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Title: Our Program Author: Errico Malatesta Date: September 1899 Language: en Topics: classical, introductory Source: The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader, edited by Davide Turcato, translated by Paul Sharkey. Notes: In Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, compiled and edited by Vernon Richards (London: Freedom Press, 1965; reprinted in 1993), p. 182–198. Originally published as “Il nostro programma,” parts 1–4, La Questione Sociale (Paterson, NJ) 5, new series, nos. 1–4 (9, 16, 23, and 30 September 1899) and reissued, with modifications, as Programma Anarchico, accettato dall’“Unione Anarchica Italiana” nel Congresso di Bologna del 1–4 Luglio 1920 (Bologna: Commissione di Corrispondenza dell’U.A.I., 1920). Richards’s translation, which we have preferred to earlier ones as more faithful, is from the 1920 edition. Where the two Italian editions differ, we have modified Richards’s text so as to reflect the original 1899 edition.
We have nothing new to say.
Propaganda is not, and cannot be, but the incessant, tireless repetition
of those principles that must guide our conduct in the diverse
circumstances of life.
Hence we will restate, with more or less different words but along the
same lines, our old revolutionary-anarchist-socialist program.
We believe that most of the ills that afflict mankind stem from a bad
social organisation; and that Man could destroy them if he wished and
knew how.
Present society is the result of age-long struggles of man against man.
Not understanding the advantages that could accrue for all by
cooperation and solidarity; seeing in every other man (with the possible
exception of those closest to them by blood ties) a competitor and an
enemy, each one of them sought to secure for himself, the greatest
number of advantages possible without giving a thought to the interests
of others.
In such a struggle, obviously the strongest or more fortunate were bound
to win, and in one way or another subject and oppress the losers.
So long as Man was unable to produce more than was strictly needed to
keep alive, the conquerors could do no more than put to flight or
massacre their victims, and seize the food they had gathered.
Then when with the discovery of grazing and agriculture a man could
produce more than what he needed to live, the conquerors found it more
profitable to reduce the conquered to a state of slavery, and put them
to work for their advantage.
Later, the conquerors realised that it was more convenient, more
profitable and certain to exploit the labour of others by other means:
to retain for themselves the exclusive right to the land and working
implements, and set free the disinherited who, finding themselves
without the means of life, were obliged to have recourse to the
landowners and work for them, on their terms.
Thus, step by step through a most complicated series of struggles of
every description, of invasions, wars, rebellions, repressions,
concessions won by struggle, associations of the oppressed united for
defence, and of the conquerors for attack, we have arrived at the
present state of society, in which some have inherited the land and all
social wealth, while the mass of the people, disinherited in all
respects, is exploited and oppressed by a small possessing class.
From all this stems the misery in which most workers live today, and
which in turn creates the evils such as ignorance, crime, prostitution,
diseases due to malnutrition, mental depression and premature death.
From all this arises a special class (government) which, provided with
the necessary means of repression, exists to legalise and protect the
owning class from the demands of the workers; and then it uses the
powers at its disposal to create privileges for itself and to subject,
if it can, the owning class itself as well. From this the creation of
another privileged class (the clergy), which by a series of fables about
the will of God, and about an after-life etc., seeks to persuade the
oppressed to accept oppression meekly, and (just as the government
does), as well as serving the interest of the owning class, serves its
own. From this the creation of an official science which, in all those
matters serving the interests of the ruling class, is the negation of
true science. From this the patriotic spirit, race hatred, wars and
armed peace, sometimes more disastrous than wars themselves. From this
the transformation of love into torment or sordid commerce. From this
hatred, more or less disguised, rivalry, suspicion among all men,
insecurity and universal fear.
We want to change radically such a state of affairs. And since all these
ills have their origin in the struggle between men, in the seeking after
well-being through one’s own efforts and for oneself and against
everybody, we want to make amends, replacing hatred by love, competition
by solidarity, the individual search for personal well-being by the
fraternal cooperation for the well-being of all, oppression and
imposition by liberty, the religious and pseudo-scientific lie by truth.
