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Title: An Anarchist Manifesto
Author: Max Nettlau
Date: 1st May, 1895
Language: en
Topics: anarcho-communism
Source: Anarchy is Order CD

Max Nettlau

An Anarchist Manifesto

Fellow Workers,

We come before you as Anarchist Communists to explain our principles. We

are aware that the minds of many of you have been poisoned by the lies

which all parties have diligently spread about us. But surely the

persecutions to which we have been and are subjected by the governing

classes of all countries should open the eyes of those who love fair

play. Thousands of our comrades are suffering in prison or are driven

homeless from one country to the other. Free speech — almost the only

part of British liberty that can be of any use to the people — is denied

to us in many instances, as the events of the last few years have shown.

The misery around us is increasing year by year. And yet there was never

so much talk about labor as there is now, — labor, for the welfare of

which all professional politicians profess to work day and night. A very

few sincere and honest but impracticable reformers, in company with a

multitude of mere quacks, ambitious placehunters, etc., say they are

able to benefit labor, if labor will only follow their useless advice.

All this does not lessen the misery in the least : look at the

unemployed, the victims of hunger and cold, who die every year in the

streets of our rich cities, where wealth of every description is stored

up.

Not only do they suffer who are actually out of work and starving, but

every working man who is forced to go through the same dreary routine

day by day — the slavery and toil in the factory or workshop — the

cheerless home, if the places where they are forced to herd together can

be called homes. Is this life worth living? What becomes of the

intellectual faculties, the artistic inclinations, nay, the ordinary

human feeling and dignity of the greatest part of the workers? All these

are warped and wasted, without any chance of development, making the

wretched worker nothing but a human tool to be exploited until more

profitably replaced by some new invention or machine.

Is all this misery necessary? It is not if you, the wealth producers,

knew that there is enough and to spare of food and of the necessaries of

life for all, if all would work. But now, in order to keep the rich in

idleness and luxury, all the workers must lead a life of perpetual

misery and exploitation. As to these facts we are all agreed; but as to

the remedy most of you, unfortunately, have not given up trust in

Parliament and the State. We shall explain how the very nature of the

State prevents anything good coming from it. What does the State do? It

protects the rich and their ill-gotten wealth; it suppresses the

attempts of the workers to recover their rights, if these attempts are

thought dangerous to the rich. Thus idle electioneering, labor politics

etc. are not suppressed, but any effective popular demonstration,

vigorous strikes as at Featherstone and Hull, Anarchist propaganda,

etc., are suppressed or fought against by the vilest means. Moreover,

the State pretending thereby to alleviate the sufferings of the poor,

grants Royal Commissions on the Sweating System, the Aged Poor, on Labor

in general, or select Committees on the Unemployed — which produce heaps

of Blue Books, and give an opportunity to the politicians and labor

leaders, “to show themselves off.” And that is about all. If the workers

demand more — there is the workhouse; and if not satisfied with that,

the truncheons of the police and the bullets and bayonets of the

soldiers face them: — not bread, but lead!

All political prisoners are of the same value: either they are not kept,

even if it could be, or they involve social changes which can only be

effected by a revolution, and not by mere votes cast in Parliament. This

applies to the promises of Socialist candidates, even if it could be

admitted that these candidates could remain uncorrupted by the

demoralizing influence of Parliament.

There can be no true humanity, no true self-respect, without self-

reliance. No one can help you if you do not help yourselves. We do not

promise to do anything for you, we do not want anything from you, we

only appeal to you to co-operate with us to bring about a state of

society which will make freedom, well-being possible for all.

To do this efficiently, we must all be imbued with the spirit of

freedom, and this — freedom, and freedom alone — is the fundamental

principle of Anarchy.

Freedom is a necessary condition to, and the only guarantee of, the

proper development of mankind. Nature is most beautiful when unfettered

by the artificial interference of man. Wild animals are stronger and

more harmoniously developed than their domesticated kind, which the

exploiting mind of man makes mere instruments of profit by developing

chiefly those parts of them which are of use to him. The same threatens

to be the case with the human victims of exploitation, if an end is not

put to the system which allows the rich and crafty exploiters to reduce

the greater part of mankind to a position resembling that of domestic

animals — working machines, only fit to do mechanically a certain kind

of work, but becoming intellectually wrecked and ruined.

All who acknowledge this to be the great danger to human progress should

carefully ponder over it, and if they believe that it is necessary to

ensure by every means the free development of humanity, and to remove by

all means every obstacle placed in its path, they should join us and

adopt the principles of Anarchism.

