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Title: Act For Yourselves Author: PĂ«tr Kropotkin Date: January 1887 Language: en Topics: anarcho-communism, revolution Source: Retrieved on 28th February 2021 from https://freedomnews.org.uk/kropotkin-act-for-yourselves/
A question which we are often asked is: “How will you organise the
future society on Anarchist principles?” If the question were put to
Herr Bismarck, or to somebody who fancies that a group of men is able to
organise society as they like, it would seem very natural. But in the
ears of an Anarchist it sounds very strangely, and the only answer we
can give to it is: “We cannot organise you. It will depend upon you what
sort of organisation you will choose.” If the masses continue to cherish
the idea that a government can do everything, and reorganise economical
relations ― the growth of centuries ― by a few laws, then we may well
wait whole centuries until the rule of Capital is abolished. But if
there is among the working classes a strong minority of men who
understand that no government ― however dictatorial its powers ― is able
to expropriate the owners of capital, and this minority acquires
sufficient influence to induce the workmen to avail themselves of the
first opportunity of taking possession of land and mines, of railways
and factories ― without paying much heed to the talking at Westminster ―
then we may expect that some new kind of organisation will arise for the
benefit of the commonwealth.
That is precisely the task we impose upon ourselves. To bring workmen
and workmen’s friends to the conviction that they must rely on
themselves to get rid of the oppression of Capital, without expecting
that the same thing can be done for them by anybody else. The
emancipation of the workmen must be the act of the workmen themselves.
The very words Anarchist-Communism show in what direction society, in
our opinion, is already going, and on what lines it can get rid of the
oppressive powers of Capital and Government, and it would be an easy
task for us to draw a sketch of society in accordance with these
principles.[1] But what would be the use of such a scheme, if those who
listen to it have never doubted the possibility of reorganising
everything by homeopathic prescriptions from Westminster, if they have
never imagined that they themselves are more powerful than their
representatives, and if they are persuaded that everything can and must
be settled by a government, most men having only to obey and never to
act for themselves?
One of the first delusions to get rid of, therefore, is the delusion
that a few laws can modify the present economical system as by
enchantment. The first conviction to acquire is that nothing short of
expropriation on a vast scale, carried out by the workmen themselves,
can be the first step towards a reorganisation of our production on
Socialist principles.
In fact, if we analyse the immense complexity of economical relations
existing in a civilised nation, if we take into account the relatively
small amount of real workmen in this country and the enormous number of
parasites who live on their shoulders and are interested in the
maintenance of parasitic conditions, we cannot but recognise that no
government will be able ever to undertake the reorganisation of
industry, unless the People begin themselves to do it by taking
possession of the mines and factories, of the land and the houses, ― in
short, of all those riches which are the produce of their own labour. It
is only when the masses of the people are ready to begin expropriating
that we may expect that any government will move in the same direction.
Surely, it will not be the present Parliament which will ever take the
initiative in dispossessing the owners of land and capital. Even if the
workmen assume a really menacing attitude, our present middle-class
rulers will not become Socialists. They will try, first, to crush the
movement, to disorganise it, and if they are unable to do so, they will
do what all governments have done on like occasions. They will try to
gain time, until the masses, reduced to still more dreadful misery by
the increased depression of industry, will be ready to accept any
concessions, however delusive, rather than starve in the streets.
To expect that Socialist workmen will have a majority in Parliament is,
again, to cherish a naive and vain delusion. We shall have long to wait
before a Socialist majority is created in this country. But the
thousands reduced to starvation by the enormities of the present social
system cannot wait, and even if they could, events will be precipitated
by partial conflicts. Last winter we saw the whole of one of the mining
basins in Belgium in open rebellion against Capital.[2] A few months ago
we were very near to a general outbreak of workmen in some parts of the
United States.[3] And although the treachery of a Powderly ― the chief
of the Knights of Labor ― may have paralysed the outbreak everybody in
the United States ― even the most stubborn politician ― well understands
that another time a Powderly may be powerless, especially in presence of
the provocative attitude of the middle classes, who never fail on such
occasions to increase the ranks of the discontented and to intensify the
discontent.
