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Title: Is Revolution Possible?
Author: Errico Malatesta
Date: 1914
Language: en
Topics: revolution
Source: The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader, edited by Davide Turcato, translated by Paul Sharkey.
Notes: Translated from “È possibile la rivoluzione?” Volontà (Ancona) 2, no. 16 (18 April 1914).

Errico Malatesta

Is Revolution Possible?

Needless to say, we cannot know what may happen in the near future.

But whatever the future may bring, should it be the government caving in

to the railway workers’ demands, coming to the rescue of the monarchist

order and the masters’ interests yet again, or tackling the strike with

all its uncertainties, the fact is that the crisis by which Italy is at

present beset represents a great lesson that is not going to go to

waste.[1]

For many years now, the “hard-headed” types out to resolve the

heavyweight of making an omelette without breaking eggs have been going

around preaching that revolution is no longer an option. Breach-loading

rifles; machine-guns; rapid communications; the old cities being cleared

of narrow, twisting streets spelled certain defeat for any attempt at

popular insurrection.

We were the “1848 fossils,” the “romantics,” the “classic

revolutionaries” overtaken by the onward march of time.

We stood condemned by science—that dutiful maid of all work—“Science.”

By then, in order to save the world and transform society, what was

needed was lots of fear… and the election of deputies to the parliament.

Now, lo and behold, at one fell swoop and because of a minor pay

issue—because of the simple fact that one category of workers has caught

on that when one works, one has, at the very least, a right to eat and

to rest, and is vigorously calling for some improvements—the whole of

“science” can be ignored and the laws of “evolution” forgotten: and we

seem to hark back to the days of barbarism when revolutionaries were

less well versed in science but also had less fear.

There is indeed a strike-back atmosphere. One can sense fresh hopes

stirring in the popular classes, and the ruling, which is to say,

oppressor classes, are entirely overrun by ill-concealed worry.

People wonder—if the railwaymen were really to refuse to work, if

ill-intentioned people were to sabotage the rolling stock and railway

tracks making even a skeleton service impossible, if the most wide awake

segment of the proletariat was to support the action by means of general

strikes—what would the government do with its soldiers, even if the

latter were to forget that they are proletarians who were forcibly

conscripted and have parents, brothers, and chums in the strikers’

ranks? And how could the established order carry on then?

Revolution would become a necessity: only it could ensure that the life

of society carried on.

Maybe this is not going to happen today. But why would it not, tomorrow?

Nobody can tell in advance when the time will be ripe, and the fatal

hour could arrive at any moment.

Let everybody hold themselves in readiness for tomorrow… or today.

[1] A great agitation of the railway workers had taken place between the

fall 1913 and the spring 1914, contributing to the resignation of Prime

Minister Giovanni Giolitti in March 1913. The labour dispute continued

under the new ministry of Antonio Salandra and was still open at the

time of the present article, with the railway workers threatening to go

on strike.