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Title: Our Revolution Author: Carlo Cafiero Date: 1881, 1972 Language: en Topics: anarchy, anarcho-communism, Revolution, communism, the state, authority, authoritarian socialism Source: Chapter II from: Cafiero, Carlo, and Nestor McNab (Ed. & trans.). 2012. Revolution. 1st English ed. Edmonton: Black Cat Press. Notes: First part originally published in French translation in “La Révolution sociale,” Paris on 20, 27 February; 6, 13, 27 March; 3, 10, 17, 24 April; 1, 8, 29 May; 6, 12, 19 June; 31 July 1881. Translated to English by Nestor McNab (2011) from the Italian text contained in Carlo Cafiero, *Rivoluzione per la rivoluzione: raccolta di scritti a cura e con introduzione di G. Bosio*, Rome 1970.
“The desire for destruction is a creative passion.”
Mikhail Bakunin, articles published in Dresden in 1841.
“To rise to a new life, one must extinguish every last echo of the past”
Carlo Pisacane, Saggio storico, p. 60.
Every age of human development has had its revolutionaries and its
reactionaries; the former worked for the triumph of the revolution,
while the latters mission was to halt its course However, they were not
always acting in bad faith.
There have been some who simply intended to take advantage of the
revolution, while others had no other aim than to take advantage of its
conquests, giving them an official form, the sanction of authority — the
guarantee of the State.
To affirm their principles, the early Christians founded the official
Church; but in this way they halted the revolution and prepared the
ground for the priest, who would exploit the Christian principle.
The priest, sure of having killed and buried the revolution for ever,
wrote a sort of epitaph on its tomb: submission of the Christian to the
pope, the vicar of God on earth; submission of the people to the king,
invested on the authority of the pope; submission of the serf to his
legitimate lord.
But if humanity is not dead, neither is the revolution; it rises up
prouder than before and from the same rock of its supposed tomb, it
extracts its programme for reconstruction; no more popes or kings: “with
the bowels of the last priest, Let us strangle the last king.”[1]
“War on the castles
And peace on the shacks ”
The revolution took up its course once more; it is helped by the people
who withstood centuries-long tyranny; it will carry out its programme
for today, for tomorrow and every time it can develop itself freely
among men.
No, it will not carry out its programme — cries the bourgeois capitalist
excitedly; no, neither its programme for tomorrow, nor for today. The
revolution has already been made; and now we need only order and work
(from the proletarians, naturally) in order to guarantee its conquests;
order, religion, the family, property!
This is the reactionary cry from the triumphant bourgeoisie, this is its
entire programme for its entire life, which it writes on the tomb of
where it imagines it has buried the revolution for ever.
But it is from that tomb that we, the revolutionaries of today, the sons
of every past revolution, must take our inspiration in order to
formulate our demands, the revolutionary programme of today, the ideal
for human progress in the future.
Order is our irrefutable submission to their freedom of oppression and
exploitation.
Religion is a moral bond to a faith of lies and deception, which seeks
to facilitate our submission.
The family is the prime expression of a whole series of constituted
authorities that end in the State, the supreme guarantor of human
oppression and exploitation.
Property is the amassing of the materials and instruments of labour,
that is to say of the sources of life, by a few privileged gluttons, who
thus manage to dominate the labour force, allowing inequality to
triumph, starving and torturing the people, transforming them into an
army of serfs, the humblest valets of His Excellency, Capital!
So then, no order! Down with authority, both the authority of God and
that of every single guard! Down with the authority of the family! Down
with the State! Down with proprietors!
With the iron of their chains, gladiators in revolt fashioned their
swords of freedom: from the centuries-old bonds of our servitude, we
will forge the arms of human emancipation.
Liberation of the people, liberation of its instincts, liberation of its
passions: liberation of that powerful god who does and undoes all
things, because he can do and undo all things, because he has made all
things!
Let the torrent of the people overflow its banks once more! Let it
overflow, terrible and destructive, majestic and just! And let no
sacrilegious hand rise up to attack the revolution!
O, revolution! Sublime law of nature, law of life and progress, law of
justice and love, law of liberty and equality! Sainted revolution, come
back to us! Resume your course among the people, and among the people
establish your reign once and for all! Let thy will be done for ever!
The revolution will come: it is near, it is at hand. But it will no
longer be the oil revolution, the revolution that is exploited only for
the needs of the moment, that is needed to reach an extraneous end and
is thus contrary to its very nature; it will no longer serve the
transitory needs of a class whose emancipation means only the oppression
and exploitation of another class.
Our Revolution has no end other than itself. It seeks to ensure the
complete, definitive triumph of the Revolution among men: so that,
starting from that moment, it can follow its path without meeting any
obstacle and thus alone bring to completion, through its successive
transformations, its eternal mission of progress without any more need
for violence: to work for the well-being and happiness of men without
ever interrupting the peace that exists among them.
The principle of struggle and the principle of sociability will undergo
further extension, the last that will require the use of violence: this
will be the last birthing by Revolution that requires intervention by
the surgeon.
Humanity is so rigorously divided into two classes, made up of
homogeneous, compact elements, that the Revolution will not be able to
simplify any further, since by applying the principle of struggle among
men, it will absorb the two classes into one. No more capitalists and
proletarians: every man free and equal. It is the simplest expression of
our revolutionary ideal.
This simplification of the principle of struggle is matched by an
expansion of the principle of sociability.
But the force of expansion of the principle of struggle within humanity
has been exhausted. From the times when man struggled, as we have seen,
alone against all and all against one, until today when humanity is
divided by the struggle into two great classes, each possible degree of
expansion of the principle of struggle and the principle of sociability
between men has lost its vitality. The confines of humanity have been
reached; and the workings of the principle of struggle, that natural law
that cannot be impeded or suspended, will be forced to remain within the
truly vast field of nature. No more struggle between men, reunited in
order to conquer and take advantage of the greatest natural forces.
