Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

From its first manifestations in the late 1880s, the phenomenon of reprise individuelle – “individual reclamation” – or the act of theft conceived as a “reappropriation” of wealth by individuals who have been “robbed” by the governing classes, took leftist intellectuals by surprise. Its practice always remained ahead of theory, and except for the brothers Reclus and sébastien Faure, anarchist intellectuals generally kept a distance from it. In October 1886 Clément Duval, a member of the gang La Panthère des Batignolles, was arrested and brought to trial for robbery. In his trial, Duval refused to assume the position of thief and argued in favor of the right to the restitution of property. The phenomenon gained more and more popularity in the next few years in France. Le Révolté initially maintained a critical attitude: Jean Grave argued that there was no real difference between thieves and the ruling class; both used the same method for the acquisition of money. But judging from the plethora of favorable articles and letters from his readers, Grave was soon forced to adopt a timid line on the question of theft. In numerous articles in the early 1890s he reluctantly supported the individual adepts of the reprise individuelle while trying to maintain subtly a distance from their acts. Other anarchist periodicals were not so restrained and were encouraging their readers to “pillage” ... log in or subscribe to read full text