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Title: The New Era
Author: Pëtr Kropotkin
Date: 1896
Language: en
Topics: anarcho-communism, Libertarian Labyrinth
Source: Retrieved on 25th April 2021 from https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/from-the-archives/peter-kropotkin-the-new-era-and-the-crisis-of-socialism-1895/
Notes: Published in The Rebel 1, no. 1 (September 20, 1895): 3; no. 2 (October 20, 1895): 10–11; no. 3 (November, 1895): 28–29; no. 4 (January, 1896): 34; no. 6 (March-April, 1896): 59–60.

Pëtr Kropotkin

The New Era

The following address is one with which Kropotkine opened a series of

meetings in London, which our friends of the Freedom group propose to

give for the Anarchistic propaganda. To our regular readers this address

will contain much with, which they are already familiar; but new readers

may be interested in the following summary of the subject:

This address is the first of a series organized to discuss the subjects

of Anarchism and Communism, and before entering upon the matter proper,

our comrades have asked me to give an outline of Anarchism. I now

proceed to do this, but confess that I should have felt infinitely

happier if, instead of being limited to a mere sketch, it were possible

for me to have ten or a dozen evenings on which to unfold all there is

to be said upon Anarchism ; the subject is at once so vast and demands

such continual explanation. “Now, when, after being a member of some

socialist or radical group, we enter the ranks of the Anarchists, we are

inclined to look upon Anarchism as simply a mode of action which is to

lead with greater directness and certainty to the end we propose to

attain—that is, the Social Revolution.

But, little by little, as we assimilate it, we become impassioned over

this Anarchistic ideal, and we discover that, far from being a Utopian

or a purely speculative conception, this ideal is the result of an

innate tendency implanted in human Society — a tendency which has ever

formed the strength of the masses, and which, throughout the course of

history, has preserved them from being completely enslaved by a minority

eager for riches and power.

Still later, as we begin to consider the relations that exist between

our historical and sociological conceptions and our accepted views of

the facts of nature, we discern little by little that the Anarchistic

conception of social relations forms an integral part of the ideas

which, especially at the close of this century, are throwing a new light

upon our views of natural facts; that even the very form of Anarchistic

thought differs essentially from that which forms at present the basis

of all scientific thought, and that were this new method of thinking

applied to knowledge generally, the aspect of science would be

materially altered.

For Anarchism is more than a method of action, more than a Utopia, more

than a mere social theory.

It is the application to social matters of a manner of thinking, of

reasoning, of conceiving of natural facts, in a word of philosophy,

winch is now in very truth dawning upon the thinkers of the day and

which will undoubtedly mature into the philosophy of the twentieth

century. Our ideas on social phenomena change at the same time with our

ideas upon the universe and current knowledge.

“I have, therefore, to consider Anarchism under three aspects: As a mode

of action, as a social theory and as part of a general system of

philosophy. Only, I shall take them in the inverse order, and after

having developed certain ideas in order to connect our principles with

the accepted conception of natural facts. I will consider Anarchism as a

social theory, and lastly as a mode of action.

You must, I am sure, when reading works upon the general development of

human thought, have met with the following just reflection: That during

a certain period man believed that time earth was the centre of the

universe, and that sun, planets and stars all revolved around our globe

in four-and-twenty hours. Man being the superior being upon the earth,

the entire universe existed for him. For him, the sun, the moon and

stars, respectively, revolved upon their orbits around this earth, his

habitation; one and all had been created for him, and the supposed

creator of the universe watched over him in order to protect him from a

possible confusion of these elements and from that element of evil—the

devil. This science and this philosophy reigned supreme during the dark

period of man’s subjection. The powerful theocracies of the East became

their outward expression.

But as ideas and men began to throw off the yoke of religion it was

perceived that a far too important position had been assigned to the

earth and to man. It was discovered that the sun was the centre of our

planetary system; that this sun, immense as it was in comparison to the

earth, was but a grain of sand among millions of other suns, as large,

and larger, than our own.

In every work of philosophical history you will find brilliant pages

portraying the influence of this change of ideas upon the structure of

the world. All the thought of the period in its entire application to

social relations felt the rebound; and many a no less brilliant page

could he written to demonstrate how the material enfranchisement of man

influenced his conceptions upon the cosmogony of the universe.