No longer one against all and all against one, but one for all and all
for one.
And the principle of sociability, having only one class to absorb, will
necessarily have to extend itself to all of humanity. The human
sociability, the age of humanity. This will be the inexorable
consequence of the prerequisites; this the result, soon to come, of the
natural law of Revolution, destined in our age to prepare for egoism,
the noblest of satisfactions, with the conciliation of its two sons, the
principle of struggle and the principle of sociability.
Certainly, egoism will still be the inspiration for human action, but
the desire of our being, the demand of the self will be something noble,
human: it will be the search for one’s betterment, it will be the search
for one’s own good and one’s own happiness in the good and happiness of
all men. Nor will this be a matter of philanthropy — it will be the
inexorable law of the new age in history, which will make the good of
each a necessary part of the good of all, and the good of all the
essence of the good of each.
To sum up, then, we shall say:
The struggle of cannibalism and sociability of individualism.
The struggle of slavery and sociability of antiquity.
The struggle of servitude and sociability of the feudal age.
The struggle of waged labour and sociability of capitalism.
The struggle of nature and sociability of humanity.
This is the genealogical tree of humanity and Revolution at the same
time.
---
[This point marks the end of the part originally published in French
translation in “La Révolution sociale.” There follows the part published
in 1972 in Dossier Cafiero.]
---
Our revolutionary ideal is the age-old ideal of all those who refuse to
resign themselves to oppression and exploitation; for us, as for our
predecessors, it is summed up in two no less ancient terms: Freedom and
Equality.
As ancient as human servitude, that is to say as humanity, this ideal
has always had a limited, partial application thanks to the efforts of
reactionaries, who in every age have hindered the revolution. However,
despite all the past and present reactions, it [our ideal] has continued
to spread and is about to realize its most complete application in our
revolution.
Having learnt from past history, which shows us the endless deceptions
practised by the reactionaries of every sort and every age in order to
diminish, corrupt and misrepresent the true value of freedom and
equality, that is to say of the revolution itself, we have been
forewarned and now place alongside the face value of these two
oft-counterfeited coins the exact value that they truly have, in order
that we may accept them as genuine.
These two precious coins must pay for the eternal redemption of humanity
and the transaction will never take place until such times as the true
value exactly matches their face value.
Now, we express the true value of freedom and equality with the two
terms, Anarchy and Communism.
Consequently, we will not accept as true any freedom that does not
correspond exactly, that is not perfectly identical and perfectly equal
to anarchy — anything else will be false and mendacious for us; nor will
we accept as true equality anything that does not correspond exactly,
that is not perfectly identical and perfectly equal to communism — any
other purported equality will be false and mendacious for us.
So if freedom for us is anarchy and equality is communism, then our
revolutionary formula will be:
Anarchy and communism, like force and matter, are two terms which should
form a single term, since they jointly express a single concept.
The submission of the proletarians, the vast majority of humanity, to
the accumulators of the materials and means of labour, a small minority,
is the prime cause of all oppression and exploitation, of all
inequality, despotism and human brutality. The human community laying
claim to the materials and means of labour is a claim for the freedom
and equality of all men. But guarding the treasure that has been stolen
from us lies the State with all its constituted authorities and its
armed might, obstacles that we must throw down if we are to have our
goods returned to us. And consequently, while the two terms of our
revolution are twins, anarchy is destined to emerge from the womb first,
to pave the way for communism.
---
Anarchy means the absence of dominance, the absence of authority, the
absence of hierarchy, the absence of pre-established order — order, that
is, established by the few or by the first, which becomes law for the
many or for the second.
Can one ever be free if one is subjected to any form of dominance or
authority? Can the man who is commanded by another man ever be
considered free? Where is our freedom, when we are constrained by law to
conform to a pre-established order, which we already find unbearable
simply because it is imposed on us? The true friend of freedom must be
the true enemy of all domination, all authority, all command, all
elevation of one man over others; he must be the enemy of all law, all
pre-established order; he must be, in a word, an anarchist.
True freedom will not be obtained except through anarchy, which is thus
the prime term required for the revolution. Today, anarchy demands that
we attack, combat and destroy the State, which is the organism of all
the constituted powers — the great political machine that oppresses man
and ensures his exploitation. But once the whole existing order has been
swept clean, anarchy demands that we prevent any new establishment of
authority, any new supremacy, any new despotism, any establishment of a
new State.
Anarchy today is of an aggressive, destructive nature: tomorrow it will
have a preservative, protective nature. Today it is direct revolution:
tomorrow indirect revolution, the prevention of reaction.
Anarchy today is indignation, deadly hatred and eternal war against
every oppressor and exploiter on the face of the earth; it is the
indefeasible demand of the oppressed; it is their pact of alliance,
their war cry – the bloodiest war as long as one boss, one exploiter
remains in the world. Anarchy is incessant, permanent revolt against all
constituted order, war on the State and all its authorities, waged in
every way and under every possible form: with the word and with every
other outward sign, with acts of defiance and hostility, and above all
with arms. But tomorrow, once the obstacles have been overcome, anarchy
will be solidarity and love — complete freedom for all. It will create
the environment that is necessary for the development of human
happiness, for the development of true freedom and true equality, so
that the revolution can come and establish itself definitively among all
men. Anarchy tomorrow will be the free and complete development of the
individual, who driven only by his desires, by his tendencies and
likings, will associate with others in the group, corporation,
association or whatever one chooses to call it, which in turn will
federate freely in the commune, the communes in the region, the regions
in the nation and the nations in humanity.
The needs of the struggle against our common oppressors at first and
thereafter the needs of life — the needs of production and consumption —
will themselves bring men to unite in the great federation of human
sociability.
“Just as a hierarchy of individuals is an absurdity, so is a hierarchy
between Communes. Every Commune can only be a free association of
individuals and the Nation a free association of Communes.”[2]
Anarchy is the federation of union, the organization of freedom. It
fights against the popular State or the communist State, which would be
the centralization of unity, the organization of common oppression
There are socialists who declare that it is necessary to create a new
State in order to achieve the emancipation of the proletariat.