Belief in and submission to authority is the root cause of all our

misery. The remedy we recommend: — struggle unto death against all

authority, whether it be that of physical force identical with the State

or that of doctrine and theories, the product of ages of ignorance and

superstition inculcated into the workers minds from their childhood —

such as religion, patriotism, obedience to the law, belief in the State,

submission to the rich and titled, etc., generally speaking, the absence

of any critical spirit in face of all the humbugs who victimise the

workers again and again. We can only deal here briefly with all these

subjects, and must limit ourselves to touch only on the chief points.

Economic exploitation — the result of the monopolisation of the land,

raw materials and means of production by the capitalists and landlords —

is at the bottom of the present misery. But the system which produces it

would have long ago broken down if it were not upheld on one hand by the

State, with its armies of officials, soldiers and police — the whole

machinery of government, in one word; and on the other hand by the

workers themselves, who tamely submit to their own spoliation and

degradation, because they think it right, owing to a superstitious

belief in a divine providence inculcated by their masters, or because

they desire, by sneaking means, to become exploiters themselves — an

object which only one in a thousand can succeed in — or because they

have not lost faith in political action or the capacity of the State to

do for them that which they are too ignorant to do for themselves. Under

these protections the rich classes are enjoying their spoil in safety

and comfort.

It is evident that this system, if to be destroyed at all, must be

attacked by the workers themselves, as we cannot expect those who profit

by it to cut their own throats, so to say.

Many still consider the State a necessity. Is this so in reality? The

State, being only a machine for the protection and preservation of

property, can only obstruct freedom and free development, being bound to

keep up the law and every statute law is an obstacle to progress and

freedom.

Laws are of two kinds. They are either simple formulae, derived from the

obsevation of phenomena as the so-called laws of nature, the phrasing of

which is open to revision with the progress of human know-ledge and the

accumulation of fresh material to draw dedcutions from. No authority is

required to enforce them, they exist; and every being arranges his

conduct in conformity with his knowledge of their action. The phenomenon

of fire burning is the result of such a natural law, and all pay

attention to it though there is no policeman posted behind every match

and fireplace. Here again Nature gives us an example of free development

and Anarchy, and in a free society all social facts and necessities

would be equally well recognised and acted upon.

But there is the other kind of law. That which is the expression of the

will of an unsrupulous minority, who, owing to the apathy and ignorance

of the majority, have been able to usurp the means of power and purport

to represent the whole people at the time of the enaction of the laws.

The fact that a great number of persons is in favor of something is

evidently no guarantee that it is right. Experience, on the contrary,

shows that progress is usually brought about by individuals. New

discoveries, new lines of human activity are first found and practised

by a few, and only gradually adopted by the many. The majority that

makes the laws or abides to them will almost always lag behind progress,

and the laws made by it will be reactionary from the very beginning. How

much more so as time proceeds and new progress is made!

Of course, progress itself laughs at the puny efforts of the usurpers of

power to stop its triumphant march. But its apostles and advocates have

to suffer much and severely for the enthusiasm and the hope that is

within them. Prison and often death itself is their doom; the penalty

for having raised the standard of revolt against authority and law, the

embodiment of the spirit of oppression.

And the very makers of these laws are forced to admit that their work is

useless. Is not the continuous manufacture of new laws going on in the

Parliaments of all countries throughout the greater part of this

century, and in England for many centuries, a proof of the fact that

laws never satisfy anybody, not even those who make them. They know,

however, that their legislating is mere mockery and hypocrisy, having no

other object but to make the people believe that something is being done

for them, and that the public interest is well looked after. The people

obey all these laws, whilst the State, in the alleged interest of all,

in reality in the interest of the property owners and of its own power,

violates them all and commits numberless crimes — which are glorified as

deeds of valor committed in the interest of civilisation.

This principle, kept in the background in time of peace, is paraded

before the eyes of the people in time of war. A trading company

acquiring so-called “rights” in some savage territory, plunders and

provokes the natives until they return force by force. Then the State

steps in, in the pretended interest of religion and civilisation,

slaughters them and annexes their land. The greater the slaughter, the

greater the glory for these “heroic” pioneers. Or it may be in a war on

a greater scale with a European State, when the workers of one country

are let loose against those of another, to murder, plunder and burn

homes and villages, and perform such like patriotic deeds of valor and

chivalry.

