Southern France. Indeed it became the cradle of the
"Anarchism of action" generally. "The Jura Federation,"[2] wrote
Kropotkin, "has played a most important part in the development of the
revolutionary idea. If, in speaking of Anarchy to-day, we can say that
there are three thousand Anarchists in Lyons, and five thousand in the
valley of the Rhone, and several thousands in the South, that is the
work mainly of the Jura Federation. Indeed I must ask, How was this
possible? Is Anarchy in Europe only ten years old? Of course the
_Zeitgeist_ has carried us along with it; but this was first openly
manifest in a group, the Jura Federation, which thus must gain credit
for it." The Jurassic Union was in fact the Anarchist party. The head
and soul of this union was the Bakuninist, Paul Brousse, a zealous and
reckless Anarchist and clever journalist, who in his paper
_Avantgarde_ was one of the first to preach the "propaganda of
action." In December, 1878, this paper was suppressed by the Swiss
Government because it had approved the attempts of Hoedel and Nobeling.
Brousse himself was arrested and condemned to two months' imprisonment
and ten years' banishment, but after undergoing his imprisonment he
completely gave up Anarchism. Kropotkin, who had already helped him
with the _Avantgarde_, took his place, and founded in Geneva the
_Revolte_, directing with a feverish activity the work originally
begun by Bakunin into new channels, and afterwards doing so from
London.

[2] _Revolte_, July 8, 1862.

In the year 1876 the French Anarchists at the congress at Lausanne had
finally separated themselves from every party, by declaring the
Parisian Commune to be only another form of government by authority.
The congress of 1878 at Freiburg was of similar importance. Elisee
Reclus moved for the appointment of a commission, which was to
answer the following questions: (1) "Why we are revolutionaries";
(2) "Why we are Anarchists"; (3) "Why we are Collectivists." "We are
revolutionaries," said Reclus, "because we desire justice. Progress
has never been marked by mere peaceful development; it has always been
called forth by a sudden resolution. We are Anarchists, and as such
recognise no master. Morality resides only in freedom. We are
international Collectivists, because we perceive that an existence
without social grouping is impossible." The Congress accepted Reclus's
motion, and decided (1) in favour of the general appropriation of