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Title: Two revolutionaries Author: Ricardo Flores Magón Date: 1910 Language: en Topics: fiction, war Source: Retrieved on April 8th, 2009 from http://www.waste.org/~roadrunner/writing/magon/ENArticles/tworev.html Notes: Translated from Spanish by Mitchell Cowen Verter. From “Regeneration” number 18. December 31, 1910.
The old revolutionary and the modern revolutionary met each other one
afternoon marching in different directions. The sun glowed like an ember
above the distant mountain range; the king of the day was sinking, it
sunk down irrevocably. As if it were conscience of its defeat by the
evening, it reddened with anger, and cast upon the earth and the sky its
most handsome lights.
The two revolutionaries regarded each other face to face: the old one,
ashen, disheveled, his unpolished visage like a rag tossed into a wash
basket, crossed here and there by ugly scars, his bones insinuating the
edges of his body underneath his shabby garb. The modern one, erect,
filled with life, his face luminous with the presentiment of glory. He
was clothed in rags as well, but he carried them with pride, as if they
were the flag of the disinherited, the symbol of a common meditation,
the password of humble people elevated by the zeal for a great idea.
“Where are you going?” asked the old man
“I am going to fight for my ideals,” said the modern one. “And you,
where are you going?” he asked in his turn.
The old man coughed and spat angrily upon the earth. He cast a glance at
the sun, whose anger he also felt in this moment, and said:
“I am not going; I am now coming back home.”
“What happened”
“I am disillusioned,” said the old man “You are not going to a
revolution. I also went to the war and you see how I now return: sad,
old, damaged in body and spirit.”
The modern revolutionary cast a glance that encompassed space, his brow
resplendent; a great hope rose up from the depths of his being and gazed
out through his face.
He asked the old man:
“Did you know what you were fighting for?”
“Yes, a wicked man was dominating the country. We poor people were
suffering from the tyranny of the Government and from the tyranny of
people with money. Our oldest children were locked up in jail; the
families, abandoned, prostituted themselves or panhandled to be able to
live. No one could look the lowest policeman in the face; the least
complaint was considered as an act of rebellion. One day a noble man
said to us poor people:
Fellow citizens, in order to put an end to the present state of things,
we must have a change in the government: the men who are in Power are
thieves, assassins, and oppressors. Let us eliminate those in Power:
elect me President and everything will change.
“This is what the noble man said. After this, he gave us firearms and
sent us off to fight. We triumphed. The wicked oppressors were dead. We
elected the man who gave us the weapons, making him President while we
went to work. After our triumph we continued working exactly like
before, like mules and not like men; our families continued suffering
from need; our oldest sons kept on being taken to jail; the taxes kept
on being collected with precision by the new Government, and rather than
decreasing, they grew larger. We had to abandon the products of our
labor to the hands of our masters. Any time we wanted to declare a
strike, they killed us in the most cowardly fashion. Now you see, I knew
what we were fighting for: the rulers were bad and we were precisely
exchanging them for good ones. And now you see how those who said that
they were going to be good turned out to be just as bad as the ones we
dethroned. Do not go to the war, do not go. You are going to risk your
life merely to exalt a new master.”
So spoke the old revolutionary; the sun sunk down without recourse, as
if a gigantic claw had dragged it behind the mountain. The modern
revolutionary smiled. He retorted:
“Comrade, I am going to war, but not like you and those of your era. I
am going to war not to elevate any man to Power, but to emancipate my
class. With the aid of this rifle, I will force our masters to loosen
their claws and to release what they have robbed from the poor for
thousands of years. You entrusted a man to create your happiness; my
comrades and I are going to create happiness for all by our own efforts.
You entrusted notable lawyers and men of science with the task of making
laws. Naturally, they made them in such away as to benefit themselves.
Instead of being the instrument of liberty, they were the instrument of
tyranny and infamy. Your entire error and the error of those who, like
you, have fought, has been this: to give powers to an individual or to a
group of individuals, surrendering to them the task of making everybody
happy. No, my friend; we, the modern revolutionaries, do not search for
helpers, nor protectors, nor manufacturers of good fortune. We are going
to conquer liberty and well-being for ourselves. We are beginning by
attacking the root of political tyranny, and that root is called “the
right of property.” We are going to seize the land from the hands of our
bosses, to hand it over to the people. Oppression is a tree, the root of
this tree is called “the right of property.” The trunk, the branches,
and the leaves are the policemen, the soldiers, and the officials of all
ranks, large and small. Look here: the old revolutionaries have
surrendered the task of chopping down this tree every time. They chopped
it down, it sprouted, it grew up, and it strengthened; again they
chopped it down, again it sprouted, again it grew up, and again it
strengthened. This keeps on happening because they have not attacked the
root of the wicked tree; all have been too frightened to extract the
core and pitch it into the fire. You see, my old friend: you have given
your blood for no good reason. I am disposed to give mine so that it
will benefit all my brothers in chains. I will burn down the tree from
its root.”
Behind the blue mountain, something still blazed: it was the sun, which
had finally sunk, perhaps wounded by the gigantic claw which beckoned it
to the abyss, while the sky became red as if had been tinted by the
blood of the star.
The old revolutionary sighed and said:
“Like the sun, I also am setting. And I will disappear into the
shadows.”
The modern revolutionary continued to the place where his brothers were
fighting for the new ideals.