We Anarchists are internationalists, we acknowledge no distinction of

nationality or color. The workers of all countries suffer as we do here,

and our comrades have everywhere to fight the same battle for freedom

and justice. The capitalists are internationally unanimous in

persecuting the defenders of freedom and in fleecing the workers. Even

England is brought more and more under the sway of a continental police

system, the dangers of which the British masses do not see at present,

as it is used chiefly against friendless foreign refugees. They are

regardless fo the fact that it is but the forerunner of an attack on

their own liberties.

The workers as a rule are filled with an unreasoning dislike to the

workers of other countries, whom their masters have succeeded in

representing to them as their natural enemies, and herein lies one of

the main sources of the strength of the capitalist system; a strength

which has no other foundation than the weakness and helplessness of the

people. It is in the interests of all governments to uphold patriotism,

to have their own people ready to fly at the throats of their fellow

workers of other nationalities whenever it suits the interests of the

employers to open up new markets, or draw the attention of the people

away from the contemplation of their own misery, which might drive them

to revolt.

Patriotism and religion have always been the first and last refuges and

strongholds of scoudrels. The meek and lowly servants of the one

blessing — in the name of their God — the infamies committed for the

sake of the other, and cursing in the same name the deeds they just now

blessed if committed by the enemy.

Religion is mankind’s greatest curse! It is absurd to expect that

science, in the few years that the State and the priests have left it to

a certain extent alone — the stakeor the prison has been too often the

reward of its pioneers — should have discovered everything. It would not

be worth living in a world where everything had been discovered,

analysed and registered. One fact is certain: all so-called religions

are the products of human ignorance, mere phantastical efforts of

barbarous people to reason out matters which they could not possibly

understand without some knowledge of science and scientific methods. The

opinion of a savage on the power that works a steam engine, or produces

the electric light, is evidently worthless and could be refuted by

anyone possessing elementary knowledge. In the same worthless way our

forefathers, savages also, reasoned about the phenomena of nature, and

came to the naive conclusion that somebody behind the curtains of the

sky pulled the strings. This supposed individual they called God and the

organic force of man the soul, and endowed it with a separate entity,

although that organic force does not possess any more separate entity

than that working a clock or a steam hammer. A dim consciousness of this

has permeated the mind of most in spite of the fact that religion has

been bolstered up by all the forces of authority, because it teaches

submission to the law, and as a reward gives cheques drawn on the bank

of heaven, which are not more likely to be met than the politician’s

promises of what he will do when he is returned for Parliament. Religion

is the most deadly enemy to human progress. It has always been used to

poison the mind and deaden the judgment of the young, thus making grown

up people accept all its absurdities because they are familiarised with

them in their youth.

Unfortunately, religion is not kept out of the labor movement. Priests

and parsons, who should be a horror to mankind, as their presence adds

an additional element of corruption, sneak into it, and labor

politicians use their services as the Liberals and Tories do. There is

actually in existence a body of persons who prostitute the noble word

“Labor” by coupling it with the disgusting word “Church”, forming the

“Labor Church”, which is looked upon favorably by most of the prominent

labor leaders. Why not start a “Labor Police”?

We are Atheists [1] and believe that man cannot be free if he does not

shake off the fetters of the authority of the absurd as well as those of

every other authority. Authority assumes numerous shapes and disguises,

and it will take a long period of development under freedom to get rid

of all. To do this two things are wanted, to rid ourselves of all

superstition and to root out the stronghold of all authority, the State.

We shall be asked what we intend to put in place of the State. We reply,

“Nothing whatever!” The State is simply an obstacle to progress; this

obstacle once removed we do not want to erect a fresh obstruction.

In this we differ essentially from the various schools of State

Socialists, who either want to transform the present State into a

benevolent public-spirited institution (just as easy as to transform a

wolf into a lamb), or to create a new centralised organisation for the

regulation of all production and consumption, the so-called Socialist

society. In reality this is only the old State in disguise, with

enormously strengthened powers. It would interfere with everything and

would be the essence of tyranny and slavery, if it could be brought

about. But, thanks to the tendency of the ways and means of production —

which will lead to Anarchy — it cannot.

But whilst State Socialism is impracticable as a system of real

Socialism, it is indeed possible if its advocates had their way, that

all matters of general interest and more and more of private interest

too would pass under the control of the State; whether it be a little

more democratised or not, it does not matter, for we reject Democracy as

well as Absolutism. Authority is equally hateful to us whether exercised

by many, or by few, or by one. The last remnant of free initiative and

self-reliance would be crushed under the hells of the State, and the

emancipation of the workers would be far off as ever. State Socialism

has indeed strengthened the decaying faith in, and renewed the prestige

of, the State.