Therefore:
instruments of labour, so that no one shall have the means of living by
the exploitation of the labour of others, and that everybody, being
assured of the means to produce and to live, shall be truly independent
and in a position to unite freely among themselves for a common
objective and according to their personal sympathies.
imposes it on others: therefore abolition of monarchies, republics,
parliaments, armies, police forces, magistratures and any institution
whatsoever endowed with coercive powers.
federations of producers and consumers, created and modified according
to the wishes of their members, guided by science and experience, and
free from any kind of imposition which does not spring from natural
needs, to which everyone, convinced by a feeling of overriding
necessity, voluntarily submits.
to children and all who are prevented from providing for themselves.
science. Scientific instruction for all to advanced level.
peoples.
love, freed from every legal tie, from every economic and physical
oppression, from every religious prejudice.
This is our ideal.
We have outlined under a number of headings our objectives and the ideal
for which we struggle.
But it is not enough to desire something; if one really wants it
adequate means must be used to secure it. And these means are not
arbitrary, but instead cannot but be conditioned by the ends we aspire
to and by the circumstances in which the struggle takes place, for if we
ignore the choice of means we would achieve other ends, possibly
diametrically opposed to those we aspire to, and this would be the
obvious and inevitable consequence of our choice of means. Whoever sets
out on the highroad and takes a wrong turning does not go where he
intends to go but where the road leads him.
It is therefore necessary to state what are the means which in our
opinion lead to our desired ends, and which we propose to adopt.
Our ideal is not one which depends for its success on the individual
considered in isolation. The question is of changing the way of life of
society as a whole; of establishing among men relationships based on
love and solidarity; of achieving the full material, moral and
intellectual development not for isolated individuals, or members of one
class or of a particular political party, but for all mankind—and this
is not something that can be imposed by force, but must emerge through
the enlightened consciences of each one of us and be achieved with the
free consent of all.
Our first task therefore must be to persuade people.
We must make people aware of the misfortunes they suffer and of their
chances to destroy them. We must awaken sympathy in everybody for the
misfortunes of others and a warm desire for the good of all people.
To those who are cold and hungry we will demonstrate how possible and
easy it could be to assure to everybody their material needs. To those
who are oppressed and despised we shall show how it is possible to live
happily in a world of people who are free and equal; to those who are
tormented by hatred and bitterness we will point to the road that leads
to peace and human warmth that comes through learning to love one’s
fellow beings.
And when we will have succeeded in arousing the sentiment of rebellion
in the minds of men against the avoidable and unjust evils from which we
suffer in society today, and in getting them to understand how they are
caused and how it depends on human will to rid ourselves of them; and
when we will have created a lively and strong desire in men to transform
society for the good of all, then those who are convinced, will by their
own efforts as well as by the example of those already convinced, unite
and want to as well as be able to act for their common ideals.
As we have already pointed out, it would be ridiculous and contrary to
our objectives to seek to impose freedom, love among men and the radical
development of human faculties, by means of force. One must therefore
rely on the free will of others, and all we can do is to provoke the
development and the expression of the will of the people. But it would
be equally absurd and contrary to our aims to admit that those who do
not share our views should prevent us from expressing our will, so long
as it does not deny them the same freedom.
Freedom for all, therefore, to propagate and to experiment with their
ideas, with no other limitation than that which arises naturally from
the equal liberty of everybody.
---
But to this are opposed—and with brute force—those who benefit from
existing privileges and who today dominate and control all social life.
In their hands they have all the means of production; and thus they
suppress not only the possibility of free experimentation in new ways of
communal living, and the right of workers to live freely by the product
of their own efforts, but also the right to life itself; and they oblige
whoever is not a boss to have to allow himself to be exploited and
oppressed if he does not wish to die of hunger.
They have police forces, a judiciary, and armies created for the express
purpose of defending their privileges; and they persecute, imprison and
massacre those who would want to abolish those privileges and who claim
the means of life and liberty for everyone.
Jealous of their present and immediate interests, corrupted by the
spirit of domination, fearful of the future, they, the privileged class,
are, generally speaking incapable of a generous gesture; are equally
incapable of a wider concept of their interests. And it would be foolish
to hope that they should freely give up property and power and adapt
themselves to living as equals and with those who today they keep in
subjection.
