Criticism
Advocacy of illegalism proved to be highly controversial and was contested within the anarchist milieu, particularly by those who favored anarcho-syndicalism over individual actions disconnected from the labor movement. Many socialists argued that illegalism replicated the mentality of capitalism and represented a turn towards nihilism.
Following his arrest for harbouring members of the Bonnot Gang, Victor Serge, once a forceful defender of illegalism became a sharp critic. In Memoirs of a Revolutionary, he describes illegalism as "a collective suicide". Similarly, Marius Jacob reflected in 1948, "I don't think that illegalism can free the individual in present-day society... Basically, illegalism, considered as an act of revolt, is more a matter of temperament than of doctrine."
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“A tailor can adapt to any medium, be it poetry, be it criticism. As a poet, he can mend, and with the scissors of criticism he can divide.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
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“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)