As the enemies of atheism wish to preserve God and belief in him for the
“good of the people,” so the socialist enemies of anarchy — atheism of
the earth like that of the heavens — wish to preserve the institution of
the State, in order to do the “good of the people,” that is to say in
order to continue to guide it.
Their pretensions are the last attempt on the part of the principle of
authority to keep itself alive among men, and since last attempts are
the most desperate and daring, we must arm ourselves from head to toe in
order to fight them with all our power.
We cannot nor do we want to place their good faith in the slightest
doubt; even if some of them were in bad faith, we must absolutely
exclude it here; we are convinced that they act with the most proper
sentiment, with the sole aim of achieving the emancipation of the
proletariat in the emancipation of humanity; and that if they wish to
give the new social order an official form, if they wish to build a new
State, it is simply because they believe that they can thus assure those
conquests of the revolution that are the goal of our common aspirations.
But did not, perhaps, the early Church fathers have the same aim in mind
in giving an official form to the aspirations of the Christian ideal?
And the great figures of the bourgeois revolution which, though great,
is nothing when compared to the even-greater one being prepared today by
the proletariat, whatever were they proposing by legislating, codifying
and constituting an even more powerful State than the feudal monarchy
they had overthrown? What were those men, in good faith as they were,
proposing if not the consolidation of their revolutionary conquests?
We often encounter socialists who laugh at the “glorious conquests” of
the bourgeois revolution: they have every reason to do if they are
anarchists, but if they are authoritarians or supporters of the people’s
State, they are quite wrong to deride people who did yesterday what they
themselves propose to do tomorrow. In all their good faith, if they
succeed in constituting their popular State, they will have strangled
the revolution at the same time, they will have arrested its
development; and beneficial revolutionary principles will become
detrimental, because they in turn will have found their exploiters and
their “glorious conquests” of the fourth estate will be ridiculed by
some future fifth estate. With all their good faith, the authoritarian
socialists will be no less reactionary than the priest was for the
Christian revolution and the capitalist for the bourgeois revolution.
How on earth can the State — an essentially noxious institution —
acquire the virtue of doing good? Can good ever be the attribute of an
oppressor or tyrant, a king or a god?
If God existed, every revolutionary would certainly conspire against
him, as against kings, and unite with Satan — that splendid figure of
revolt — to carry out audacious attacks against the cruellest and most
villainous (being the most absolute and powerful) of tyrants.
They conspire against kings and the powerful of the earth: they attack
and seek to overthrow the bourgeois State... but in order to put a new
State in its place, one which will have the fine difference of calling
itself... the peoples State!
Authority, in whatever form it presents itself, will always be a pest to
humankind. Its will can only express itself through the law and the law
cannot be applied without guards. If the authority calls itself popular,
if the law calls itself popular, if the guards call themselves
custodians, guardians of the peace or guardians of freedom, it makes no
difference whatsoever.
We do not want authority, law or guards any more. We no longer wish to
accept any yoke, be it painted red, white or tricolour.
“The class system and authority, being clear violations of the Laws of
Nature, are to be abolished. The pyramid of God, King, upper classes and
plebs will all be made equal.”[3]
To submit to authority one must have a religious faith. On the strength
of what principle will you submit the masses to your authority? For as
long as the staff of office was the rod of Moses or Charlemagne’s
sceptre, it was worshipped; but when it becomes the arm of merchants,
the people will snap it and throw it into the flames.
The so-called people’s State would be an infinitely greater oppressor
than the bourgeois State because its despotism would be equal to the
political despotism of the existing State plus the sum of the economic
despotism of every capitalist, whose capital would pass into the hands
of the people’s State; and all this would be multiplied by the increase
in centralization which would necessarily be required by the new State —
political and economic at one and the same time.
And in order to satisfy the needs of this new, terrifying monster, can
you imagine what manner of new, monstrous bureaucratic mechanisms would
need to be created? What army of clerks initiated into the complicated
mysteries of government? A class that is distinct and superior to the
people and thus tyrannical and hateful; these parvenus of the fourth
estate would be the new and even more loathsome political oppressors and
economic exploiters; as with those who handle honey, the holders of
power and capital would not be able to keep their hands clean.
Farewell human emancipation, farewell liberty! Instead of the third
estate we would have the domination of the fourth, which would oppress
and exploit a fifth. And these workingmen come to power would be even
more profligate and detestable than the bourgeoisie, even more than the
bourgeoisie was with respect to the mediaeval nobility. Once again the
course of the revolution would be halted and, whether it be in good
faith in order to assure its conquests or whether it be in bad faith in
order to exploit it it would once again be buried with a fine programme
of reaction carved on its tombstone by way of epitaph.
One must not place any faith in those who say that they wish to take
over the State in order to destroy it once the struggle is over: who
“wish to take possession of the fortress in order to dismantle it.” No,
no! They are either seeking to mislead us or are deceiving themselves.
All governments, calling themselves liberators, have promised to
dismantle the fortresses erected by tyranny to hold the people in
subjugation; but far from dismantling them, once installed they have
only gone on to fortify them further, to continue to use them against
the people. Bastilles are destroyed by the people: governments build
them and maintain them. Suicide is not the natural order of things. No
power, no authority in the world has ever destroyed itself. No tyrant
has ever dismantled a fortress once he has entered it. On the contrary,
every authoritarian organism, every tyranny tends always to spread, to
establish itself even more, by its very nature. Power inebriates and
even the best can become the worst once they are vested with authority.
“The greatest lover of freedom, as soon as he assumes power, unless he
is of little worth, wants everyone to bow to his wishes.”[4]
Power makes one giddy and brings madness. Mad, like Masaniello[5] when
he donned the king’s clothes; mad, like Michele di Lando[6] who, when he
had become a n, took up his sword against his former comrades in
sedition; yet both, when barefoot, had been the bravest champions of
popular revolt. They elevated themselves above the others, they took
power and that was enough to transform them from rebels into dastardly
tyrants.
