Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin

In 1886 the socialist movement in England was in full swing. Large bodies of workers had openly joined it in all the principal towns, as well as a number of middle-class people, chiefly young, who helped it in different ways. An acute industrial crisis prevailed that year in most trades, and every morning, and often all the day long, I heard groups of workers going about in the streets singing "We've got no work to do," or some hymn, and begging for bread. People flocked at night into Trafalgar Square, to sleep there in the open air, in the wind and in the rain, between two newspapers; and one day in February a crowd, after having listened to the speeches of Burns, Hyndman, and Champion, rushed into Piccadilly and broke a few windows in the great shops. Far more important, however, than this outbreak of discontent was the spirit which prevailed amongst the poorer portion of the working population in the outskirts of London. It was such that if the leaders of the movement, who were prosecuted for the riots, had received severe sentences, a spirit of hatred and revenge, hitherto unknown in the recent history of the labor movement in England, but the symptoms of which were very well marked in 1886, would have been developed, and would have impressed its stamp upon the subsequent movement for a long time to come. However, the middle classes seemed to have realized the danger. Considerable sums of money were immediately subscribed in the West End for the relief of misery in the East End -- certainly quite inadequate to relieve a widely spread destitution, but sufficient to show, at least, good intentions. As to the sentences which were passed upon the prosecuted leaders, they were limited to two or three months' imprisonment.

The amount of interest in socialism and all sorts of schemes of reform and reconstruction of society was very great among all classes of people. Beginning with the autumn and throughout all the winter I was asked to lecture all over the country, partly on prisons but mainly on anarchist socialism, and I visited in this way nearly every large town of England and Scotland. As a rule I accepted the first invitation I received for entertainment on the night of the lecture, and consequently it happened that I stayed one night in a rich man's mansion, and the next in the narrow quarters of a working family. Every night I saw considerable numbers of people of all classes; and whether it was in the worker's small parlor, or in the reception-room of the wealthy, the most animated discussions went on about socialism and anarchism till a late hour -- with hope in the workman's house, with apprehension in the mansion, but everywhere with the same earnestness.