New Addition: 1848 Anti-Anarchist Cartoons from Charivari

Although the satirical magazine Charivari (see other issues held by the Revenant Archive) was a major force in the anti-Monarchist opposition, it stopped short of endorsing the most radical political positions held by Anarchist, Communist and other extreme socialist activists. Though its efforts were focused against the Orleans monarchy until the revolution of 1848, during the short-lived Second Republic its barbs were thrown both right and left, against ideologies which were receiving wide-spread consideration for the first time––a state of affairs which would soon end with the totalitarian coup d'état of Napoleon III in 1851. These lithographs, issued by the journal in a series of anti-anarchist cartoons, give a rare glimpse into Anarchist activism in Paris during this volatile time, spearheaded by the movement's principal theorist and promoter, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

Cham, [Anarchist Bookshop] Études Sociales. 1848. Lithograph. Bureau de Charivari: Paris. Printed by Aubert & Co. 8.75" x 10.75".

This must be one of the earliest depictions of an Anarchist Bookshop––produced within months of the 1848 Revolution, before which such subversive literature was quite dangerous to circulate in France, and only eight years after Pierre-Joseph Proudhon became the first self-proclaimed  "anarchist." It is a simple stand selling various tracts about anarchist economics and politics, its signage reading: PROUDHON REPAIR [misspelled] OF ALL KINDS RESTORED THE OLD TO NEW. The proprietor is clearly a cobbler by trade, and, we are meant to infer, semi-literate––an insult to Anarchism's working-class adherents, many of whom were self-taught. The customer, on the other hand, is an eighteenth-century aristocrat, possibly a parody of the movement's more intellectual supporters. The caption reads: "Reassembly, repair and re-soling of old political, financial and social systems."

Cham, [Proudhon the New God] Études Sociales. 1848. Lithograph. Bureau de Charivari: Paris. Printed by Aubert & Co. 8.75" x 10.75".

 

This print shows that, for a brief moment between the Revolution of 1848 and the Bourgeois Liberal crackdown on proletarian radicalism in the following year, Anarchism enjoyed a certain degree of popular support. As mother and child look upon an effigy of the anarchist polemicist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, they hold the following dialogue:

"Hey, son, there is the new god!..."
"Mom, is he the one who will pull us out of chaos?..."
"No, he is the one who wants to plunge us back in!..."