The revolutionary principle must remain within the people if it is to be
fertile. Once it passes into government and receives an official form,
it is soon diverted, perverted and exploited, from revolution it becomes
reaction: from liberty and equality, it is transformed into oppression
and exploitation.
No, no! We must all attack the fortress together, dismantle it and raze
it to the ground so that no-one can take possession of it; We want to
destroy the State from top to toe, so that no-one can set themselves up
as a new master or new oppressor.
As jealous advocates of freedom, we shall not lay down our arms until
anarchy is an accomplished fact around the world; because contrary to
what certain supporters of the peoples State would have people believe
of us, we have ample reason to fear for freedom, even where equality
does exist.
For goodness sake! Are there not, perhaps, any number of religious
communities in which the most perfect equality reigns, but in which
there is not even a hint of freedom? And it is perfect equality; since
the leader is subjected to the common rule and eats, dresses and lives
in absolutely the same manner as all the other monks, from whom he is
distinguished by the supremacy of his command. And those same supporters
of the people’s State, without our opposition would end up establishing
a state of perfect equality, certainly, but with no less perfect
oppression of all. At school, in the regiments, in prison too there is
perfect equality: an equality of oppression and despotism, not greatly
different to that which the peoples State would bring us.
In human emancipation, man must rediscover the capacity to be able to
satisfy fully all his needs, both physical and mental; the needs of the
belly and those of the spirit, which are — and will be even more so in
the new civilization — as impelling as the former. The question of human
emancipation, then, cannot be reduced to a question of the belly, as
some authoritarian socialists would have us believe, only then to
conclude that with economic equality all our ills would be cured. The
belly certainly has a good part to play, the principal part, but it is
not everything. A well-filled through can keep a pig happy, but not a
man; man needs that and much more; not only emancipation of the body,
but also of the spirit: not only equality, but also freedom.
“Freedom alone can resolve the complicated problem by repealing law
declaring every township, every citizen free and independent domestic
fetters and differences are shaken off; the boundaries of the various
states disappear and unity effectively arises from equality, and this
will not be the effect of a new, imposed, pact but the natural
consequence of the abolition of all pacts.”[7]
---
Some self-described revolutionaries believe they have fully justified
their appellation by declaring themselves to be the champions of force
or violent means. On the other hand, though we are ardent supporters of
violence given that we believe in its unavoidable necessity, because
since childhood we have been taught that without the shedding of blood
there is no redemption, we believe that though revolution has thus far
been and will for some time continue to be violence, violence has not
been nor will ever be revolution. The violence of the insurgent masses
is revolution, but violence at the hands of authority or constituted
power is counterrevolution, reaction. The former unleashes and destroys,
the latter obstructs and reconstitutes; the former, by its very nature,
can produce only good, the latter has only the power of evil.
Regulating, prescribing, legislating and governing are diametrically
opposed to revolution; the idea of a revolution that is regulated or
governed is as contradictory as the idea that good can be generated by
authority.
In a revolution one must concern oneself above all with demolishing,
with destroying and continuing to destroy until such times as the
revolution has been completely and definitively established and the
revolution, no longer facing any obstacle, continues by itself alone
with the task of unceasing transformation.
Together with Bakunin, we say:
“In revolution we are the enemies of everything that clings closely or
remotely to the authoritarian system, of every pretension at the
official direction of the people, and consequently of all that is known
as revolutionary dictatorship or provisional government; we are
convinced that governing power of any sort, no matter how revolutionary
or transitory it calls itself, can have no other goal than that of
perpetuating itself. Revolutions are made by the people, they can come
only from within the people, and any power that sets itself up above the
people is invariably contrary to the people. As our fullest confidence
is in the instincts of the popular masses, our means of revolution is in
the organized outburst of what are called evil passions and in the
destruction of that which, in the same bourgeois language, is called
public order. We invoke anarchy, that manifestation of the life and
aspirations of the people from which must emerge, with and by means of
liberty, the true equality of all, the new order founded on the full
development and freely-organized labour of all, and the force of
revolution itself.”[8]
Some of our adversaries often accuse us of not having a programme. If by
programme they mean a new form elaborated every slightest detail, into
which humanity is to be put by hook or by crook, then saying we do not
have a programme does us the greatest justice and qualifies us as true
friends of the revolution, as the anarchists[9] we proudly call
ourselves.[10] But if by programme they mean a goal with a path to
arrive there, an aim with the means designated to reach it, a flag of
struggle for life and for death, an ideal for our existence, then we
reply that the accusation is absolutely gratuitous, since we do have a
programme, and a clear, lucid and precise one at that.
The first word of our programme is anarchy, which contains, so to speak,
its quintessence and synthesizes it completely. As we have already said,
while economic equality is anything but impossible without liberty,
anarchy on the other hand requires the fullest equality between men.
Not only the ideal but our practice and our revolutionary morals too are
contained in anarchy; anarchy thus forms our entire revolutionary being.
It is for this reason that we invoke it as the complete, definitive
result of the revolution: revolution for the revolution.
To us, the supporters of anarchy, is entrusted solely the mission of
destruction. We will perhaps perish in a skirmish or during the first
shots of the great day; some perhaps will be fortunate enough to see the
first dawning of humanity’s great event. In all cases, we shall fall
satisfied. Satisfied with having contributed to the certain ruin of this
unjust, cruel and rotten world, whose collapse will bury us in the most
glorious tomb ever made for a fighter.
Other men will be born from the very entrails of the fertile revolution
and take on the task of carrying out the positive, organic part of
anarchy.
For us — hatred, war and destruction; for them — love, peace and
happiness.
---
Communism is the communion of goods: the appropriation in common of all
the existing wealth, which is used in common both in production and in
consumption.