Leaving aside the lessons of history (which demonstrates that never has
a privileged class divested itself of all or some of its privileges, and
never has a government abandoned its power unless obliged to do so by
force or the fear of force), there is enough contemporary evidence to
convince anyone that the bourgeoisie and governments intend to use armed
force to defend themselves, not only against complete expropriation, but
equally against the smallest popular demands, and are always ready to
engage in the most atrocious persecutions and the bloodiest massacres.
For those people who want to emancipate themselves, only one course is
open: that of opposing force with force.
---
It follows from what we have said that we have to work to awaken in the
oppressed the conscious desire for a radical social transformation, and
to persuade them that by uniting they have the strength to win; we must
propagate our ideal and prepare the required material and moral forces
to overcome those of the enemy, and to organise the new society. And
when we will have the strength needed we must, by taking advantage of
favourable circumstances as they arise, or which we can ourselves
create, make the social revolution, by using force to destroy the
government and to expropriate the owners of wealth, and by putting in
common the means of life and production, and by preventing the setting
up of new governments which would impose their will and hamper the
reorganisation of society by the people themselves.
---
All this is however less simple than it might appear at first sight. We
have to deal with people as they are in society today, in the most
miserable moral and material condition; and we would be deluding
ourselves in thinking that propaganda is enough to raise them to that
level of intellectual development which is needed to put our ideas into
effect.
Between man and his social environment there is a reciprocal action. Men
make society what it is and society makes men what they are, and the
result is therefore a kind of vicious circle. To transform society men
must be changed, and to transform men, society must be changed.
Poverty brutalises man, and to abolish poverty men must have a social
conscience and determination. Slavery teaches men to be slaves, and to
free oneself from slavery there is a need for men who aspire to liberty.
Ignorance has the effect of making men unaware of the causes of their
misfortunes as well as the means of overcoming them, and to do away with
ignorance people must have the time and the means to educate themselves.
Governments accustom people to submit to the Law and to believe that Law
is essential to society; and to abolish government men must be convinced
of the uselessness and the harmfulness of government.
How does one escape from this vicious circle?
Fortunately existing society has not been created by the inspired will
of a dominating class, which has succeeded in reducing all its subjects
to passive and unconscious instruments of its interests. It is the
result of a thousand internecine struggles, of a thousand human and
natural factors acting indifferently, without directive criteria; and
thus there are no clear-cut divisions either between individuals or
between classes.
Innumerable are the variations in material conditions; innumerable are
the degrees of moral and intellectual development; and not always—we
would almost say very rarely—does the place of any individual in society
correspond with his abilities and his aspirations. Very often
individuals accustomed to conditions of comfort fall on hard times and
others, through exceptionally favourable circumstances succeed in
raising themselves above the conditions into which they were born. A
large proportion of the working class has already succeeded either in
emerging from a state of abject poverty, or was never in such a
situation; no worker to speak of, finds himself in a state of complete
social unawareness, of complete acquiescence to the conditions imposed
on him by the bosses. And the same institutions, such as have been
produced by history, contain organic contradictions and are like the
germs of death, which as they develop result in the dissolution of
institutions and the need for transformation.
From this the possibility of progress—but not the possibility of
bringing all men to the necessary level to want, and to achieve,
anarchy, by means of propaganda, without a previous gradual
transformation of the environment.
Progress must advance contemporaneously and along parallel lines between
men and their environment. We must take advantage of all the means, all
the possibilities and the opportunities that the present environment
allows us to act on our fellow men and to develop their consciences and
their demands; we must use all advance in human consciences to induce
them to claim and to impose those major social transformations which are
possible and which effectively serve to open the way to further advances
later.
We must not wait to achieve anarchy, in the meantime limiting ourselves
to simple propaganda. Were we to do so we would soon exhaust our field
of action; that is, we would have converted all those who in the
existing environment are susceptible to understand and accept our ideas,
and our subsequent propaganda would fall on sterile ground; or if
environmental transformations brought out new popular groupings capable
of receiving new ideas, this would happen without our participation, and
thus would prejudice our ideas.
