Modern Science and Anarchism/Chapter 14
XIV.
THE MEANS OF ACTION.
It is self-evident that if the Anarchists differ so much in their methods of investigation and in their fundamental principles, both from the academic men of science and from their Social Democratic colleagues, they must equally differ from them in their means of action.
Holding the opinions we do about Law and the State, we evidently cannot see a source of Progress, and still less an approach to the required social changes, in an ever-growing submission of the individual to the State.
We cannot either go on saying, as superficial critics of present society often say when they require the State management of industries, that modern Capitalism has its origin in an "anarchy of production" due to the "non-intervention of the State" and to the Liberal doctrine of "let things alone" (laissez faire, laissez passer). This would amount to saying that the State has practised this doctrine, while in reality it never has practised it. We know, on the contrary, that while all Governments have given the capitalists and monopolists full liberty to enrich themselves with the underpaid labour of working men reduced to misery, they have never, nowhere given the working men the liberty of opposing that exploitation. Never has any Government applied the "leave things alone" principle to the exploited masses. It reserved it for the exploiters only.
In France, even under the terrible "revolutionary" (i.e., Jacobinist) Convention, strikes were treated as a "coalition"—as "a conspiracy to form a State within the State"—and punished with death. So we need not speak after that of the anti-Labour legislation of the Napoleonic Empire, the monarchic Restoration, or even the present middle-class Republic.
In England, working men were hanged for striking, under the pretext of "intimidation," as late as in 1813; and in 1834 working men were transported to Australia for having dared to found, with Robert Owen, a "National Trades' Union." In the "sixties" strikers were sent to hard labour for picketing, under the pretext of thus defending "freedom of labour"; and not further back than 1903, as a result of the Taff Vale decision, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants had to pay £26,000 to a railway company for having declared a strike.
Need we speak after that of France, where the right of constituting Labour Unions and peasant Syndicates was obtained only in 1884, after the Anarchist agitation which broke out at Lyons and among the miners in 1883; or of Switzerland, where strikers were shot at Airolo during the boring of the St. Gothard tunnel; to say nothing of Germany, Spain, Russia, and the United States, where State intervention in favour of capitalist misrule was still worse?
On the other side, we have only to remember how every State reduces the peasants and the industrial workers to a life of misery, by means of taxes, and through the monopolies it creates in favour of the landlords, the cotton lords, the railway magnates, the publicans, and the like. We have only to think how the communal possession of the land was destroyed in this country by Enclosure Acts, or how at this very moment it is destroyed in Russia, in order to supply "hands" to the landlords and the great factories.
And we need only to look round, to see how everywhere in Europe and America the States are constituting monopolies in favour of capitalists at home, and still more in conquered lands, such as Egypt, Tonkin, the Transvaal, and so on.
What, then, is the use of talking, with Marx about the "primitive accumulation"—as if this "push" given to capitalists were a thing of the past? In reality, new monopolies have been granted every year till now by the Parliaments of all nations to railway, tramway, gas, water, and maritime transport companies, schools, institutions, and so on. The State's "push" is, and has ever been, the first foundation of all great capitalist fortunes.
In short, nowhere has the system of "non-intervention of the State" ever existed. Everywhere the State has been, and still is the main pillar and the creator, direct and indirect, of Capitalism and its powers over the masses. Nowhere, since States have grown up, have the masses had the freedom of resisting the oppression by capitalists. The few rights they have now they have gained only by determination and endless sacrifice.
To speak therefore of "non-intervention of the State" may be all right for middle-class economists, who try to persuade the workers that their misery is "a law of Nature." But—how can Socialists use such language? The State has always interfered in the economic life in favour of the capitalist exploiter. It has always granted him protection in robbery, given aid and support for further enrichment. And it could not be otherwise. To do so was one of the functions—the chief mission—of the State.
The State was established for the precise purpose of imposing the rule of the landowners, the employers of industry, the warrior class, and the clergy upon the peasants on the land and the artisans in the city. And the rich perfectly well know that if the machinery of the State ceased to protect them, their power over the labouring classes would be gone immediately.
Socialism, we have said—whatever form it may take in its evolution towards Communism—must find its own form of political organisation. Serfdom and Absolute Monarchy have always marched hand-in-hand. The one rendered the other a necessity. The same is true of Capitalist rule, whose political form is Representative Government, either in a Republic or in a Monarchy. This is why Socialism cannot utilise Representative Government as a weapon for liberating Labour, just as it cannot utilise the Church and its theory of divine right, or Imperialism and Caesarism, with its theory of hierarchy of functionaries, for the same purpose.
A new form of political organisation has to be worked out the moment that Socialist principles shall enter into our life. And it is self-evident that this new form will have to be more popular, more decentralised, and nearer to the folk-mote self-government than representative government can ever be.