Communism today, before the revolution, is the attack on property;
tomorrow, in the revolution, it will mean the people appropriating
whatever wealth exists in the world in the name of all humanity; the day
after tomorrow, once the movement has ended, communism will be the
common enjoyment of all existing wealth by all men, according to the
principle: From each according to his abilities, to each according to
his needs; that is to say: From each and to each at will.
Let us begin firstly by observing that taking possession of and enjoying
all existing wealth must in our opinion, be done by the people
themselves. But since the people, humanity, is not an individual who can
take and hold all the existing wealth in his two hands, the State
communists have concluded that it must be delegated to representatives,
to depositaries of the common wealth in other words to create an entire
class of directors of the common economy. We do not share this opinion.
We do not want any intermediaries; we do not want representatives, who
always end up representing themselves alone; we do not want moderators
of equality or moderators of freedom; we do not want a new government;
we do not want a new State, no matter how popular or democratic,
revolutionary or provisional it calls itself.
Being spread all over the world, the common wealth — though belonging to
humanity in its entirety — will be utilized in common by those who find
themselves within its reach and who are in a position to utilize it. It
is the natural delegation that humanity in its entirety gives to a part
of itself, to exercise a part of its whole right over the existing
wealth. The peoples of this country will use the land, the machines, the
factories, the houses, and all the other goods of this country and all
will make use of them in common. A part of humanity will exercise its
right here, effectively and directly, over a part of humanity’s wealth.
But if an inhabitant of Peking comes to this country, he would find that
his rights are those of the others: he would enjoy the wealth of the
country in common with the others, just as he would do in Peking.
The agglomeration of individuals with the same trade, naturally required
by the one great farm or the one great factory, will form the so-called
trade corporation, society or branch, which will probably be the form
with which work in the commune is organized. But while this trade
corporation or branch will hold and use the part of capital that
concerns it, this does not mean that it will own it. The right of
property remains, undivided and indivisible, in all humanity and we will
never be partisans of proprietor corporations nor of proprietor States.
A fine exchange that would be, if we were to destroy the State only to
substitute it with a multitude of little States! To kill the one-headed
monster in exchange for a thousand-headed one! No; we have already said
it and will never tire of repeating it: we do not want intermediaries,
we do not want agents, brokers or obliging servants who always end up
becoming the real masters: we want all the existing wealth to be taken
directly by the people themselves, kept in the people’s powerful hands,
and the people themselves to decide the best way to use it, as far as
both production and consumption are concerned.
But, some may ask, will it be possible to implement communism? Will we
have enough products to allow each the right to take as much as they
want, without requiring more work from individuals than they themselves
are prepared to give?
Yes, we reply. It will certainly be possible to apply the principle:
From each and to each at will; because in the future society, production
will be so abundant that there will not be the slightest need to limit
consumption nor to require more work from men than they can or wish to
give.
This immense increase in production, which we cannot even imagine today,
can be guessed if one examines the causes that will produce it, which
can be reduced to three principal causes:
Harmony of cooperation in the various sectors of human activity, in
place of the struggle of today’s system of competition.
The widespread introduction of machines of all sorts.
The considerable savings in labour, work materials and instruments that
will be achieved through the suppression of harmful and useless
products.
In the system of capitalist production today, everything is competition,
struggle: relentless struggle between one capitalist and another,
between one worker and another, between the worker and the capitalist:
struggle between one individual and another, one region and another, one
nation and another. It is a bloody war in which the death of one means
life for another. One worker finds work where another loses it; the
capitalist gets rich with the introduction of machines, thousands of
workers are left on their uppers; one factory or several factories
prosper while others falter; one capitalist gets rich in inverse
proportion to another being bankrupted.
But in the future society, as we have already said: No more struggle
between one man and another, but common struggle of all men together for
the greatest conquest and the greatest utilization of natural forces. No
longer each one for himself against all, and all against each one; but
one for all and all for one. Everyone can imagine what immense change
will be achieved with regard to production. Think how much production
will increase when every man, far from struggling against the others,
will be helped by them, no longer his enemies but his co-operators? If
the simply cooperative work of 10 men can achieve results that are
absolutely impossible for one man alone, how great will be the results
that can be achieved from the wholesale co-operation of all men, who
today work in a state of continual, reciprocal hostility? And what about
machines? However great the appearance of these powerful instruments of
labour may seem to us today, it is only the tiniest fraction of what
will be in the future society.
The introduction of machines is often impeded today by the interests of
the capitalist, to whom “the limit to his using a machine is fixed by
the difference between the value of the machine and the value of the
labour-power replaced by it.”[11]
Machines today are not intended to lighten the workers’ load in the
slightest, but only to create greater quantities of surplus value to
enrich the capitalist ever further.[12] Thus it is benefit, an x% of
profit, which is the only reason for making them acceptable today. How
many machines remain without the minimum application because their use
would cost the capitalist more than what it costs him to employ the
labour-power that they are supposed to substitute! The basest and most
miserable conditions of the workers who do the most excruciating sort of
work — that is the reason that prevents the introduction of machines in
those types of jobs. The capitalist thus buys his workforce at such a
low price that he cannot find the slightest reason to have that work
carried out by machines. “Hence nowhere do we find a more shameful
squandering of human labour-power for the most despicable purposes than
in England, the land of machinery.”[13]
From this one can see all the stupidity of those who come out and object
with the air of a wit: Who will sweep the streets? Who will empty the
privies?, etc. All this will be done by machines, which will no longer
be invented and used in spite of but in place of the physical and mental
effort of a given sort of work.
Today the worker himself is the enemy of machines and rightly so, since
for him they are monsters who will starve him, whose arrival degrades
him, who torture him and crush him. But think how great an interest he
will have in increasing their number, when he works for himself and is
no longer the servant of the machines, but has the machines at his
service!