Well, now, an analogous fact is occurring today. We are entering upon an

era when exactly as important a change is taking place throughout all

scientific, all philosophical thought. A new philosophy is arising, and

Anarchism, far from being a simple Utopia, or, as has not unfrequently

been said, a crude theory, appears on the contrary as an essential and

fundamental part of this new philosophy—that part, in fact, which treats

of our social relations.

Remember always the conception of the universe of which I have just

spoken. The Newtonian philosophy (or, rather, that philosophy which, in

appropriating the discoveries of Newton, overpowered the last three

centuries) told us of a sun which was the lord of the planetary system.

He it was who chained down the earth, the planets and the comets to

their orbits. By his powerful attraction he kept them within stated

distances and compelled them to revolve around him in wide circles. He

was the heart, the soul, the king—the governor of the system. Order,

perfect amid rigid, reigned throughout this system, thanks to his power;

and were there factors of disorder or disturbance, these were hut of a

passing nature. Soon the force of attraction of the all-powerful star

restored the equilibrium, and during infinite periods of time this order

would last, because the disturbances themselves mutually accomodated or

destroyed each other so as to re-establish the ordained cycle. “Worship

the luminous star! Sing to the glory of the great geometrician!” cried

the astronomer.

“To-day all this is changed.”

It has been discovered that the vast space beyond these planets and suns

is peopled by others extremely minute—small masses of matter these,

which circulate in every sense, having each their own distinct life, and

whose effects, infinitesimal as they respectively may be, are yet so

immense when taken together that they completely modify the force of the

giants placed in the centre of the system. Kant and Laplace derived the

planets from one central mass. To-day we displace the centre of gravity.

The central mass or agglomeration, is itself but the result of the

action of these infinitely small molecules of matter, and it is these

little Pariahs who build up the planets, who retain the heat in the sun,

who by their rapid revolutions maintain the life of the whole. One step

further, and attraction itself, which has (contrary to Newton) been

placed in the centre of our radiant sun, becomes but the result of the

movements of molecules—of the infinitely small.

In a word, without entering further into technical detail, up to the

present time we have been accustomed to consider the whole and its

result, without inquiring particularly into the origin of this result or

lingering over the humble units which go to form the whole. Now, on the

contrary, our attention is fixed on the very particles upon which we

have hitherto barely cast a furtive glance, with the result that before

long we shall be enabled to decipher every individual action of and each

individual unit that helps to form the grand total. A mathematician,

when studying a whole—that is, a given quantity and its resultant—would

remark: “We are to-day about to fix our attention upon the minute parts

of which this whole is composed.”

Such is the point to which astronomy is tending, and not astronomy

alone, but the general conception of the universe-cosmogony.

Now, what we see occurring in the study of the universe is being

repeated in every branch of science, including that which treats of the

relations of mankind.

Anarchism forms, in fact, one of the most important parts of our method

of conceiving of nature-a philosophy which proclaims itself and which

might be termed synthetic philosophy, if Spencer had not already

employed that name to designate a system from which he has drawn so many

incomplete and contradictory conclusions, if frequently opposed to our

own.

Anarchistic thought is thus but a branch of that general method of

reasoning which promises to become the philosophical thought of the

civilized world.

A few other examples, taken also from the domain of science, will even

more clearly establish this idea.

A similar change is taking place in the sciences which treat of animate

beings.

Where hitherto men spoke of creation or of the appearance of species,

they to-day study the variations which occur in the individual under the

influence of environment and of the adaptations of their organs to

conditions which vary every day.

The individual himself is treated as a complex being, as a colony of

infinitely minute atoms, associated together, yet each retaining its own

distinct life. The divers organs of plants, of animals, of men, are

considered as a collection of cells, or rather of organisms living each

its own life and associating together for the purpose of forming organs,

which in their turn group themselves together, yet each preserving its

own individuality throughout—the whole going to form the complete

individual. “Man”, replies the physiologist of to-day, “is not a being!”

He is a colony of micro-organisms, of cells grouped into organs. Study

them, study these groupings, if you wish to know what man is.”

Formerly we were told of the soul of man, which was endowed with a

separate, an almost isolated, existence. To-day we discover that what

was called the soul or spirit of man is an excessively complex thing, a

collection, an agglomeration of faculties, each of which requires to be

studied separately. They are, of course, intimately associated; no

activity can manifest itself in one without every other responding to

the call. But each possesses its own life, each its own centre of

activity, the organs. And instead of being the science of the psychic

faculties appertaining to the individual as a whole, psychology becomes

a study of the separate functions of which the life of that individual

is composed.

But it is especially in sociology that the change becomes most apparent.