This is also the tendency which begins to prevail in the conception of men, the moment they free themselves from the prejudice of authority. If we carefully observe life in this country, in France, and in the States, we see, indeed, a decided tendency towards constituting independent communes, municipal and rural, associations, societies, federations, etc., assuming wide social and economic functions, and connected with each other by free agreement, independent of State intervention. Of course, it is not the German Emperor, or the English Imperialists, or even the Swiss Jacobin Radicals who pursue such aims. These people have their eyes turned backwards. But there is a progressive fraction of society, chiefly among the working men, both in Europe and America, who work hard to create such new channels of common life and work, independent of and quite outside the State.
Knowing all this, we obviously cannot see an element of Progress in an ever-increasing submission to the State. On the contrary, we represent ourselves a forward movement of society as an approach to the abolition of all the authority of Government, as a development of free agreement for all that formerly was a function of Church and State, and as a development of free initiative in every individual and every group. And these are the tendencies which determine the tactics of the Anarchists in the life of both the individual and our circles.
Finally, being a revolutionary party, what we study in history is chiefly the genesis and the gradual development of previous revolutions. In these studies we try to free history from the State interpretation which has been given to it by State historians. We try to reconstitute in it the true role of the people, the advantages it obtained from a revolution, the ideas it launched into circulation, and the faults of tactics it committed.
Studying the beginnings of a revolution, we are not yet satisfied when we have read how miserable were the masses before the revolution. We want to know: how did they pass from their condition of inactivity and despair to their revolutionary activity? how did they wake up? what did they do after the awakening?
We understand, for instance, the Great French Revolution quite differently from a Louis Blanc, who saw in it a political movement directed by the Jacobinist Club. We see in it a great popular movement, which took place especially in the villages, among the peasants, for the abolition of feudal servitude and the return to the villages of the lands seized since 1669 in virtue of Enclosure Acts; and in the towns—for getting rid of the misery of the town proletariate by means of a national organisation of exchange and socialisation of production. (See my "Great French Revolution.")
We study the movement towards Communism which began to develop amongst the poorest part of the population in 1793–94, and the admirable forms of voluntary popular organisation for a variety of functions, economic and political, that they worked out in the "Sections" of the great cities and some of the small municipalities. On the other side, we carefully study the growth of the power of the middle classes, who worked with energy and knowledge at constituting their own authority, in lieu of the broken authority of the King and his camarilla. We see how they laboured to build up a powerful centralised State, and thus to consolidate the property they acquired during or through the Revolution, as well as their full right to enrich themselves with the underpaid work of the poorer classes. We study the development and the struggle of these two powers, and try to find out why the latter gained the upper hand over the former.
And then we see how the centralised State, created by the Jacobinist middle classes, prepared the way for the autocratic Empire of Napoleon I. We see how, half a century later, Napoleon III. found in the dreams of those who meant to create a centralised Republic the necessary elements for his Second Empire. And we understand how this centralised authority, which for seventy years in succession killed in France every local effort and every personal effort made outside the State hierarchy, remains till now the curse of the country. The first effort to be free from it was only made in 1871 by the Paris Communalist proletarians.
It is thus seen how in this domain, too, our comprehension of history and the conclusions we draw therefrom are quite different from the comprehension and the historical conclusions of both the middle-class and the Socialist political parties.
Without entering here into an analysis of the different revolutionary movements, it is sufficient to say that our conception of the coming social revolution is quite different from that of a Jacobin dictatorship, or the transformation of social institutions effected by a Convention, a Parliament, or a dictator. Never has a revolution been brought about on those lines; and if the present working-class movement takes this form, it will be doomed to have no lasting result.
On the contrary, we believe that if a revolution begins, it must take the form of a widely spread popular movement, during which movement, in every town and village invaded by the insurrectionary spirit, the masses set themselves to the work of reconstructing society on new lines. The people—both the peasants and the town workers—must themselves begin the constructive work, on more or less Communist principles, without waiting for schemes and orders from above. From the very beginning of the movement they must contrive to house and to feed every one, and then set to work to produce what is necessary to feed, house, and clothe all of them.
They may not be—they are sure not to be—the majority of the nation. But if they are a respectably numerous minority of cities and villages scattered over the country, starting life on their own new Socialist lines, they will be able to win the right to pursue their own course. In all probability they will draw towards them a notable portion of the land, as was the case in France in 1793–94.
As to the Government, whether it be constituted by force only or by election; be it "the dictatorship of the proletariate," as they used to say in France in the "forties," and as they still say in Germany, or else an elected "Provisional Government," or a "Convention"; we put no faith in it. We know beforehand that it will be able to do nothing to accomplish the revolution, so long as the people themselves do not accomplish the change by working out on the spot the necessary new institutions.
We say so, not because we have a personal dislike of Governments, but because the whole of history shows us that men thrown into a Government by a revolutionary wave have never been able to accomplish what was expected from them. And this is unavoidable. Because in the task of reconstructing society on new principles, separate men, however intelligent and devoted they may be, are sure to fail. The collective spirit of the masses is necessary for this purpose. Isolated men can sometimes find the legal expression to sum up the destruction of old social forms—when the destruction is already proceeding. At the utmost, they may widen, perhaps, the sphere of the reconstructive work, extending what is being done in a part of the country, over a larger part of the territory. But to impose the reconstruction by law is absolutely impossible, as was proved, among other examples, by the whole history of the French Revolution. Many thousands of the laws passed by the revolutionary Convention had not even been put into force when reaction came and flung those laws into the waste-paper basket.
