Note 5 — XVI. ANARCHISM A BUNDLE OF CONTRADICTIONS. Credo quia absurdum.

I say “supposed” advisedly, for there appear to be several “fathers” and disputations among Anarchists regarding the parentage of this political illegitimate are without end. Some cast the blame on Proudhon; others on Max Stirner; a third section makes Josiah Warren responsible; while yet others lay the crime at the door of Bakounine. Be this as it may, no one has yet disputed the right of Kropotkin to be called the “father” of that political monstrosity christened “Anarchist-Communism.” The editor of the Anarchist (April, 1888) has been good enough to tell how the brat first saw the light. This is what he says: “Before Bakounine died, Kropotkin once told me that he (Bakounine) said that some day somebody would solve the synthesis between Anarchism and Communism. Kropotkin, no doubt, desired to be the ‘somebody,’ and said to some others (if I remember aright, Reclus and Cafiero), ‘Let us do it now.’ And forthwith, Communism went into partnership with Anarchy, and, scientific-like—hey presto!—Communist-Anarchism was manufactured on the spot.”