All we Anarchists want is equal freedom for all. The workers to provide

for their own affairs by voluntary arrangements amongst themselves. This

leads us to a consideration of the economic basis of the state of things

we desire to bring about, and here we avow ourselves Communists.

Everybody has different faculties and abilities for work, and different

wants and desires for the various necessities of life and leisure. These

inclinations and wants require full satisfaction, but can only receive

it in a state of freedom. Everybody supposing his faculties to be

properly developed can best judge what is best for himself. Rules and

regulations would hinder and make him a fettered, incomplete being who

necessarily finds no pleasure in work forced upon him. But under Anarchy

he would associate voluntarily with others to do the work he is best

fitted to do, and would satisfy his wants in proportion to his needs

from the common stock, the result of their common labor.

Cut-throat competition for the bare necessities of life would be done

away with, leaving many matters of a more individual, private and

intimate character, in which the free man would find opportunity for

peaceful and harmonious emulation, and thereby develop his faculties in

the highest possible degree.

One of the stock objections against Anarchist Communism is that no one

would work. We reply that to- day work is viewed with disfavor and

neglected by all who can possibly exist without it because it has to be

carried on under the most disadvantageous conditions and is, moreover,

looked upon as degrading. The worker earning his food by hard labor and

ceaseless toil is a pariah, the outcast of society, while the idler who

never does an hours work in his life is admired and glorified, and

spends his days in luxurious ease amongst pleasant surroundings. We

believe that under Anarchism everybody would be willing to work; work

being freed from the badge of dishonor now associated with it will have

become a labor of love, and the free man will feel ashamed to eat food

he has not earned. But as to some atavistic remnants of modern

capitalist society that would only work if forced? Well, nobody would

want us to retard the emancipation of the immense mass of mankind on

account of these few unsocial beings who may or may not exist then. Left

to themselves and scorned by everyone they would soon come to their

senses and work.

We cannot further enter here into the arguments which show the tendency

of a development into Free Communism, and we refer to our literature on

the subject. (See Kropotkin’s “Anarchism: its Basis and Principles.”

Freedom Pamphlets, No. 4, etc.)

Anarchist society will consist of a great number of groups devoted each

to the production of certain commodities free of access to all, and in

local and interlocal contact with other groups to agree and make

arrangements for purposes of exchange. With regard to the first

necessities of life, food, clothes, shelter, education, Free Communism

would be carried out thoroughly. All secondary matters would be left to

a mutual agreement in the most varied ways. There would remain in such a

society full freedom for the Individualist as long as he did not develop

any monopolistic tendencies.

These are our principles; let us consider the means to realise them.

Here we are met by the cry “Dynamiters”, “Assassins”, “Fiends”, etc. Let

us see who chiefly utter these cries.

The same people who, by colliery disasters, the ensuring of rotten

ships, fires in death-trap-houses, railway accidents caused by overwork,

etc., daily massacre more people than the Anarchists of all countries

ever killed. The same people who are ready at any moment to have the

natives of any country slaughtered, simply to rob them, who are

overjoyed at the butchery of the Chinese War, which will enable them to

make fresh profit, who are slowly starving and killing the millions of

workers, whose lives are shortened by overwork, adulterated food, and

overcrowding slums. These people have, in our eyes, no voice when the

question of humanity is considered. They may abuse and insult us just as

they like. The worst thing that could happen to us, indeed, would be to

win their approbation, to be petted by them as the respectable labor

politicians are.

Some well-meaning, but rather weak-minded people too, are misled by

these cries. To these we say come and study our movement and gain a

knowledge of its history and personalities, and you will find that every

act of revolt is but a reply to a hundred, nay, a thousand villianeous

crimes committed by the governing classes against us and against the

workers in general. You will find that those who did these acts were the

very best, the most human, unselfish, self-sacrificing of our comrades,

who threw their lives away, meeting death or imprisonment in the hope

that their acts would sow the seed of revolt, that they might show the

way and wake an echo, by their deeds of rebellion, in the victims of the

present system.

With the specific mode of action of anyone we have nothing to do.

Anarchists advocate the propagation of their ideas by all means that

lead to that end, and everyone is the best judge of his own actions. No

one is required to do anything that is against his own inclination.