We must seek to get all the people, or different sections of the people,
to make demands, and impose itself and take for itself all the
improvements and freedoms that it desires as and when it reaches the
state of wanting them, and the power to demand them; and in always
propagating all aspects of our programme, and always struggling for its
complete realisation, we must push the people to want always more and to
increase its pressures, until it has achieved complete emancipation.
The oppression which impinges most directly on the workers and which is
the main cause of the moral and material frustrations under which they
labour, is economic oppression, that is the exploitation to which bosses
and business men subject them, thanks to their monopoly of all the most
important means of production and distribution.
To destroy radically this oppression without any danger of it
re-emerging, all people must be convinced of their right to the means of
production, and be prepared to exercise this basic right by
expropriating the land owners, the industrialists and financiers, and
putting all social wealth at the disposal of the people.
But can this expropriation be put into effect today? Can we today pass
directly, without intermediate steps, from the hell in which the workers
now find themselves to the paradise of common property?
The proof that the people is not capable of expropriating the owners,
yet, is that it does not expropriate them.
What must be done until the day of expropriation comes?
Our task is the moral and material preparation of the people for this
essential expropriation; and to attempt it again and again, every time a
revolutionary upheaval offers us the chance to, until the final triumph.
But in what way can we prepare the people? In what way must one prepare
the conditions which make possible not only the material fact of
expropriation, but the utilisation to everybody’s advantage of the
common wealth?
We have already said that spoken and written propaganda alone cannot win
over to our ideas the mass of the people. A practical education is
needed, which must be alternately cause and effect in a gradual
transformation of the environment. Parallel with the workers developing
a sense of rebellion against the injustices and useless sufferings of
which they are the victims, and the desire to better their conditions,
they must be united and mutually dependent in the struggle to achieve
their demands. And we as anarchists and workers, must incite and
encourage them to struggle, and join them in their struggle.
But are these improvements possible in a capitalist regime? Are they
useful from the point of view of a future complete emancipation of the
workers?
Whatever may be the practical results of the struggle for immediate
gains, the greatest value lies in the struggle itself. For thereby
workers learn that the bosses interests are opposed to theirs and that
they cannot improve their conditions, and much less emancipate
themselves, except by uniting and becoming stronger than the bosses. If
they succeed in getting what they demand, they will be better off: they
will earn more, work fewer hours and will have more time and energy to
reflect on the things that matter to them, and will immediately make
greater demands and have greater needs. If they do not succeed they will
be led to study the causes of their failure and recognise the need for
closer unity and greater activity and they will in the end understand
that to make their victory secure and definitive, it is necessary to
destroy capitalism. The revolutionary cause, the cause of the moral
elevation and emancipation of the workers must benefit by the fact that
workers unite and struggle for their interests.
But, once again, can the workers succeed in really improving their
conditions in the present state of society?
This depends on the confluence of a great number of circumstances.
In spite of what some say, there exists no natural law (law of wages)
which determines what part of a worker’s labour should go to him; or if
one wants to formulate a law, it could not be but that: wages cannot
normally be less than what is needed to maintain life, nor can they
normally rise such that no profit margin is left to the boss.
It is clear that in the first case workers would die, and therefore
would stop drawing any wages, and in the second the bosses would stop
employing labour and so would pay no more wages. But between these two
impossible extremes there is an infinite scale of degrees ranging from
the nearly bestial conditions of most land workers to the almost
respectable conditions of skilled workers in the large cities.
Wages, hours and other conditions of employment are the result of the
struggle between bosses and workers. The former try to give the workers
as little as possible and get them to work themselves to the bone; the
latter try, or should try to work as little, and earn as much, as
possible. Where workers accept any conditions, or even being
discontented, do not know how to put up effective resistance to the
bosses demands, they are soon reduced to bestial conditions of life.
Where, instead, they have ideas as to how human beings should live and
know how to join forces, and through refusal to work or the latent and
open threat of rebellion, to win the bosses respect, in such cases, they
are treated in a relatively decent way. One can therefore say that
within certain limits, the wages he gets are what the worker (not as an
individual. of course. but as a class) demands.
