after Garnier is shot dead after raising the black flag of anarchism on the roof of the “villa.” The Thiais murders are not depicted, nor was René Valet. In the film, Jules Bonnot comes out as more of an anarchist than he probably was in reality. Victor is a minor presence, and Rirette was virtually absent. The film ends with the siege in Nogent-sur-Marne.
33 Near the Société Génerale
An auto starts up and in the terror,
The Bonnot Gang puts up its sails,
Carrying away the sack of the courier
In the Dion-Bouton which hides the thieves.
Octave counts the big bills and the securities
With Raymond-la-Science and the bandits in the auto
It’s the Bonnot Gang.…
Dassin’s song makes the gang seem like circus characters.
34 Florenci Clavé, La bande à Bonnot (Grenoble, 1978), paying particular attention to Bonnot’s time with Judith Thollon and to the ultimate plight of Dieudonné, ending with (p. 48) “Mais alors, qui était ‘le quatrième homme’ des ‘bandits en auto’?”
35 EA 141, Albert Philiponet from Poissy, September 8–9, 1973; December 8, 1972.
36 Victor Méric, Les bandits tragiques, pp. 112–113, 122–123.
INDEX
Italicized numbers indicate photographs or illustrations.
Action Française, 143, 152, 165, 225
Alexander II, assassination of, 19–20
Alsace!, 250
anarchism
abolition of the state and, 54–55
Bonnot Gang prosecutor’s definition of, 232
discredited in France, 244
emergence of, 53–54
liberty and, 64
pre-World War I era police view of, 249
working-class life and, 46
See also anarchists
anarchist communities, 30
See also Romainville
anarchist press, 56, 61
See also names of specific anarchist newspapers and writers
anarchist songs, 67
anarchists
communist, 57, 58, 61, 70, 73, 243
divisions among, 56
French worker grievances and, 18
illegalists, 57, 59–60, 61, 66, 71, 84, 85, 90, 98, 196
individualists, 57–59, 61, 66–67, 70, 196, 243
influences of, 55
police crackdown/roundup, 143–144, 179, 196
scientific, 71, 84
scientific theories and, 61
sharing of material things among, 66
Three Year Law and, 251–252
trade unions and, 55
traditional, 59
war and, 247–256
See also names of specific anarchists; anarchism
anarcho-syndicalists, 196
apaches, 172–173, 174
bands of, 172
Apollinaire, Guillaume, 13, 255
Zone, 44
Arfeux, Louis, 128
Armand, Émile, 71, 258
Art Nouveau, 11
artists, Paris avant-garde, 10, 35–36
Association Internationale Antimilitariste, 248
Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits Page 33