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Title: Anarchism and Our Times Author: Nestor Makhno Date: September 1925 Language: en Source: Delo Truda, N°4, September 1925, pp. 7-8, Translated from Russian to French by Alexandre Skirda and from French to English by Paul Sharkey. English translation revised with reference to the Russian by the Nestor Makhno Archive. Text retrieved from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=9781 on April 6, 2021.
Anarchism is not merely a doctrine that deals with the social aspect of
human life, in the narrow meaning with which the term is invested in
political dictionaries and, at meetings, by our propagandist speakers:
anarchism is also the study of human life in general.
Over the course of the elaboration of its overall world picture,
anarchism has set itself a very specific task: to encompass the world in
its entirety, sweeping aside all manner of obstacles, present and yet to
come, which might be posed by bourgeois capitalist science and
technology, with the aim of providing humanity with the most exhaustive
possible explanation of existence in this world and of making the best
possible fist of all the problems which may confront it. This approach
should help humanity to develop consciousness of the anarchism that is,
as far as I know, naturally inherent in us to the extent that humanity
is continually being faced with partial manifestations thereof.
It is only on the basis of the will of the individual that anarchist
teachings can be embodied in real life and clear a path that will help
humanity to banish all spirit of submission from its bosom.
Anarchism knows no bounds to its development.
Anarchism acknowledges no banks within which it might be confined and
fixed.
Anarchism, like human existence generally, has no definitive formulas
for its aspirations and objectives.
As I see it, the right of every person to unlimited freedom, as defined
by the theoretical postulates of anarchism, are only a means by which
anarchism can achieve its more or less complete expression, whilst
continuing to develop. And only here anarchism becomes clear for each of
us: having banished from humanity that spirit of submission that has
been artificially instilled in it, anarchism thereafter becomes the
leading idea for the human masses on their march towards the attainment
of all their goals.
Theoretically, anarchism in our day is still regarded as weak, badly
developed and even - some would say - often interpreted wrongly in many
respects. However, its exponents - they say - have plenty to say about
it: many are constantly prattling about it, militating actively and
sometimes complaining of its lack of success (I imagine, in this last
instance, that this attitude is prompted by the failure to devise,
through research, the social wherewithal vital to anarchism if it is to
gain a foothold in contemporary society…).
In reality, wherever human life is to be found, anarchism is alive. On
the other hand, it becomes accessible to the individual only where it
boasts propagandists and militants, who have honestly and entirely
severed their connections with the slave mentality of our age,
something, by the way, that brings savage persecution down upon their
heads. Such militants aspire to serve their beliefs unselfishly, without
fear of uncovering unsuspected aspects in the course of their
development, the better to digest them as they proceed, if need be, and
in this way they pave the way for the success of the anarchist spirit
over the spirit of submission.
Two theses arise out of the above:
whilst retaining a perfect integrity in its essentials;
only revolutionary modes of action in the struggle against its
oppressors.
In the course of its revolutionary struggle, anarchism not merely
overthrows governments and discards their laws, but also sets about the
society that spawned their values, their "mores" and their "morality,"
which is what makes it increasingly known and understood by the
oppressed sectors of humanity.
All of which inclines us to the firm belief that anarchism in our time
can no longer remain walled up inside the narrow parameters of a
marginal thinking to which only a few tiny groups operating in isolation
subscribe. The natural influence of anarchism on the psyche of the human
masses in struggle is all too apparent. But if the influence of
anarchism is to be assimilated by the masses in a conscious fashion,
anarchism must henceforth arm itself with new approaches and embark on
the path of social action now, in our times.