Illegalism is a tendency within anarchism that emerged in certain parts of Europe, especially Italy and France, in the last decades of the 19th century. Closely linked to and dependent on individualist anarchism, it encompasses anarchists who aim to carry out their struggle through criminal acts using the idea of individual reclamation. This concept is the idea that since capitalists would steal from the people, it would be legitimate to steal back from capitalists. Illegalists are generally characterized by their strong commitment to this principle of individual reclamation.
Historically, illegalism appeared in the 1870s and 1880s following the actions of, among others, Clément Duval, Vittorio Pini, the Intransigents of London and Paris group, and other organizations. Notable illegalists include Ravachol, who launched the anarchist attacks of 1892-1894, and Marius Jacob with his Travailleurs de la Nuit ('Workers of the Night') group, who inspired Arsène Lupin and industrialized burglary. The Bonnot Gang, comprising members like Jules Bonnot and Rirette Maîtrejean, was a particularly influential illegalist organization in the emergence of modern banditry. Sociologically, illegalists were generally of peasant or working-class origin, and their organizations often included a significant number of women.
While some anarchists viewed illegalism as a legitimate movement, others, such as Saverio Merlino and Jean Grave, severely criticized illegalists. They saw these practices as selfish and useless, arguing that local and individual revolutions could not lead to a global one. They presented illegalism as a deviation from an orthodox anarchist dogma. These perspectives were shared by some 20th-century historiography of the anarchist movement, for example by Jean Maitron, before being re-examined and critiqued by more recent historians like Gaetano Manfredonia.
General aspects
Ideological stances and practices Illegalists emerged at roughly the same time as, and were generally similar or very closely linked to, European individualist anarchists of the same period. While not all individualist anarchists were illegalists, illegalists were generally individualist anarchists, though over time, non-anarchist criminals also joined the illegalist movement. As such, illegalists shared many tenets of European individualist anarchism. These included a critique of the focus on the working class, trade unions (including anarcho-syndicalism), and the belief that revolution should be sought and provoked immediately rather than waiting for a large revolutionary movement.
In this context, illegalists defined themselves primarily by their use of criminal methods, such as theft, to wage their revolutionary struggle. Individual reclamation, a practice they developed, involved stealing from bourgeois targets to use the stolen money for survival or to redistribute it to the people or anarchist organizations. Like other anarchists, illegalists were not opposed to rules but viewed state laws as an expression of class justice that largely favored the bourgeoisie—the very class that created these laws. Michel Antoine, a French illegalist, summarized this particular focus on refusing the law in some of his quotes:One must live as broadly as possible, as freely, as intensely as possible and by all means [...] The anarchist does not have to take the law into account. He despises it in principle; he disapproves of it in its exercise and he fights it in its effects.Illegalists were generally strong supporters of propaganda of the deed as a method of struggle. Furthermore, in addition to theft, burglaries, and squatting practices, illegalists sometimes adopted more ironic methods intended to shock the society they lived in. A number of them were thus convicted for 'offense against public morals'.
Summarizing their modes of action, one can say they engaged in theft (individual reclamation), counterfeiting, and also 'déménagements à la cloche de bois'—the practice of moving out without notifying the landlord. This last point, carried out by groups like the Pieds plats or the Ligue antipropriétaire ('Anti-Landlord League'), is considered an ancestor of the more recent practice of squatting by historian Cécile Péchu in her monograph on the subject.
To summarize illegalism, historian Jean-Marc Delpech speaks of a "class struggle envisioned in an individual relationship between the proletarianized dominated and the property-owning dominant".
Sociology of illegalists Sociologically, illegalists were generally the children of peasants or laborers, representing the first generation to experience compulsory education in the French Republic. However, they often had to leave their studies early to work and support their families. Another characteristic feature of illegalist and individualist circles was the significant presence of women in comparison to the rest of civil society of the time.
History
Context In the 19th century, anarchism emerged and developed in Europe before spreading globally. Anarchists advocated for the struggle against all perceived forms of unjust domination, including economic domination with the rise of capitalism. They were particularly opposed to the state, viewed as the institution that legitimized these dominations through its police, military, and propaganda.
However, despite the apparent openness of the anarchist movement, it remained very closed to the social claims of certain classes, such as criminals. Being a criminal could even result in exclusion from the anarchist movement. For instance, after Pierre Martinet, an anarchist with a criminal record, attended the trial of one of his companions to defend him, he was excluded by the prosecutor who found it "unworthy" to allow him to speak as a witness. Anarchist groups echoed the prosecutor's accusation and forbade Martinet from speaking on behalf of the anarchist movement. This view was based on the idea that being a criminal was immoral and that a criminal anarchist lacked virtue compared to their non-criminal comrades.