The Social Question will be put to Europe, in all its immensity, long
before the Socialists have conquered a few seats in Parliament, and thus
the solution of the question will be actually in the hands of the
workmen themselves. They will have no choice: either try must resolve it
themselves, or be reduced to a worse slavery than before.
Under the influence of government worship, they may try to nominate a
new government, instead of the old one which will be sent away, and they
may entrust it with the solution of all difficulties. It is so simple,
so easy, to throw a vote into the ballot-box, and to return home! So
gratifying to know that there is somebody who will arrange your own
affairs for the best, while you are quietly smoking your pipe and
waiting for orders which you will have only to execute, not to reason
about. An admirable way, indeed, to have your affairs left as they were
before, even if you are not cheated by your trustees!
History is full of such examples. The revolted people of Paris in 1871
also nominated a government, and hoped that this government ― which
consisted, in fact, of the most devoted revolutionists belonging to all
sections of the revolutionary world, all men ready to die for the
emancipation of the people ― would settle everything for the best.
They did the same thing at Paris in 1848, when they chose a Provisional
Government by acclamation, and expected that this Government ― which
also consisted of honest men ― would resolve the social question.
But we know how dreadful was the awakening of the Paris proletarians,
and we know by what hecatombs of slaughtered men, women, and children
they paid for their confidence.
There was, however, another epoch, when these same Frenchmen acted in
another way. The peasants were serfs before 1789 ― in fact, if not by
law. The land of their communes had been enclosed by landlords, and they
had to pay these lords every possible kind of tax, survivals of, or
redemption for, feudal servitude.
These peasants also voted in 1789, and nominated a government. But as
they saw that this government did not respond to their expectations,
they revolted; in fact, they did so even before they saw their
government at work. They went to the landlords and compelled them to
abdicate their rights. They burned the charters where these rights were
written down; they burned some of the castles of the most hated nobles.
And, on the night of the 4^(th) of August, the nobility of France, moved
by high patriotic feelings (so the historians say), which feelings were
excited by the spectacle of burning castles, abdicated their rights for
ever.
True that, four days later, they re-established the very same rights by
imposing a redemption fee. But the peasants revolted again. They even
took no notice at all of what the Chamber had voted. They took
possession of the enclosed lands and began to till them. They paid no
redemption taxes. And when the authorities intervened ― in the name of
the sacred law ― they revolted against the authorities. They revolted ―
M. Taine says ― six times in the course of four years, and their revolts
were so successful that by the end of the fourth year the Convention ―
the great Convention, the ideal of all modern Jacobins ― moved again by
highest patriotic feelings (the middle classes’ historians say so),
finally abolished all feudal rights, in 1793, and ordered all papers
relating to the feudal epoch to be burnt.
But what the historians forget to say is that the rights were already
abolished by the peasants, and that most papers dealing with feudal
rights were already burned.
The terrible revolutionary body thus sanctioned only the accomplished
fact. Feudalism was actually no longer in existence; the Convention did
nothing but pronounce its funeral oration.
The workmen of the nineteenth century probably will not burn the
factories, but we fancy that their modes of action will bear a great
likeness to those of the French peasants. They will not wait for orders
from above before taking possession of land and capital. They will take
them first, and then ― already in possession of land and capital ― they
will organise their work. They will not consider these things as private
property ― it would be impossible in the present complicated,
interwoven, and interdependent state of our production. They will
nationalise them.
[1] Our Parisian brother-in-arms Le Révolté is now publishing a series
of articles showing how a commune, inspired with Anarchist ideas, might
organise itself as a communist society without government. [Many of
these articles were later revised and included in Kropotkin’s book The
Conquest of Bread, published in 1892. (Editor)]
[2] A reference to the Walloon jacquerie of 1886 (see glossary).
(Editor)
[3] A reference to the Eight Hour Day movement and its strikes on 1^(st)
May 1886. The events at the Haymarket and subsequent framing of eight
Chicago anarchists is the best known expression of this strike wave (see
glossary). (Editor)