I will not speak of history, because you all know how the point of view

on that subject is changed, how the cult of “heroes” disappears, and

how, the more it is studied, the role of the masses acquires importance,

how the great deeds of history appear more and more as the result of

thousands of individual wills. Who is there who has not perceived this,

even should he only have read the war of 1812 as depicted by Tolstoi?

No, we do not need to speak of history; but let us take, for instance,

political economy.

The founder of this system, Adam Smith, entitled his work “The Wealth of

Nations.” The products of nations, their imports and exports, their

rates of exchange, etc., were what then occupied the political

economist. But to-day political economy no longer interests itself with

the wealth of nations. It wishes to know if the individual, if each

individual, has his wants supplied. It ‘no longer desires to measure the

wealth of a nation by the value of its exchanges. It measures this by

the number of its prosperous individuals, as compared with the number of

those vegetating in misery. The point of view is entirely changed; so

that now, before writing upon the wealth of nations, the student would

consider it necessary to go from house to house, to knock at every door

and inquire of those behind each whether they had had a meal, whether

each child has a clean bed, whether in each household there was bread

for to-morrow. The needs of the individual and the measure of their

supply—such is the material required by the political economy developing

itself to-day.

And, finally, in politics, we no longer ask what is the precise form

inscribed upon the code of each nation, what the distinctive mark of the

State. We desire to know how far each individual is free, how far the

needs of each local autonomy are satisfied, what is the intellectual

level of each person, how far each is the slave of his prejudices, up to

what point he is free to express his thoughts—all his thoughts—, and to

act in accordance with the impulses of his mind and heart. It is still

of the individual that we wish to know, feeling that the political

condition of a nation—the result—will appear of itself once we

understand the individuals which compose it.

In a word, upon whichever side of the sciences touching animate and

inanimate nature or human communities we turn our eyes, everywhere we

find this eminently characteristic tendency of the age. Formerly we were

satisfied to study the results, the grand totals; to-day our attention

is fixed upon the minute individualities composing those sum-totals.

“Just as to the astronomer our great central star becomes eclipsed

before the multitudinous lesser ones throughout space, so the nation,

the State, appears as the simple product of agglomerations of

individuals, developing, growing before the very eyes of historian,

political economist, politician and social reformer.

At once the product and instigator of that method of thought which now

begins to dominate every science, Anarchism is the offspring of that

vast impulse, that great stirring up of opinion, which is over-mastering

all minds and which should govern our subsequent development. It is the

application of this method of thought to our economic and political

affairs at the moment when man is liberating himself from the prejudices

which have been forced upon him by religion, science, education and

legislation, which reflected mere abstractions the better to lead him to

forget the reality—man toiling, suffering, struggling in misery.

Another idea, no less rich In consequence, dawns also upon modern

thought. “When we note how all things hold together in Nature, how rare

are the cataclysms which it would seem might frequently destroy all life

in our globe, as well as the solar systems themselves, man cannot but

conceive that there is a certain harmony in Nature, and seek to discover

its cause. “Why, for instance, do these pursue their course through

space without dashing against and destroying one another? Why do not

volcanic eruptions and sudden subsidences from time to time annihilate

whole continents, engulfing them under subterranean lava or beneath the

waves? Why do not whole species of plants and animals become extinct in

a few years–devoured, annihilated by other species? How is it, in fact,

that human communities remain so stable? How can they last without being

disintegrated by internal convulsions? Why not a chaos of continual

cataclysms? “To this question, which man has never ceased to pose

himself, the answer has varied with the ages. Formerly the reply was

concise. It was the Creator who protected His own handiwork. Later a

better solution offered. It was especially in our present Jacobinic era

that the idea of law came to be substituted for that of divine

arbitrariness. But, instead of remaining satisfied with what is called

“natural law”—a simple suggestion, perceived by us, though without a

full comprehension of the conditional character of such “natural laws”

(it being plain that if one thing is produced another like it must

necessarily be produced), we came by and by to consider the “law”—that

is, the relation of phenomena to each other to be a something superior

to phenomena, a something, as it were, linked to phenomena, but

governing and directing them. “The whole science of our century was

conceived under the domination of this idea. Not only the natural

sciences, but also those treating of man; and not only has the science

of universities been affected by it, but the language of the politician,

the reformer and the revolutionist. “The idea of law, of control, of

order, imposed upon things as well as individuals, permeates all our

language, and we hear the echo of it in revolutionary meetings as often

as in the courts of a bourgeois university. Our whole philosophy is

tinctured with the Jacobinism of 1793.