Lastly, one must calculate the immense savings that will be achieved on
the three elements of labour: labour-power, materials and instruments,
today horribly wasted on production that is entirely useless, if not
downright harmful to humanity. The list would be long, but it will
suffice us to mention the armies on land and sea and their repressive
armaments; the construction and maintenance of forts, barracks,
warships, arsenals, cannons and everything else that is required for
war; the prisons and everything concerning the police and justice
systems; the churches and everything concerning religion. And without
going any further, is it not clear to everyone how much labour-power,
how much by way of materials and instruments of labour is occupied by
all these things which are so harmful to humanity? And how great will
the production of things which are useful to all be, when to this alone
humanity dedicates all its labour-power, all the materials and all the
instruments of production?
This saving on labour-power, materials and instruments of labour will be
achieved immediately, as soon as the revolution has begun; and for this
fact alone there need be no fear that at the very beginning, before the
number of machines has increased, production might be in short supply.
If proof be needed, just glance at the consumption statistics of the
dominant class.
An illustrious geographer has said:
“The earth is vast enough to gather us all into her bosom, rich enough
for all to live in comfort She can provide enough fibrous plants so that
we can all cloth ourselves, she has enough rock and clay to house us
all. There is room for every brother at the table of life. This is the
economic fact in all its simplicity.”[14]
Yes, communism can be achieved. It will be perfectly possible to allow
everyone to take what they need at will, because there will be enough
for all; there will be no need to ask for more work than each is willing
to give, because there will always be enough products for the morrow.
Transferring the need for working in order to live from the individual
to the human community, will free individual labour of its burdensome,
servile nature, leaving it only with the appeal of a physical and mental
need, absolutely equal to all other needs for full human development: to
study, to live with nature, to admire what is beautiful in works of art,
to love, and so on.
---
But it is not enough for us to show that communism is possible; it is
our task to prove that it is also necessary. Not only can one be
communist — one must be, if the aim of the revolution is to be reached.
Indeed, if individual appropriation of the products of labour is
maintained once the instruments of labour have been communized, then it
will also be necessary to keep money, or its equivalent, in other words
to permit an accumulation of wealth that will be greater or lesser
according to the greater or lesser merit, or rather the ability, of
individuals. Those who manage to possess more wealth will raise
themselves above the level of the others and equality will disappear. It
will only then remain for the counterrevolutionaries to make one step in
order to re-establish hereditary rights and there will be no shortage of
proposals for that.
Human labour is either realized or potential: it is either the product
or the force of labour. In the first instance, it offers satisfaction of
human needs; in the second, it requires satisfaction of the worker’s
needs: it requires the things that are necessary for the preservation of
labour-force. In the first case, labour finds itself on a field of
perfect equality, because all human usefulness, no matter how varied, is
always equally worthy and respectable, because all satisfaction of our
needs, no matter how varied, is equally necessary and just. But in the
second case, when work is potential or labour-force, in other words when
it requires the satisfaction of the worker’s needs, it is as unequal as
the conditions of the possessors of labour-power themselves. It is the
inequality of workers that reflects on work and marks it with its seal.
If dissecting putrid corpses is a nobler job than dissecting cattle and
sheep, it is because the anatomist is in a much superior material and
mental condition than the poor butcher. The same operation, such as
handling manure, for example, is noble or ignoble according to whether
it is carried out by a poor day-labourer or a professor of agronomy.
One of the finest results of communism will be to render perfectly equal
all the various types of work, by rendering equal the very condition of
the worker, giving him all that is required to restore his strength, all
that his needs demand. Opposed to this is the individual attribution of
the products of labour which would only re-establish inequality between
men thanks to the inequality between the different sorts of work. One
would immediately see the re-appearance of “clean” work and “dirty”
work, “noble” work and “ignoble” work, “light” work and “heavy” work:
the former would be the care of the richest, while the latter would
pertain to the poorest. So then, it would no longer be vocation and
personal taste that determines which man dedicates himself to a certain
sort of activity rather than another: it would be interests, the hope of
earning more in one profession than in another. There would be a
re-birth of slothfulness and diligence, merit and demerit, good and bad,
vice and virtue, and consequently reward and punishment, the law and the
judge, guards and gaols.
Finally, let us say that it is impossible to be an anarchist without
being a communist. The mere idea of the distribution of products
according to merit already contains within itself the seed of
authoritarianism. It cannot manifest itself without immediately
generating laws, judges and gendarmes.
---
In other times, we anarchists all called ourselves collectivists,
especially in order to distinguish ourselves from the authoritarian
communists; but underneath it all we were no more nor less than
anti-authoritarian communists calling ourselves collectivists; we
declared that everything must be placed and held in common, without
discriminating between the instruments of labour and the products of
labour.
Then one fine day we witnessed the emergence in the socialist camp of a
new school of thought which, in resuscitating old errors, began to
philosophize, to discriminate, and eventually become exponents of a form
of collectivism that was neither authoritarian communism nor anarchist
communism. The promoters had perhaps the praiseworthy idea of achieving
a synthesis, but in actual fact they only succeeded in creating a
centrist party, an upright, moderate means, an enervating eclecticism.
They reasoned as follows: there exist use goods and production goods.
Use goods are those that we employ to satisfy our personal needs: the
house we live in the food we consume, clothes, books, etc., whereas
production goods are those that we make use of in order to produce: the
workshop, barns, warehouses, machines and various sorts of tools, the
soil, etc. — in a word, all the instruments of labour plus the materials
of labour. The first sort of goods, those that serve to satisfy the
needs of the individual, must be attributed individually, while the
second, which are required by all in order to produce, must be
collectively attributed.
In truth, this reasoning seems a little worn to us; and we ask our
adversaries: you who accord the title of production goods to the coal
which is needed to feed the machine, to the oil which is needed to
grease it, to the lamp which lights the workshop, why do you not want to
grant it also to the bread and meat that feed me, to the oil that I use
to dress my salad, to the lamp that lights my chamber in other words, to
everything that is needed for the development of the most perfect of all
machines, the father of all machines — man? How can you establish a
difference, one that even today is difficult but which will become
absolutely impossible when the producer and the consumer are one and the
same person?