Through struggle, by resistance against the bosses, therefore, workers
can up to a certain point, prevent a worsening of their conditions as
well as obtaining real improvement. And the history of the workers’
movement has already demonstrated this truth.
One must not however exaggerate the importance of this struggle between
workers and bosses conducted exclusively in the economic field. Bosses
can give in, and often they do in face of forcefully expressed demands
so long as the demands are not too great; but if workers were to make
demands (and it is imperative that they should) which would absorb all
the bosses’ profits and be in effect an indirect form of expropriation,
it is certain that the bosses would appeal to the government and would
seek to use force to oblige the workers to remain in their state of wage
slavery.
And even before, long before workers can expect to receive the full
product of their labour, the economic struggle becomes impotent as a
means of producing the improvements in living standards.
Workers produce everything and without them life would be impossible;
therefore it would seem that by refusing to work they could demand
whatever they wanted. But the union of all workers, even in one
particular trade, and in one country is difficult to achieve, and
opposing the union of workers are the bosses’ organisations. Workers
live from day to day, and if they do not work they soon find themselves
without food; whereas the bosses, because they have money, have access
to all the goods in stock and can therefore sit back and wait until
hunger reduces their employees to a more amenable frame of mind. The
invention or the introduction of new machinery makes workers redundant
and adds to the large army of unemployed, who are driven by hunger to
sell their labour at any price. Immigration immediately creates problems
in the countries where better working conditions exist, for the hordes
of hungry workers, willy nilly, offer the bosses an opportunity to
depress wages all round. And all these facts, which necessarily derive
from the capitalist system, conspire in counteracting and often
destroying advances made in working class consciousness and solidarity.
Soon then, those workers who want to free themselves, or even only to
effectively improve their conditions, will be faced with the need to
defend themselves from the government, with the need to attack the
government, which by legalising the right to property and protecting it
with brute force, constitutes a barrier to human progress, which must be
beaten down with force if one does not wish to remain indefinitely under
present conditions or even worse.
From the economic struggle one must pass to the political struggle, that
is to the struggle against government; and instead of opposing the
capitalist millions with the workers’ few pennies scraped together with
difficulty, one must oppose the rifles and guns which defend property
with the more effective means that the people will be able to find to
defeat force by force.
By the political struggle we mean the struggle against government.
Government is the ensemble of all those individuals who hold the reins
of power, however acquired, to make the law and to impose it on the
governed, that is the public.
Government is the consequence of the spirit of domination and violence
with which some men have imposed themselves on other, and is at the same
time the creature as well as the creator of privilege and its natural
defender.
It is wrongly said that today government performs the function of
defender of capitalism but that once capitalism is abolished it would
become the representative and administrator of the general interest. In
the first place capitalism will not be destroyed until the workers,
having rid themselves of government, take possession of all social
wealth and themselves organise production and consumption in the
interests of everybody without waiting for the initiative to come from
government which, however willing to comply, would be incapable of doing
so.
But there is a further question: if capitalism were to be destroyed and
a government were to be left in office, the government, through the
concession of all kinds of privileges, would create capitalism anew for,
being unable to please everybody it would need an economically powerful
class to support it in return for the legal and material protection it
would receive.
Consequently privilege cannot be abolished and freedom and equality
established firmly and definitely without abolishing government—not this
or that government but the very institution of government.
As in all questions of general interest, and especially this one, the
consent of the people as a whole is needed, and therefore we must strain
every nerve to persuade the people that government is useless as well as
harmful, and that we can live better lives without government.
But, as we have repeated more than once, propaganda alone is impotent to
convince everybody—and if we were to want to limit ourselves to
preaching against government, and in the meantime waiting supinely for
the day when the public will be convinced of the possibility and value
of radically destroying every kind of government, then that day would
never come.
While preaching against every kind of government, and demanding complete
freedom, we must support all struggles for partial freedom, because we
are convinced that one learns through struggle, and that once one begins
to enjoy a little freedom one ends by wanting it all. We must always be
with the people, and when we do not succeed in getting them to demand a
lot we must still seek to get them to want something; and we must make
every effort to get them to understand that however much or little they
may demand should be obtained by their own efforts and that they should
despise and detest whoever is part of, or aspires to, government.