But a new current is already making itself felt in science which should

before long influence all our conceptions. If a certain harmony exists

in Nature (that it has limits is well to remember), if fearful

convulsions but rarely disturb the order of the great facts of Nature,

if everything and every living creature finds itself more or less

adapted to the conditions under which it lives, it is because they are

the products of these very conditions. It is their surroundings which

have made them what they ·are.

This is why they are not in danger of destruction. The free play of

constructive and destructive energies itself creates the things which

represent the most durable equilibrium between the opposing forces. And

if such a harmony exists, it can but be the result of these forces

continually changing, continually renewed by them, according to the

needs of the hour. , ‘It is Lamarck and Fourier clasping hands. The idea

of Lamarck applied to human communities; the idea of Fourier applied to

the phenomena of nature.

Harmony, order, wherever there exists order and harmony, are not the

products of a divine will. Neither are they the products of laws imposed

by anyone single active force. They maintain themselves solely on one

condition-that of being freely established and in equilibrium with all

other forces moving toward the same end. If the play of any of these

energies is impeded by the human will, none the less do they continue to

operate, but their effects will accumulate, until one day the dam will

burst, and there ensues disaster-a deluge, a revolution. Harmony is not

a thing that lasts indefinitely. It can exist only upon condition of

continual modification, of changing its aspect every moment-for nothing

exists either in Nature or amongst human relations that does not change

momentarily. Continual change is the very life of Nature. And if there

is this harmony in Nature, and if cataclysms are always local and rare,

it is precisely because among natural forces there is no outside will

endeavoring to shackle their energies. Each moves freely; all commingle

together; and all together create things which last, because among the

infinitely small energies pertaining to a work, as among the

individualities grouped closely together to form the whole, a close bond

of solidarity is established.

Finally, we perceive that the harmony of Nature should not be

exaggerated. If growths which it has taken millions of years to form,

such, for instance, as living creatures and continents, become modified

with incredible slowness, that has nothing to do with phenomena of

recent origin. We must distinguish between the harmony of celestial

spaces and that of life, which develops with infinitely greater speed.

,’Plant and animal species vary, and give rise to new species far more

rapidly than has been supposed. The same applies to geological changes.

With this order of facts evolution does not move with the slow and

uniform step we desired to attribute to it. Evolution in these forms

becomes constantly interrupted by local revolutions, and these

revolutions, these periods of accelerated evolution are every whit as

much a part of the harmony of Nature as the periods of slow evolution.

These, in brief, are the two great currents of ideas which are beginning

to penetrate the thought of our century.

If we understand by philosophy, not merely physical abstractions, but a

general survey of all the phenomena of the universe, of life, human

communities and their relations, as well as the application of these

views to each little fact of life and daily struggle, we can affirm that

the whole philosophy of the century is about to suffer a profound

modification. Anarchism is simply a part of this general survey. We

might say that it is its application to the relations between men in

communities, if thought as a rule did not tend in an opposite

direction-that of constructing the philosophy of the universe from a

simple observation of human affairs.

But there is a predominating fact which it is well to note, The

philosophy which, on one side, is elaborated from the study of science,

and. Anarchism on the other, are two branches of the selfsame great

impulse which is operating in the minds of men; two sisters advancing,

as it were, hand in hand together; and that is why we can assert that

Anarchism is more than a Utopia, more than a theory; it is the general

viewing together of facts and. phenomena which is forced upon us by our

era.

We see, therefore, that Anarchism is not a thing of yesterday, It is

impossible, however, in this address, to enter into the details of its

origin, but those who wish to study these will find traces of them in

the philosophy of Greece.

At bottom, popular movements have always been tinged with anarchistic

principles, and everything that has been imposed by the minorities (at

first of sorcerers, later on of priests, scientists, soldiers and

lawyers) has been contrary to these anarchistic tendencies of the

masses. The masses ever proclaiming the “droit coutumier” (customary or

ordinary rights); the minorities—States, universities, Christian

churches and the like—habitually imposing law that had been elaborated

amidst the despotisms of the East, and today known as Roman, or rather

as Byzantine, law.

