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Title: Anarchy and Violence Author: Errico Malatesta Date: 1894 Language: en Topics: anarchy, violence Source: The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader, edited by Davide Turcato, translated by Paul Sharkey. Notes: Parts 1 and 2, Liberty (London) 1, nos. 9 (September 1894) and 10 (October 1894).
From their first manifestations Anarchists have [been] nearly unanimous
as to the necessity of recourse to physical force in order to transform
existing society; and while the other self-styled revolutionary parties
have gone floundering into the parliamentary slough, the anarchist idea
has in some sort identified itself with that of armed insurrection and
violent revolution.
But, perhaps, there has been no sufficient explanation as to the kind
and the degree of violence to be employed; and here as in many other
questions very dissimilar ideas and sentiments lurk under our common
name.
As a fact, the numerous outrages which have lately been perpetrated by
Anarchists and in the name of Anarchy, have brought to the light of day
profound differences which had formerly been ignored, or scarcely
foreseen.
Some comrades, disgusted at the atrocity and uselessness of certain of
these acts, have declared themselves opposed to all violence whatever,
except in cases of personal defence against direct and immediate attack.
Which, in my opinion, would mean the renunciation of all revolutionary
initiative, and the reserving of our blows for the petty, and often
involuntary agents of the government, while leaving in peace the
organizers of, and those chiefly benefited by, government and capitalist
exploitation.
Other comrades, on the contrary, carried away by the excitement of the
struggle, embittered by the infamies of the ruling classes, and
assuredly influenced by what has remained of the old Jacobin ideas
permeating the political education of the present generation, have
hastily accepted any and every kind of violence, provided only that it
be committed in the name of Anarchy; and they have claimed hardly less
than the right of life and death over those who are not Anarchists, or
who are not Anarchists exactly according to their pattern.
And the mass of the public, ignoring these polemics, and deceived by the
capitalist press, see in Anarchy nothing but bombs and daggers, and
habitually regard Anarchists as wild beasts thirsting for blood and
ruin.
It is therefore needful that we explain ourselves very clearly as
regards this question of violence, and that each one of us should take a
position accordingly: needful both in the interests of the relations of
practical co-operation which may exist among all those who profess
Anarchism, as well as in the interests of the general propaganda, and of
our relations with the public.
In my opinion, there can be no doubt that the Anarchist Idea, denying
government, is by its very nature opposed to violence, which is the
essence of every authoritarian system—the mode of action of every
government.
Anarchy is freedom in solidarity. It is only through the harmonizing of
interests, through voluntary co-operation, through love, respect, and
reciprocal tolerance, by persuasion, by example, and by the contagion of
benevolence, that it can and ought to triumph.
We are Anarchists, because we believe that we can never achieve the
combined well-being of all—which is the aim of all our efforts—except
through a free understanding among men, and without forcibly imposing
the will of any upon any others.
In other parties there are certainly men who are as sincere and as
devoted to the interests of the people as the best of us may be. But
that which characterizes us Anarchists and distinguishes us from all
others is that we do not believe ourselves in possession of absolute
truth; we do not believe ourselves either infallible, or
omniscient,—which is the implicit pretension of all legislators and
political candidates whatever; and consequently we do not believe
ourselves called for the direction and tutelage of the people.
We are, par excellence, the party of freedom, the party of free
development, the party of social experimentation.
But against this very freedom which we claim for all, against the
possibility of this experimental search after better forms of society,
there are erected barriers of iron. Legions of soldiers and police are
ready to massacre and imprison anyone who will not meekly submit to the
laws which a handful of privileged persons have made in their own
interests. And even if soldiers and police did not exist, yet so long as
the economic constitution of society remains what it is, freedom would
still be impossible; because, since all the means of life are under the
control of a minority, the great mass of mankind is obliged to labour
for the others, and themselves wallow in poverty and degradation.
The first thing to do, therefore, is to get rid of the armed force which
defends existing institutions, and by means of the expropriation of the
present holders, to place the land and the other means of production at
the disposal of everybody. And this cannot possibly be done—in our
opinion—without the employment of physical force. Moreover, the natural
development of economic antagonisms, the waking consciousness of an
important fraction of the proletariat, the constantly increasing number
of unemployed, the blind resistance of the ruling classes, in short
contemporary evolution as a whole, is conducting us inevitably towards
the outbreak of a great revolution, which will overthrow everything by
its violence, and the fore-running signs of which are already visible.
This revolution will happen, with us or without us; and the existence of
a revolutionary party, conscious of the end to be attained, will serve
to give a useful direction to the violence, and to moderate its excesses
by the influence of a lofty ideal.