During a revolution new forms of life will always germinate on the ruins of the old forms, but no Government will ever be able to find their expression so long as these forms will not have taken a definite shape during the work itself of reconstruction which must be going on in thousands of spots at the same time. Who guessed—who, in fact, could have guessed—before 1789 the role going to be played by the Municipalities and the Commune of Paris in the revolutionary events of 1789–1793? It is impossible to legislate for the future. All we can do is to vaguely guess its essential tendencies and clear the road for it.
It is evident that in understanding the problem of the Social Revolution in this way, Anarchism cannot let itself be seduced by a programme that offers as its aim: "The conquest of the power now in the hands of the State."
We know that this conquest is not possible by peaceful mean. The middle class will not give up its power without a struggle. It will resist. And in proportion as Socialists will become part of the Government, and share power with the middle class their Socialism will grow paler and paler. This is, indeed, what Socialism is rapidly doing. Were this not so, the middle classes, who are very much more powerful numerically and intellectually, than most Socialists imagine them to be, would not share their power with the Socialists.
On the other hand, we also know that if an insurrection succeeded in giving to France, to England, or to Germany a provisional Socialist Government, such a Government, without the spontaneous constructive activity of the people, would be absolutely powerless, and it would soon become a hindrance and a check to the revolution.
In studying the preparatory periods of revolutions, we come to the conclusion that no revolution has had its origin in the power of resistance or the power of attack of a Parliament or any other representative body. All revolutions began among the people. None has ever appeared armed from head to foot, like Minerva rising from the brain of Jupiter. All had, besides their period of incubation, their period of evolution during which the masses, after having formulated very modest demands in the beginning, gradually began to conceive the necessity of of more and more thorough and deeper changes: they grew more bold and daring in their conceptions of the problems of the moment, they gained confidence, and having emerged from the lethargy of despair, they widened their programme. The "humble remonstrances" they formulated at the outset, grew step by step to be truly revolutionary demands.
In fact, it took the France four years, from 1789 to 1793, to create a Republican minority which would be strong enough to impose itself.
As to the period of incubation, this is how we understand it. To begin with, isolated individuals, profoundly disgusted by what they saw around them, rebelled separately. Many of them perished without any apparent result; but the indifference of society was shaken. Even those who were most satisfied with existing conditions and the most ignorant were brought by these separate acts of rebellion to ask themselves: "For what cause did these people, honest and full of energy, rebel and prove ready to give their lives?" Gradually it became impossible to remain indifferent: people were compelled to declare themselves for or against the aims pursued by these individuals. Social thought woke up.
Little by little, small groups of men were imbued with the same spirit of revolt. They also rebelled—sometimes with the hope of a partial success; for example, that of winning a strike and of obtaining bread for their children, or of getting rid of some hated functionary; but very often also without any hope of success: they broke into revolt simply because they could not remain patient any longer. Not one or two such revolts, but hundreds of small insurrections in France and in England preceded the Revolution. This again was unavoidable. Without such insurrections, no revolution has ever broken out. Without the menace conatined in such revolts, no serious concession has ever been wrung by the people from the governing classes. Without such risings, the social mind was never able to get rid of its deep-rooted prejudices, nor to embolden itself sufficiently to conceive hope. And hope—the hope of an improvement—was always the mainspring of revolutions.
The pacific abolition of serfdom in Russia is often mentioned as a proof of the possibility of a deep change being accomplished without a revolution. But it is forgotten, or ignored, that a long series of peasant insurrections preceded and brought about the abolition of serfdom. These revolts began as early as the "fifties," perhaps as an echo of 1848, and every year they spread more and more over Russia, while at the same time they became more and more serious and took a violent character, up till then unknown. This lasted till 1857, when Alexander II. at last issued his letter to the nobility of the Lithuanian provinces, containing a promise of liberation to the serfs. The words of Herzen: "Better give liberty from above, than wait till it comes from below"—words repeated by Alexander II. before the nobility of Moscow, in 1856—were not a mere menace: they expressed the real state of affairs. It was the dread of a peasant uprising, perhaps even more terrible than that of Pugatchòff in 1773, which induced the serf-owners to yield.
The same has occurred whenever a revolution drew near, and we can safely say that as a general rule the character of each revolution was determined by the character and the purpose of the insurrections that preceded it.
Consequently, to expect a Social Revolution to come like a Christmas-box, without being heralded by small acts of revolt and insurrections, is to cherish a vain hope. It would be shutting one's eyes to what is going on all round, in Europe and America, and taking no notice of the hundreds of strikes and small uprisings occurring everywhere, and gradually assuming a more widespread and a deeper character.