Experience is in this as in other matters the best teacher, and the

necessary experience can only be gained through entire freedom of

action.

Thus the means which we would adopt embrace all that furthers our cause,

and exclude all that will damage it. The decision of what is good or

harmful must be left to persons or groups who choose to work together.

Nothing is more contrary to the real spirit of Anarchy than uniformity

and intolerance. Freedom of development implies difference of

development, hence difference of ideas and actions. Every person is

likely to be open to a different kind of argument, so propaganda cannot

be diversified enough if we want to touch all. We want it to pervade and

penetrate all the utterances of life, social and political, domestic and

artistic, educational and recreational. There should be propaganda by

word and action, the platform and the press, the street corner, the

workshop, and the domestic circle, acts of revolt, and the example of

our own lives as free men. Those who agree with each other may

co-operate; otherwise they should prefer to work each on his own lines

to trying to persuade one the other of the superiority of his own

method.

Organisation arises from the conciousness that, for a certain purpose,

the co-operation of several forces is necessary. When this purpose is

achieved the necessity for co-operation has ceased, and each force

reassumes its previous independence, ready for other co-operation and

combination if necessary. This is organisation in the Anarchist sense —

ever varying, or, if necessary, continuous combinations of the elements

that are considered to be the most suitable for the particular purpose

on hand, and refers not only to the economical and industrial relations

between man and man, but also to the sexual relations between man and

woman, without which a harmonious social life is impossible.

These views differ immensely from those held by the believers in

authority, who advocate permanent organisations with chiefs or councils

elected by the majority, and who put all their trust in these

institutions. The more they centralise these organisations and introduce

stringent rules and regulations to preserve order and discipline, the

more they will fail to achieve their object. In such organisations we

see only obstacles to the free initiative and action of individuals,

hot-beds of ambition, self seeking and rotten beliefs in authority etc.

That means, we see in them agents of reaction to keep the people in

continued ignorance of their own interests.

We do not therefore discourage workingmen from organisation, but such

organisations could only be free groups of men and women with the same

aims for identical purposes, disbanding when the object in view is

achieved.

This brings us to the question of the advisability of Anarchists to join

Trade Unions, not the question of the membership of Unions which may be

a necessity for them as the case stands, but the question of propaganda

in them. Anarchists do not wish to isolate themselves and Unions may be

useful as a place to meet their fellow workers. But whether Unions

should be formed by Anarchists is entirely dependent on the particular

case. For we do not consider Trades Unionism as at present constituted

as a serious force to overthrow the system, but only as a means to get a

little better provision for the workers under the present conditions.

Therefore they cannot be carried on without dealing with immediate

so-called practical questions, which are never settled without

compromises, as all members are not Anarchists.

In Unions the General Strike might form a proper subject to start the

propaganda, and such a strike, though in itself not effective as a

remedy, would probably bring about revolutionary situations which would

advance the march of events in an unprecedented way. To speak plainly,

we advocate the General Strike as a means to set the ball rolling: who

knows whether it may not lead to the Social Revolution, which we all

desire as the only thing that can help us.

The Social Revolution, as we conceive it, would consist in the

paralysation of all existing authoritarian institutions and

organisations, the prevention of new organisations of this character,

the expropriation of the present exploiters of labor, and in the

rearrangement of relations between men on the basis of voluntary

agreements. This will appear to some to be rather a large program, but

logical thinking will convince them of the fact that every one of these

points is the necessary consequence of the others, and that they can

only be carried out altogether, or not at all. For what is really

impracticable are not full measures, but those half- hearted measures —

so-called reforms — which pretend to do away with a part of the existing

misery, whilst the root remains intact and makes the whole reform futile

and useless.

These then are our means of propaganda, and we trust they are manifold

enough to allow everybody full scope for his energies who chooses his

place amongst us. The leading idea of our propaganda must always be

defiance and destruction of the principle of authority in all its forms

and disguises — full scope for freedom, the basis and condition of all

human development and progress.

In conclusion, let us consider briefly the remedies proposed by the

other parties — useless as they are, as the ever-increasing misery

around us abundantly shows.