Thus it is that we are revolutionists. In this sense, and within these
limits, violence is not in contradiction with Anarchist principles,
since it is not the result of our free choice, but is imposed upon us by
necessity in the defence of unrecognized human rights which are thwarted
by brute force.
I repeat here: as Anarchists, we cannot and we do not desire to employ
violence, except in the defence of ourselves and others against
oppression. But we claim this right of defence—entire, real, and
efficacious. That is, we wish to be able to go behind the material
instrument which wounds us, and to attack the hand which wields the
instrument, and the head which directs it. And we wish to choose our own
hour and field of battle, so as to attack the enemy under conditions as
favourable as possible: whether it be when he is actually provoking and
attacking us, or at times when he slumbers, and relaxes his hand,
counting on popular submission. For as a fact, the bourgeoisie is in a
permanent state of war against the proletariat, since it never for one
moment ceases to exploit the latter, and grind it down.
Unfortunately, among the acts which have been committed in the name of
Anarchy, there have been some, which, though wholly lacking in Anarchist
characteristics, have been wrongly confounded with other acts of
obviously Anarchist inspiration.
For my part, I protest against this confusion between acts wholly
different in moral value, as well as in practical effects.
Despite the excommunication and insults of certain people, I consider it
an essential point to discriminate between the heroic act of a man who
consciously sacrifices his life for that which he believes will do good,
and the almost involuntary act of some unhappy man whom society has
reduced to despair, or the savage act of a man who has been driven
astray by suffering, and has caught the contagion of this civilised
savagery which surrounds us all; between the intelligent act of the man
who, before acting, weighs the probable good or evil that may result for
his cause, and the thoughtless act of the man who strikes at random;
between the generous act of one who exposes himself to danger in order
to spare suffering to his fellows, and the bourgeois act of one who
brings suffering upon others for his own advantage; between the
anarchist act of one who desires to destroy the obstacles that stand in
the way of the reconstitution of society on a basis of free agreement of
all, and the authoritarian act of the man who intends to punish the
crowd for its stupidity, to terrorise it (which makes it still more
stupid) and to impose his own ideas upon it.
Most assuredly the bourgeoisie has no right to complain of the violence
of its foes, since its whole history, as a class, is a history of
bloodshed, and since the system of exploitation, which is the law of its
life, daily produces hecatombs of innocents. Assuredly, too, it is not
political parties who should complain of violence, for these are, one
and all, red-handed with blood spilt unnecessarily, and wholly in their
own interest; these, who have brought up the young, generation after
generation, in the cult of force triumphant; these, who when they are
not actual apologists of the Inquisition, are yet enthusiastic admirers
of that Red Terror, which checked the splendid revolutionary impulse at
the end of the last century, and prepared the way for the Empire, for
the Restoration, and the White Terror.
The fit of mildness which has come over certain of the bourgeois, now
that their lives and their purses are menaced, is, in our opinion,
extremely untrustworthy. But it is not for us to regulate our conduct by
the amount of pleasure or vexation which it may occasion the bourgeois.
We have to conduct ourselves according to our principles; and the
interest of our cause, which in our view is the cause of all humanity.
Since historical antecedents have driven us to the necessity of
violence, let us employ violence; but let us never forget that it is a
case of hard necessity, and in its essence contrary to our aspirations.
Let us not forget that all history witnesses to this distressing
fact—whenever resistance to oppression has been victorious it has always
engendered new oppression, and it warns us that it must ever be so until
the bloody tradition of the past be for ever broken with, and violence
be limited to the strictest necessity.
Violence begets violence; and authoritarianism begets oppression and
slavery. The good intentions of individuals can in no way affect this
sequence. The fanatic who tells himself that he will save people by
force, and in his own manner, is always a sincere man, but a terrible
agent of oppression and reaction. Robespierre, with horrible good faith
and his conscience pure and cruel, was just as fatal for the Revolution
as the personal ambition of Bonaparte. The ardent zeal of Torquemada for
the salvation of souls did much more harm to freedom of thought and to
the progress of the human mind than the scepticism and corruption of Leo
X and his court.
Theories, declarations of principle, or magnanimous words can do nothing
against the natural filiation of facts. Many martyrs have died for
freedom, many battles have been fought and won in the name of the
welfare of all mankind, and yet the freedom has turned out after all to
mean nothing but the unlimited oppression and exploitation of the poor
by the rich.
The Anarchist idea is no more secured from corruption than the Liberal
idea has proved to be, yet the beginnings of corruption may be already
observed if we note the contempt for the masses which is exhibited by
certain Anarchists, their intolerance, and their desire to spread terror
around them.
Anarchists! let us save Anarchy! Our doctrine is a doctrine of love. We
cannot, and we ought not to be either avengers, nor dispensers of
justice. Our task, our ambition, our ideal is to be deliverers.