This is certainly not a theory that could serve to support the advocates
of individual attribution of the products of labour. The only result it
had was to spread alarm amongst anarchists who, fearing that it was
intended to lessen the extent of revolutionary demands, saw the urgent
need to declare themselves frankly and unequivocally to be communists.
Having unsaddled this not very scientific science, we are then assailed
from the other side in the name of justice.
“It is not right,” they tell us, “that he who works more should receive
as much as another who works less and who, if needs be receives even
more than him, as the case may have it; the attribution of products must
not be made according to needs or the wishes of the individual, but
according to merit.”
“But how,” we reply, “will you distinguish the part that one produces
from the part that the other produces, given the collective labour of
large industry and the increasing tendency to make use of past work?”
“We will take an hour of work as the basis for the attribution of
products. We will calculate how much is produced in an hour of average
work or social work and that much will be distributed to everyone for
every hour of work they do/”
“Well, don’t come talking to us any more in the name of justice! How can
you ignore the fact that average work or social work can only be carried
out through cooperation, for the capitalist who exploits a great many
workers simultaneously[15] in today’s society and for the community in
the society to come; how can you ignore the fact that ‘each individual
labourer, be he Peter or Paul, differs from the average labourer’?[16]
So what is this justice of yours reduced to? Abuse and injustice — no
more, no less.”
A final, desperate assault is then launched by our adversaries, this
time in the name of expediency.
“With your communism,” they say, there will be no stimulus to work,
which we would preserve through individual attribution of produce.
Anyone who can satisfy all his needs without working will certainly not
work because work is burdensome.”
The supporters of the capitalist class speak no differently. But the
first result of our revolution will be precisely to deprive work of all
its burdensome nature. Irrespective of the multiple causes that make
work burdensome in today’s society, of the conditions of misery and
humiliation in which the worker finds himself, of the need to do a job
which goes against ones inclinations or is too great for one’s forces,
etc., it must be noted that the principle cause — coercion — will
necessarily disappear along with the others. The obligation to work that
is today imposed on the individual if he is not to starve, will be
transferred onto humanity in its entirety in the future society.
Consequently, as we have already indicated, work will cease to be an
extrinsic need and will become an intrinsic need of the individual: in
other words, it will cease to be an article of the human law of hunger
and remain solely as a natural commandment of health.
He who does not work, does not eat, says the law of the collectivists, a
law which then needs guards if it is to be enforced: he who does not
work lives badly and withers, says the precept of hygienics of that
natural law that we wish to see as regulator. It is impossible to break
a law of nature and avoid paying the corresponding penalty laid down by
it. “Gymnastics is useless exercise that is made in place of the useful
exercise that has not been done.”[17] Even today, no-one is entirely
inactive, be it by choice or by force. Bon vivants do useless exercise
or exercise which serves to oppress and exploit others who suffer, it is
true, but it is exercise nonetheless. Now, the principal end of our
revolution must be to deny man every means of doing exercise that is
useless or harmful to humanity. With every other road to physical,
mental and intellectual activity barred, leaving only activity useful to
humanity free, natural law can be fully applied: to make oneself useful
to one’s neighbour or wither from inaction. And the only means to close
off all the paths of inaction or those that are harmful to humanity is
communism of the instruments and materials of labour and not only that
but also of the products of labour: complete communism, communism in its
proper sense.
Each social age has its own particular stimuli for human activity, which
pertain to their time; thus, wanting to adapt those of one age to those
of another is the greatest absurdity. The stimuli for the warrior
virtues of antiquity will not be the stimuli for the warring virtues of
the Middle Ages, just as the latter cannot in turn stimulate the
capitalist virtues of the present age; consequently it is foolishness to
want to adapt “the thirst for interests” as the stimulus for activity in
the coming human age.
Our revolution will replace individual interests with common interests
or human interests and accordingly this will be the stimulus for
activity that is useful to all, activity that is eminently human. This
unbounded action will be the sole gymnasium in which human beings will
wrestle bloodlessly and nobly for the good, the beautiful and the great.
By engaging in both physical and intellectual work, often diverse and
manifold, man will gain in physical and mental goodness: a robust,
well-formed body and a noble, human mind. He will run dauntlessly to
distant unexplored regions, among savage peoples, to slake his thirst
for greatness, to gather trophies, no longer of extermination but of
true human glory. And if love, such an important part of life, was such
a powerful stimulus for activity in past civilizations, think how much
it will be in the future, whose conquests will be in the field of work
alone!
Exerting oneself physically, intellectually and morally for the good of
humanity will be the only work possible in the human age, which through
natural law, without judgements and without guards, will say to men:
You want to live and be healthy, strong and fair? Then work you want to
be strong and good in spirit? Then work. You want to slake your thirst
for the beautiful and the great? Then work. You want to conquer the
affections of the woman you love? Then work.
You will not work? Then I will condemn you inexorably to vegetate like
brutes, shunning the society of men, their works, which you will not
comprehend, their affections, which you will not feel, their generosity,
which will humiliate you, their greatness, which will crush you!
This is the stimulus that will be established by the revolution for
human activity in the future society by means of communism.
And the enemy will cede at last. Our adversaries concede that in the end
it will be necessary to move to communism; but little by little (it is a
disease with them). And why? They themselves will tell you:
“First and foremost, because we are not convinced that, initially at
least, there will not be a scarcity of products; secondly, because with
your lightning-like communism you will give everyone the right to take
at will, when individual interests have not yet disappeared, when
everyone is not yet educated for work, a defect that cannot be righted
without continuing to keep the greater or lesser earnings that can be
had from work as its stimulus.”
Beginning with the second objection, we would reply that it is not a new
type of education that will generate the new interests, but the new
interests that will generate a new type of education. There was no need
for anything moral or educational in order for man to move from
cannibalism to slavery, no moral development or education for him to
pass from slavery to servitude or likewise from servitude to waged
labour.