The revolt 1800 years ago of Judea and the risings in the East which

followed; the religious struggles of the ninth century in Armenia; those

of the Rationalists in the twelfth century; finally those of the

Anabaptists—all owed their origin to. this fundamental idea: Equality

for all, no private fortunes, no law other than that of the conscience

of man. Recent researches of German historians develop the fact that the

Reformation was not only coincident with, but in reality was caused by

the Anabaptist movement, whose members preached the same revolt against

law and authority, declaring that there was nothing obligatory in codes,

such, for instance, as were comprised within the Bible, other than what

each man found applicable to or desirous for his own needs. These

historians prove clearly that the whole weight of the struggle of that

century was borne by the Anabaptists; massacred immediately by the

thousand once the Lutheran Church—by authority and “Roman right,” of

course—took the lead of the movement.

Unfortunately all these movements looked to religion for their support.

But even when the philosophy of the eighteenth century finally broke

away from all religious tradition and turned toward science for support,

it was still anarchistic. At its origin it announced the principles

which to-day are the foundation of our ideas, Thus, from an intellectual

standpoint, we are the direct descendants of this philosophy; and from

the standpoint of action and the ideal, we are the descendants of all

the popular movements which have occurred in history. Whatever their

outward aspect, their essence has always been the same—Communism and

Anarchism.

So much for our origin. Let us now pass on to a statement of our ideas.

Until the present time political economy occupied itself solely with the

wealth of nations, At starting, it studied the annual statistics of

capital in the hands of the possessing classes, basing its studies upon

the supposition that when a nation is wealthy owing to the number of its

possessing classes, every individual in that nation will also be

wealthy. But to-day we know this supposition to be false, and under the

impelling power of our era our attention is drawn to each component

member of the nation. Such also is our method of interpreting social

economy. We study the individuals, their necessities and the means of

their satisfaction.

We enter the cottage of the peasant, the room or hovel of the laborer,

the house or the palace of the rich. We there study their requirements

and the measure of their supply, We then discover that three-fourths, if

not nine-tenths, of society is in need of the actual necessaries of

life. Men toil, most of them, indeed, are crushed by overwork,

notwithstanding which they lack everything. We find insufficient

nourishment, want of clothing, an absence of all that is considered

essential not alone by the laws of modern hygiene, but even of such

hygienic conditions as are to be found among peoples still backward in

civilization.

The children even cannot satisfy their hunger. Everywhere in civilized

countries we hear the cry: “The children are emaciated ; they cannot be

taught, for they come to school with empty stomachs. We must-have bread

for these famished tittle beings before instruction is possible.” The

small amount of bread they require is wanting in their families. While

as to their clothing, we have all read with horror the description given

but a few months since of the rags, or absence of clothing, on the

little children from Whitechapel, who flocked to the evening reunions

organized for their benefit. We all see these rags in city suburbs: we

all know the little newsboys who run barefoot at night through the

frozen mud of such cities as Newcastle and Glasgow, or, who, numbed with

cold, sink exhausted upon the porches of merchant princes’ palaces in

maritime cities.

And—but what need to speak of the hovels of the working population in

city or country when whole volumes have been published on the subject?

Volumes that may well remain little better than waste paper.

Want of nourishment, want of clothing, want of housing all along the

line. Want of everything that renders life in ever so little a degree

pleasant or intellectual. Who is there to-day who would dare to dispute

these facts?

And still we are told of the progress that has already been made, and

which is to be so much greater in the future. Well, we hasten to admit

this progress where we find it.

Certainly the peasants of France are far less wretched today than they

were a hundred years ago. Before they had broken the bonds of serfdom

and retaken possession of some small portion of the lands stolen from

their Communes by the nobles, they were certainly more miserable than

they are at the present time. Let us at once grant the benefits gained

between 1789–1793. But we cannot forget, on the other hand, that if the

French peasantry no longer as droves of beggars tramp along the

highroads by the thousand, it is because the most poverty-stricken among

them have already migrated to the towns, and that we now find them in

city suburbs—proletarians vastly more wretched than were their

forefathers of the countryside.

Again, we cannot but note a great improvement in English manufacturing

centres if we compare the artisan of to-day with his brother of 1840. It

is true that here also the dregs of those suffering the greatest poverty

have been drained into the suburbs of London, Glasgow or Birmingham, but

those remaining behind enjoy more ease than did their fathers between

the years of 1840–1848, But then, as we are now aware, that period was

one of the darkest and most terrible known to modern history. It was the

period of the first unbridled exploitation on the part when,

vulture-like, it swooped down on populations subdued by bourgeois law,

despoiled of their lands, reduced to hunger, disarmed for six centuries.