The State Socialist parties, apart from a few Socialists pure and simple

who, if they were true to the foundations of their opinions, would come

over to us, have of late become entirely parties for advocating

political action. They believe in sending the right man to Parliament,

and we have the choice between the chosen of the I.L.P., of the Fabians,

and of the S.D.F. We do not consider their minor differences: what is

the principle of political action worth? — is the question we ask. It is

intended to bring about these social changes. Some palliatives may be

adopted, but the system will continue to exist; for these labor parties

make the workers believe in constitutional means, in the leadership and

worship of men; in short, they destroy their self-reliance and

self-respect, and do for them that which religion does — make them

expect everything from others, nothing from themselves. The history of

the labor movement in Europe and America shows the greater these parties

become the less advanced their leaders grow and the less is achieved by

these bulky, cast-iron organisations with no room for freedom left in

them.

We have no more belief in Trades Unions as such than in political

action, yet we prefer those Unionists, who rely upon their own action to

those who cry for State help. Our propaganda might sometimes use this

question as a starting point.

The Co-operative movement can only benefit a few who remain unnoticed

among the general misery. Productive Co-operation on a large scale would

have to compete with capitalism, which ruthlessly cuts down wages and

gets a supply of cheap labor from the unemployed. Co-operators would

have to work on similar lines, those of the greatest possible

exploitation of labor and that will be no remedy for the needs of labor,

or they would be crushed by the capitalist competition, being in fact

the first victims of a commercial crisis. Thus on a large scale

Co-operation is impracticable, and those who take part in it in is

present form are only too often estranged from the general labor

movement. So we consider Co-operators as workers who are no essential

factor in the coming struggle.

The meanest and most repulsive “friends” of the workers are the

Teetotalers, Malthusianists, and the advocates of thrift and saving, who

propound each his particular crochet as an infallible remedy for

poverty. They want the workers to give up the small mites of, however

adulterated and paltry, pleasure and enjoyment that are left to them.

“Hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue”, the proverb says, and

the other parties make at any rate promises of better things, but these

want to make life still more dreary and cheerless. Economically they are

utterly wrong. If all were content to live as Coolies do, on a handful

of rice per day, wages would be lowered by competition to the level of

Coolie wages — a few pence per day. We want the standard of the workers’

living raised, not lowered, and all the things to which these “friends”

object to a real, full, human life.

We need not dwell on all the cranks who have cut and dried remedies like

the Free Currency advocates, who ignore the principle of every society

with private property: “No property, no credit”. To be benefited by

money cheques, it would be necessary to possess some kind of portable or

realisable property to be given in exchange for the cheques or to have

them secured on. Nothing would be altered by them, they could simply

perpetuate the worst evils of the present system in a more aggravated

form. To the worker who has no property but his labor to dispatch of, in

times when work is slack and labor therefore not in demand, they would

offer no resource whatever, and he would still be obliged to suffer and

to starve. To make the remedy proportionate to the evil proposed to be

cured, it would be requisite to abolish all private property and make

the land and all it contains, together with all the implements of

production, common property — that is, to introduce Communism, where

money and money cheques will have become equally useless.

As you will have seen, Anarchism does not preach anything contrary to

the principles which have always inspired men to strive for freedom and

right. It would indeed be absurd to try and impose something new upon

mankind. No! Anarchism is nothing but the full acknowledgment of the

realisation of the principle that freedom is at the root of sound

natural development. Nature knows no outside laws, no external powers,

and only follows her own inward forces of attraction or repulsion.

Everything is the result of the existing forces and tendencies, and this

result becomes again in turn the cause of the next thing following. In

its childhood, humanity suffered from the ignorance of this cause, and

suffers still by being trodden under the heel of imaginary celestial and

human authority (both arising from the same sources — ignorance and the

fear of the unknown). All progress has been made by fighting and defying

authority. Great men in history — men who have done real work, that is,

work useful for the progress of the human race by breaking and defying

laws and regulations apparently made for everlasting time — showed

mankind new roads, opened new ground. There were rebels, and the last in

this series — those who wish not only to be free themselves but who saw

that which before them men did not see so clearly, that to be free

ourselves we must be surrounded by free men; that the slavery of the

meanest human being is our own slavery. Those last rebels for freedom

and progress are the Anarchists of all countries, and in solidarity with

them we appeal to you.

Study our principles, our movement, and if they convince you join us in

our struggle against authority and exploitation, for freedom and

happiness for all.

London, May 1^(st), 1895.

[1] This open statement of our convictions does not imply any spirit of

persecution on our part against those who believe in the absurdities of

the different religions. Persecution is essential to authority and

religion, and fatal to freedom; we should destroy the basis of our own

hopes and ideals, if we were ever carried away by the spirit of

persecution, bigotry and intolerance, which is so commonly raised

against us.