Revolution has transformed interests and upon recognizing that it was
more useful to preserve the man than eat him, slavery was born, in the
same way that upon recognizing that slave labour was less profitable
than that of a bonded colonus, servitude was born and later still waged
labour, for the same reason.
Thus, it is not an educational process that is needed, but revolution,
which alone can transform today’s interest in struggle between one man
and another, into interest in the common struggle of all men for greater
conquests and greater utilization of natural forces to the benefit of
the human community, which alone can transform today’s bourgeois age
into the human age. By transforming private interests into public
interests and vice versa, communism will be the only possible, real and
effective educator of the people.
Far from starting us towards communism, the hermaphroditic individualism
proposed by the collectivists, would really be the starting point for
the counter-revolution, a return to outright individualism. It is
madness to believe that in a system of individual attribution of
products, once an exuberance of production emerges everyone will
spontaneously renounce that part of their share that exceeds their
needs, to the benefit of the community and that this accumulation of
production can lead to communism. No, no-one will renounce even the
slightest part of what is attributed to them, no matter how large it may
be, as long as one can be richer or poorer. Quite the contrary: the
richer will be irresistibly driven to seek greater ingeniousness or
ability, which will naturally develop in them the principle of struggle
between one man and another, but also and above all they will achieve it
through deception, fraud and all the other dark arts that man can use
when he is inexorably driven by reactionary circumstances to
counter-revolution. And humanity will once again see men who, with the
laudable notion of ensuring the conquests of the revolution, commit the
error of halting its progress and end up themselves betraying the
revolution that they set out to serve.
Lastly if, after all that has been said on the increase in production in
the future society, there is still someone who doubts it, at least in
the early stages, we say that even if we were obligated to introduce
rationing, it would still need to be done according to needs and never
according to merit. Public calamity must not be the pretext for
injustice; the burden must be supported by all directly and never, ever,
contrary to the forces of each; what generally happens in a workingman’s
family, no more nor less.
The father brings home five lire a day, the eldest son two or three and
the boy only one lira. The mother keeps the home and prepares the
repast. At the dinner table everyone helps himself at will; and those
who eat most are the very ones who bring home least. But there comes the
day when work is scarce and the repast consequently becomes rather
meagre. The appetites and tastes of each can no longer be matched and it
comes down to rationing. But you see, this division is not carried out
according to merit: the boy, who brings home least of all, takes the
largest share and the old lady, who brings home nothing, gets the best
share. Thus, in the family the misfortune of all is withstood by each
according to his forces and it is not made to weigh on the very ones who
have the right to feel its effects the least given that they are the
weakest. Now, can it be any different in the great human family of the
future?
In conclusion, we can and we must be communists, because products will
not be lacking, because through communism we shall achieve true
equality, because the people — who do not understand the collectivists’
sophistry — understand communism perfectly, and lastly because we are
anarchists, and anarchy and communism are the two essential terms of the
revolution.
We shall leave Carlo Pisacane to provide a worthy summary of our
revolutionary ideal:
“What would be the ideal type for a perfect society? One in which
everyone would find full enjoyment of their rights, where they could
reach the fullest development that their physical and mental faculties
are capable of and benefit from them without the need either to
humiliate themselves in front of their equals or to dominate them; in
other words, a society in which liberty does not interfere with
equality; one in which sentiment goes together with reason in every man
and in which no-one is forced to operate against the dictates of one or
stifle the impulses of another. In such a case, the life of man would
manifest itself in all its fullness and could thus be said to be
perfect.”[18]
“Human happiness must hinge on liberty and equality.”[19]
[1] Editor’s note: Denis Diderot, Dithyrambe sur lafite des Rois.
[2]
C. Pisacane, Saggi storici-politici-militari sull’Italia, Vol. III,
Terzo saggio, La Rivoluzione cit., p. 94. Quoted in English
translation in R. M. Roberts, op. cit., p. cvii.
[3]
C. Pisacane, op.cit., p. 93. Quoted in English translation in R. M.
Roberts, op.cit., P. cvii.
[4]
C. Pisacane, op.cit., p. 137. Quoted in English translation in R. M.
Roberts, op.cit.y p. 141.
[5] Editors note: Tommaso Aniello was a fisherman from Naples who led a
revolt against Habsburg rule in the Kingdom of Naples in 1647, leading
to the short-lived Neapolitan Republic. Masaniello was corrupted by the
viceroy and took over the city with the title Captain-General. He began
to behave like a tyrant and was killed by a mob only a few days later.
[6] Editors note: Michele di Lando was a wool carder from Florence who
led the Revolt of the Ciompi (or wool carders) in the city in 1378. The
Ciompi forcibly took over the city’s government (di Lando became
Gonfaloniere of Justice), but eventually failed to implement the demands
of the lower classes.
[7]
C. Pisacane, op.cit., p. 66.
[8] Mikhail Bakunin — Programme of the Revolutionary Socialist
Brotherhood. From the original text written entirely in Bakunin’s hand
in September 1872.
[9] Editor’s note: Interestingly, Cafiero uses the term anarchista
throughout, as many of his contemporaries did, unlike the more prevalent
and later Italian usage of anarchico, whose derivation is more closely
linked to the “chaotic” sense of anarchy.
[10] During the presentation of his mandate, an anarchist representative
at the Congress of Le Havre declared that the only statute of his
association was that it had no statute.
[11]
K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, ch.15, sec.2.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Élisée Reclus, Conference given in Geneva on 5^(th) February 1880,
published in Rivista internazionale del Socialismo, No. 1, vol. II.
[15]
K. Marx, op. cit., Vol. I, ch.13.
[16] Ibidem.
[17] Adolf Vogt, Professor of Hygiene at the University of Bern.
[18]
C. Pisacane, op.cit., p. 6.
[19] Ibid., p. 145.