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Title: Doing Good By Force
Author: E. Malatesta
Date: 15 October 1894
Language: en
Topics: letter, authoritarian socialism
Source: The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader, edited by Davide Turcato, translated by Paul Sharkey.
Notes: Originally published as “Le bien par la force,” L’Idée (Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Belgium), no. 7 (15 October 1894). The present translation is from the reprint in Le Réveil Anarchiste (Geneva) 27 [recte 37], no. 972 (1 May 1937).

E. Malatesta

Doing Good By Force

Dear comrades of L’Idée,

In publishing my piece “Devoir d’aujourd’hui” in your 15 September 1894

issue, you made, in addition to a few other changes upon which I shall

not dwell since they are of no account, one to which I must take

exception on the grounds that it completely distorts my thinking and,

indeed, strikes me as a negation of the very idea of anarchism, as I

understand it at any rate.[1]

Where I say that “our ideas oblige us to put all our hopes in the

masses, because we do not believe in the possibility of imposing the

good by force,” you have added “for the time being at least.” Meaning

that, later, once we are the strongest, we shall impose Good… or

whatever we take to be such, by force.

What, in that case, is the difference between us and the authoritarian

parties?

We are anarchists because we hold that no one owns the absolute truth,

nor is anyone blessed with infallibility; because we think that the sort

of social arrangement that should best answer everyone’s needs and

sentiments, can only be the result—the always adjustable result—of the

free play of all the interested parties; and because we believe that

force renders brutish both the user and the target, whereas only through

freedom and the responsibility that derives from it can men better

themselves morally and intellectually to a point where they can no

longer bear government.

Besides, if, as you seem to reckon, a day will come when we too could

and would impose our ideas by force, what, precisely, are the ideas that

are to be imposed? Mine, say, or the ideas of comrade A or comrade B!…

For you will agree that there are no four anarchists who see completely

eye to eye with one another; which is all very natural, by the way, and

a sign of the party’s vitality.

I thought the essential point upon which we were all agreed and that

made anarchists of us was this principle; no imposition and no force

other than force of argument and example. If I am wrong here, I cannot

see that there is very much else to anarchism.

Now, if—perhaps on account of some lack of clarity on my part—you

thought that I was referring to force as the means necessary to fend off

the force of government, place all the means of production currently

hogged by a few at bayonet-point at the disposal of all and open the way

to free social evolution with everyone’s contribution, then again I take

exception to the phrase “for the time being at least,” which you have

ascribed to me. It was not my intention in my article to turn to the

issue of a recourse to arms; and it might well be that I am of the

opinion that, in certain countries and in certain circumstances, right

now might be the right time to ward off violence with violence.

I am relying, dear comrades, upon your sense of fairness and your love

of truth in the publication of this letter. Like me, you will think that

the best way for us to get acquainted with one another and achieve the

greatest possible measure of agreement between us, is to leave each

person the freedom to articulate his thoughts such as they are, without

any sort of censorship.

Best wishes to you and to the cause,

E. Malatesta

[1] The article in question was a French translation of “The Duties of

the Present Hour,” included in the present collection.