Since government today has the power, through the legal system, to
regulate daily life and to broaden or restrict the liberty of the
citizen, and because we are still unable to tear this power from its
grasp, we must seek to reduce its power and oblige governments to use it
in the least harmful ways possible. But this we must do always remaining
outside, and against, government, putting pressure on it through
agitation in the streets, by threatening to take by force what we
demand. Never must we accept any kind of legislative position, be it
national or local, for in so doing we will neutralise the effectiveness
of our activity as well as betraying the future of our cause.
---
The struggle against government in the last analysis, is physical,
material.
Governments make the law. They must therefore dispose of the material
forces (police and army) to impose the law, for otherwise only those who
wanted to would obey it, and it would no longer be the law, but a simple
series of suggestions which all would be free to accept or reject.
Governments have this power, however, and use it through the law, to
strengthen their power, as well as to serve the interests of the ruling
classes, by oppressing and exploiting the workers.
The only limit to the oppression of government is the power with which
the people show themselves capable of opposing it. Conflict may be open
or latent; but it always exists since the government does not pay
attention to discontent and popular resistance except when it is faced
with the danger of insurrection.
When the people meekly submit to the law, or their protests are feeble
and confined to words, the government studies its own interests and
ignores the needs of the people; when the protests are lively,
insistent, threatening, the government, depending on whether it is more
or less understanding, gives way or resorts to repression. But one
always comes back to insurrection, for if the government does not give
way, the people will end by rebelling; and if the government does give
way, then the people gain confidence in themselves and make ever
increasing demands, until such time as the incompatibility between
freedom and authority becomes clear and the violent struggle is engaged.
It is therefore necessary to be prepared, morally and materially, so
that when this does happen the people will emerge victorious.
---
A successful insurrection is the most potent factor in the emancipation
of the people, for once the yoke has been shaken off, the people are
free to provide themselves with those institutions which they think
best, and the time lag between passing the law and the degree of
civilisation which the mass of the population has attained, is breached
in one leap. The insurrection determines the revolution, that is, the
speedy emergence of the latent forces built up during the “evolutionary”
period.
Everything depends on what the people are capable of wanting.
In past insurrections unaware of the real reasons for their misfortunes,
they have always wanted very little, and have obtained very little.
What will they want in the next insurrection?
The answer, in part, depends on our propaganda and what efforts we put
into it.
We shall have to push the people to expropriate the bosses and put all
goods in common and organise their daily lives themselves, through
freely constituted associations, without waiting for orders from outside
and refusing to nominate or recognise any government, any body that
claims the right to lay down the law and impose its will on others.
And if the mass of the population will not respond to our appeal we
must—in the name of the right we have to be free even if others wish to
remain slaves and because of the force of example—put into effect as
many of our ideas as we can, refuse to recognise the new government and
keep alive resistance and seek that those communes where our ideas are
received with sympathy reject all governmental interference and insist
on wanting to live their own lives.
We shall have to, above all, oppose with every means the
re-establishment of the police and the armed forces, and use any
opportunity to incite workers to a general strike that lays the most far
reaching demands we can induce them to make.
And however things may go, to continue the struggle against the
possessing class and the rulers without respite, having always in mind
the complete economic, political and moral emancipation of all mankind.
What we want, therefore, is the complete destruction of the domination
and exploitation of man by man; we want men united as brothers by a
conscious and desired solidarity, all cooperating voluntarily for the
well-being of all: we want society to be constituted for the purpose of
supplying everybody with the means for achieving the maximum well-being,
the maximum possible moral and spiritual development; we want bread,
freedom, love, and science for everybody.
And in order to achieve these all-important ends, it is necessary in our
opinion that the means of production should be at the disposal of
everybody and that no man, or group of men, should be in a position to
oblige others to submit to their will or to exercise their influence
other than through the power of reason and by example.
Therefore: expropriation of landowners and capitalists for the benefit
of all; and abolition of government.
And while waiting for the day when this can be achieved: the propagation
of our ideas; unceasing struggle, violent or non-violent depending on
the circumstances, against government and against the boss class to
conquer as much freedom and well-being as we can for the benefit of
everybody.