A similar situation occurred when Clément Duval joined the movement. He had to conceal his prior criminal convictions for fear of being excluded from the groups he joined.
Duval, Pini, and birth of illegalism During his trial, Duval was the first to theorize individual reclamation, which he, like Vittorio Pini shortly after, justified for four main reasons: it would directly resolve economic inequalities through force, terrorize the bourgeoisie, pedagogically convey anarchist ideas on property, and finally, prepare and incite the population to rise up to lead the Revolution. Duval was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment; he escaped on his eighteenth attempt in 1901.
Shortly after the Duval affair, the Italian illegalist militant Vittorio Pini, founder of the Intransigeants of London and Paris, one of the earliest illegalist groups, was arrested at his home following the discovery of significant burglary equipment. Placide Schouppe, one of his companions, was also arrested, and both were sent to a penal colony for life. Pini defended the same points as Duval during his trial, which generally leads him to be considered another founder of illegalism.
The trials of Duval and Pini marked a growing rift among anarchists in France. Older figures in the movement, such as Jean Grave, editor-in-chief of Le Révolté, categorically refused to consider illegalism legitimate. Grave's stance was then deemed authoritarian and erroneous by a significant number of grassroots militants, a fact noted by a police informant who wrote on the matter:"There are many complaints about Grave and Méreau, the manager."Louise Michel followed the case closely. This issue divided socialists like Jules Guesde and anarchists. While Guesde published writings criticizing Duval and his methods, Michel defended him, marking an even more complete commitment to anarchism. Séverine adopted a hesitant position toward Duval; while she regarded him with sympathy, she remained more distant than Michel.
First gangs and groups
Contrary to some hypotheses that viewed illegalists primarily as individual militants, numerous illegalist gangs emerged in France and other parts of Western Europe during the 1880s and 1890s. These illegalist militants organized across borders to sell stolen goods or evade the police.
One such group was the Ortiz Gang, named after Léon Ortiz, and including other militants like Antoinette Cazal or the Italians Maria Zanini, Orsini Bertani or Paolo Chiericotti and his wife, Annette Soubrier. Ortiz, influenced by his encounters with Pini and the Intransigeants of London and Paris, began organizing with Placide Schouppe during the Ère des attentats and other anarchists, forming this gang with them. Operating between Paris, Barcelona, London, Brussels, and Perpignan, Ortiz and his associates managed to evade the French police for some time. Between December 1892 and January 1893, he reconnected with Émile Henry, his friend and another illegalist and individualist—the two participated in burglaries together in northern France.
The Spannagel gang was another illegalist group of the early 1890s, formed around Émile Spannagel and linked with various people, including Louis Léveillé or Louis Galau and most of his seven children. Their group was also directly involved in the counterfeiting of money with the stolen jewelry that was melted down. Another one was the Rue des Abbesses gang, formed around the Adnet sisters, Clotilde and Jeanne, which was involved in counterfeiting operations.
A good number of the Ortiz Gang members were arrested in early 1894 during a police raid on their hideout. They were subsequently put on trial during the Trial of the Thirty, a political trial aimed at condemning the main anarchists in France, to which the authorities added the members of the Ortiz Gang. Contrary to expectations, the jurors acquitted all the accused, with the exception of Ortiz, who received the harshest sentence (15 years of deportation to penal servitude), and the members of his gang. According to Jean Grave, who was himself acquitted during this trial, the gang members had argued among themselves, trying to shift the blame for the burglaries onto former friends, some of whom even testified against them. Ortiz denied everything, declared that theft was a legitimate revolutionary weapon, and was convicted. This conviction was made possible by the fact that his actions were not considered anarchist by the French authorities, who, in the lois scélérates ('villainous laws'), a series of laws targeting the anarchist movement, established a distinction between 'ideologists' and 'propagandists,' with the latter being much more severely punished—like Ortiz.
Marius Jacob and the 'industrialization' of individual reclamation
From the latter half of the 1890s, illegalist practices spread and became more refined. Individual reclamation notably took on a new scope through the actions of Marius Jacob, a very well-known illegalist of the period. In 1899, he committed a spectacular robbery where, disguised as a police officer with three companions, he arrested a police commissionaire for corruption and relieved the police of their belongings, without them realizing it until it was too late. With his group, the Travailleurs de la Nuit ('Workers of the Night'), founded in 1900, Jacob, who later inspired the character of Arsène Lupin, embarked on a significant, almost industrial, series of burglaries and thefts. Delpech even dares to speak of the "Taylorization" of robbery and burglary, as this group engaged in dozens of burglaries within a very short timeframe.