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Title: Action as Propaganda
Author: Johann Most
Date: 1885
Language: en
Topics: practice
Source: Retrieved on April 25, 2009 from http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/most/actionprop.html
Notes: From: Freiheit, July 25, 1885

Johann Most

Action as Propaganda

We have said a hundred times or more that when modern revolutionaries

carry out actions, what is important is not solely these actions

themselves but also the propagandistic effect they are able to achieve.

Hence, we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action as

propaganda.

It is a phenomenally simple matter, yet over and over again we meet

people, even people close to the center of our party, who either do not,

or do not wish, to understand. We have recently had a clear enough

illustration of this over the Lieske affair...

So our question is this: what is the purpose of the anarchists’ threats

— an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth — if they are not followed up

by action?

Or are perhaps the “law and order” rabble, all of them blackguards

extraordinary, to be done away in a dark corner so that no one knows the

why and the wherefore of what happened?

It would be a form of action, certainly, but not action as propaganda.

The great thing about anarchist vengeance is that is proclaims loud and

clear for everyone to hear, that: this man or that man must die for this

and this reason; and that at the first opportunity which presents itself

for the realization of such a threat, the rascal in question is really

and truly dispatched to the other world.

And this is indeed what happened with Alexander Romanov, with

Messenzoff, with Sudeikin, with Bloch and Hlubeck, with Rumpff and

others. Once such an action has been carried out, the important thing is

that the world learns of it from the revolutionaries, so that everyone

knows what the position is.

The overwhelming impression this makes is shown by how the reactionaries

have repeatedly tried to hush up revolutionary actions that have taken

place, or present them in a different light. This has often been

possible in Russia, especially, because of the conditions governing the

press there.

In order to achieve the desired success in the fullest measure,

immediately after the action has been carried out, especially in the

town where it took place, posters should be put up setting out the

reasons for the action in such a way as to draw from them the best

possible benefit.

And in those cases where this was not done, the reason was simply that

it proved inadvisable to involve the number of participants that would

have been required; or that there was a lack of money. It was all the

more natural in these cases for the anarchist press to glorify and

explicate the deeds at every opportunity. For it to have adopted an

attitude of indifference toward such actions, or even to have denied

them, would have been perfectly idiotic treachery.

‘Freiheit’ has always pursued this policy. It is nothing more than

insipid, sallow envy which makes those demagogues who are continually

mocking us with cries of “Carry on, then, carry on” condemn this aspect

of our behavior, among others, whenever they can, as a crime.

This miserable tribe is well aware that no action carried out by

anarchists can have its proper propagandist effect if those organs whose

responsibility it is neither give suitable prominence to such actions,

nor make it palatable to the people.

It is this, above all, which puts the reactionaries in a rage.