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Title: Why Are We Anarchists? Author: Elisée Reclus Date: 1899 Language: en Topics: Libertarian Labyrinth, introductory Source: https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/working-translations/elisee-reclus-why-are-we-anarchists-1899/ Notes: La Société nouvelle, année 5 no. 2, 1889 [Working Translation by Shawn P. Wilbur]
The few lines that follow do not constitute a program. Their only
purpose is to explain the usefulness of elaborating a draft program
which would be submitted to the study, the observations and the
criticisms of all the communist revolutionaries.
Perhaps, however, they contain one or two considerations that could find
their place in the proposal for which I call.
We are revolutionaries because we want justice and because we see
injustice reign everywhere around us. The products of labor are
distributed in reverse proportion to labor. The idler has all the
rights, even that of starving his fellow, while the worker does not
always have the right to die of starvation in silence: he is imprisoned
when he is guilty of the strike. People who call themselves priests try
to foster believe in miracles so that intelligence can be enslaved to
them; people called kings claim to descend from a universal master in
order to be master in their turn; people armed by them cut, slash and
shoot as they please; people in black robes who call themselves the
justice par excellence condemn the poor, absolve the rich, often selling
convictions and acquittals; merchants distribute poison instead of food;
they kill at retail instead of killing in bulk and thus become honored
capitalists. The sack of gold coins is the master, and he who possesses
it holds in his power the destiny of other men. All this seems to us
infamous and we want to change it. Against injustice we appeal to the
revolution.
But, we are told, “justice is nothing but a word, a pure convention
pure.” “What exists is the right of the strong!” Well, if that is the
case, we are no less revolutionary as a result. One of two things is
true: either justice is the human ideal and, in this case, we demand it
for all; or else force alone governs societies and, in that case, we
will use force against our enemies. Either the liberty of equals or the
law of the talion.
But why rush, say all those who, in order to dispense with acting
themselves, wait all the time. The slow evolution of things being
sufficient for them, the revolution frightens them. Between them and us,
history has made its decision. No progress, whether partial or general,
is accomplished by simple, peaceful evolution; it is always made by
sudden revolution. If the work of preparation occurs slowly in minds,
the realization of the ideas takes place abruptly: evolution is
accomplished in the brain, and it is arms that make the revolution.
And how to carry out this revolution that we see slowly preparing itself
in Society, the coming of which we aid with all our efforts? Is it by
grouping ourselves in bodies subordinated to one another? Is it by
forming ourselves on the model of the bourgeois that we combat in a
hierarchical ensemble, having its responsible masters and its
irresponsible inferiors, held like tools in the hands of a boss? Would
we begin by abdicating in order to become free? No, for we are
anarchists, men who want to maintain full responsibility for their acts,
who act by virtue of their individual rights and duties, which give a
being its natural development, who have no one for master and are
masters of no one.
We want to free ourselves from the embrace of the State, to no longer
have above us superiors who can command us and put their will in the
place of our own.
We want to tear up all external law, keeping only to the conscious
development of the internal laws of our nature. By eliminating the
State, we also eliminate all official morals, knowing in advance that
there can be no morality in obedience to poorly understood laws, in the
practical obedience that we do not even seek to understand. There is
morality only in liberty. It is also through liberty alone that rrenewal
remains possible. We want to keep our minds open, lending itself in
advance to all progress, to every new idea, to every generous
initiative.
But, if we are anarchists, the enemies of every master, we are also
communist internationals, for we understand that life is impossible
without social grouping. Isolated, we can do nothing, while through
close union we can transform the world. We associate with one another as
free and equal men, laboring at a common work and governing our mutual
relations by justice and reciprocal benevolence. Religious and national
hatreds cannot separate us, since the study of nature is our only
religion and because we have the world for a homeland. As for the great
cause of ferocity and meanness, it will cease to exist among us. The
earth will become collective property, the barriers will be removed and
from now on the soil, belonging to all, could be developed for the
pleasure and well-being of everyone. The products demanded will be
precisely those that the earth can best furnish, without anything every
being lost as occurs in the disorganized labor that is performed today.
As well, the distribution of all this wealth among men will be taken
from the private exploiter and will be made part of the normal
functioning of Society as a whole.
We do not have to draw a picture of the future society in advance: It is
up to the spontaneous action of all the free men to create it and give
it its form, which will, incidentally, be constantly changing, like all
the phenomena of life. But what we know is that all injustice, every
crime of reason humanity, will always find us standing to combat it. As
long as iniquity endures, we, international anarchist-communists, will
remain in a state of permanent revolution.