Europe had never known an era so disastrous as this of a victorious

capitalism become a master of men by the law that made hanging the

penalty for strikes, and by the hunger that preyed upon a peasantry

hunted from their lands.

It is easy to speak of amelioration when taking this epoch as the point

of comparison. But if we look back a hundred, two hundred, or even three

hundred years, the scene changes completely. When we turn, not to those

economists who reach their conclusions off-hand, but to those who have

spent their lives in the study of prices and wages—men like Thorold

Rogers, the Oxford professor—we see that the prosperity of the best paid

laborer or artisan of to-day is greatly inferior to that of the humblest

laborer or workingman of the Middle Ages. The daily statement of wages

inserted in the registers of that period and the price of commodities

noted upon the records of sales are there to prove it

Confronted with such facts as these, the panegyrists of bourgeois

progress would do better to keep a discreet silence.

At all events, the well paid workmen form the minority. What, then about

the others ? The patient researches of Charles Booth (the statistician)

will tell us. His inquiry made from house to house in the proves that

out of the five million inhabitants of that great city, one million and

a half—more than a quarter of the population—have not so much as

eighteen shillings ($4.35) a week (and by family) assured to them. When

they are certain of the meagre pittance they consider themselves happy.

But during two, three or four months of the year they are unable to make

even this sum per family, and their distress accordingly becomes

extreme. And, remember, it is not ten or twenty thousand people who are

thus situated, it is more than a quarter of the population of the

wealthiest commercial capital in the world.

What about other cities? What about the agricultural population, whose

maximum gains per family amount to some $3 a week, and who are only

secure of that when the weather is open and they are able to work?

Finally, what of that population of our large cities—I mean those

thousands who have nothing, and yet have to live from day to day?

Note, moreover, that this quarter, or rather this third of the urban

population of England—of the country, that is, which has attained the

greatest industrial development, and which exists at the expense of the

entire world over and above its own natural riches— note that these

millions only earn this uncertain $3 or $4.35 as long as there is no

crisis. When a crisis arrives, they no longer have this sum a week per

family. And these crises, as economists know, are not the exception but

the rule. Certain of them recur periodically every ten or twelve years,

with the same regularity as the spots on the sun and the droughts in the

East. Others take longer to mature. Yet a third have no regular period

of recurrence, arriving. like comets; while a fourth class are local,

occurring when some industry migrates from its original centre to some

other part of the country, where “hands” are cheaper. Sometimes all four

kinds fall upon us together, Then we have famine, typhus, some plague,

as lately seen in Russia and Germany. It is the stoppage of industries

which work by and for the peasant, and which stagnate for want of

purchasers ; or else it is a cotton famine in Yorkshire, of a crisis in

sugar, as in Dundee in 1886, or a crisis in the iron trade, such as we

experienced a few years ago. It means the blackest misery,

hunger-stricken men and women, the decimation of children, whole

families broken up, enforced, emigration and suffering beyond seas amid

the malarial fevers of distant lands.

A little cropping up of prosperity here and there a great deal of misery

everywhere, and everywhere that feeling of insecurity for to-morrow

which intrudes even into the palaces of the rich—this is what we should

find if, instead of talking about brilliant sum totals, we studied the

unit, the individual.

But when we think of the almost incredible struggles that the working

classes have gone through during the present century to gain the little

they own; when we think of their revolts, their strikes, their

coalitions, and of the hunger and countless miseries endured during each

strike; when we remember the martyrs without number that every strike,

every revolt, every little act of rebellion or attempt at coalition has

to record ; when we recollect all that these rebels, their wives and

children have had to suffer each time that they sought to fetter

exploitation, and when before us rise the dead bodies of May, June—of

every month of so many years—what about progress then? Small as it is,

it is not due to the development of capitalism. On the contrary it has

been wrung from the monster by sheer force. If the capitalist, aided by

his faithful valet, the government, has not by means of law and hunger,

succeeded in reducing the workman into actual bondage, it is because the

latter has had his moments of revolt; it is because he struggled, at the

price of nameless privations and numberless victims. It is with a stone

or a torch in his hand, sometimes with a rifle at his shoulder, that he

has torn from the vampire an infinitesimal portion of that which might

have come to him from the scientific progress of the century. Every

penny gained on wages, every liberty earned in the workshop is marked by

the corpses of workmen; and if only the number of these victims could be

counted, no one would dare talk to him about “progress” already gained.

(To be continued.)

[The Rebel ceased publication before the rest could be published.]