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Title: Anarchist Communism
Author: Johann Most
Date: 1889
Language: en
Topics: anarcho-communist, introductory
Source: Retrieved on April 25, 2009 from http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/most/anarcom.html

Johann Most

Anarchist Communism

Anarchism is a world view, a philosophy of society; indeed the

philosophy of society, for whoever considers the world and human life in

their profoundest senses and their complete development, and then

decides on the societal form of greatest desirability, cannot but decide

for anarchism. Every other form is a half-measure and a patchwork.

Is anarchism desirable? Well, who does not seek freedom? What man,

unless willing to declare himself in bondage, would care to call any

control agreeable? Think about it!

Is anarchism possible? The failure of attempts to attain freedom does

not mean the cause is lost. The facts that the struggle for freedom is

clearer and stronger than ever before, that today there are different

preconditions to achieving the goal, and that we therefore stand nearer

anarchy than had been hoped — prove a development of the desire to wash

from the face of the earth what is authoritarian.

Anarchists are socialists because they want the improvement of society,

and they are communists because they are convinced that such a

transformation of society can only result from the establishment of a

commonwealth of property.

The aims of anarchists and true communists are identical. Why, then, are

anarchists not satisfied to call themselves socialists or communists?

Because they do not want to be confused with people who misappropriate

these words, as many people do nowadays, and because they believe

communism would be an incomplete, less-than-desirable system if not

infused with the spirit of anarchism.

Communists and anarchists also agree on tactics. He who negates present

society, and seeks social conditions based on the sharing of property,

is a revolutionary whether he calls himself an anarchist or a communist.

But anarchists are not bloodhounds who speak with levity of revolution

by murder and arson. They make revolutionary propaganda because they

know the privileged class can never be overturned peacefully.

The anarchists, on behalf of the proletariat, therefore consider it

necessary to show the proletariat that it will have to win a gigantic

battle before it realizes its goals. The anarchists prepare for social

revolution and use every means — speech, writing, or deed, whichever is

more to the point — to accelerate revolutionary development.

Can anyone, who honestly supports the proletariat, blame them for that?

The fact that, as a consequence, capitalists, police, press, clergy, and

other hypocrites and philistines hate us with all their hearts, all

their minds, all their souls, and all their strength all the time — we

can readily understand.

But it seems unnatural that at every step we meet fanatical hostility

inside the labor movement, accompanied by bullheaded stupidity. The

greatest stumbling block to anarchism among the non-anarchist

socialists, which causes much of the discord, is the “free contract.”

Yet one need not put oneself into a different world — neither Mars nor

in Utopia — to see how the free contract would work. Take, for example,

the International Postal Union. The national postal organizations join

of their own free will and can withdraw in the same way. These

contracting parties agree to what they will provide one another, in

order to achieve service of the highest practicality and greatest

efficiency. International law lacks precedent for compelling a violator

be taken to court.

Nevertheless, “free contract” works — because, since every breach of

promise carries with it damage to the breacher, it behooves every

contracting party not to violate the contract. If irregularities arise,

conferences agree on adjustments. This institution, a model for free

association, is not an isolated example. People who have little else in

common form groups, trusts, and pools — organizations musical,

gymnastic, commercial, protective, educational, and political; and

associations for the advancement of arts and science — in all countries,

despite contradictory natures of the parties, and despite the fact that

the parties cannot be forced to fulfill the agreements. Everything done

in these agreements is done because of advantage to each member.

Absurd the claim that these organizations could not work without control

by a higher power! Indeed, whenever and wherever government has

interfered, it has disturbed and obstructed the organizations. Moreover,

where this kind of intervention is happening, the organizations agitate

with supreme energy for its abolition.

In a society of the free and equal there can be nothing but the free

contract; cooperation by force violates freedom and equality. The gist

of the matter is whether, in a society of the future, the various

organizations (created and operating according to free contracts) are to

be centralized or of a federal nature. We are for federalism as

necessary and right, because experience has taught us that

centralization must end in monstrous total-power accumulation in a few

hands; centralization causes abuse of power, dominating by a few, and

loss of freedom by many. In addition, we see nothing useful or necessary

in centralization. If we hope and even assume that the social question

will be answered through communism, and not in this or that country but

in the world, any thought of centralization must be a monstrosity. Think

of a bakers’ central commission, meeting in Washington, prescribing the

bakers of Peking and Melbourne the size and amount of the rolls they are

to bake.

Since the people of the future will not be old-fashioned fools, they

will not fall into such nonsense. They will regulate their affairs as

practice and experience teach. The shortsighted object. Freedom is now

enjoyed in economic affairs, they say, and since government does not

interfere, freedom has caused abuses. We accept this argument of our

enemies and with it teach them something better. That is, economic

freedom abused by private property has created the social question.

Private property, guarded by the state, increasingly exploits the poor;

and the poor less and less use what they produce. If the government did

not wholeheartedly maintain this swindle, the masses would not suffer

it.

Yes, the state is the organized power of property. Therefore the

unpropertied must destroy the state, eliminate private property, and

establish ownership in common.

Communism, contrary to the liberal-bourgeois tradition, needs no state

to achieve its freedom and equality. Communism finds the force of the

state disturbing and restrictive.

Now we come to the main objection to communism, that in it the

individual gives himself up to the whole and leads no existence of his

own — a thought fit to frighten away the original characters and throw a

scare even into common philistines with no individuality to lose. We

need do no more than repeat: only under communism does the individual

become himself and lead his own life. Conversely, does anarchism isolate

people and dissolve society? No. Our discussions show: the individual

develops fullest in the system of ownership-in-common. Anarchism also

does not prohibit the cooperation of some, many, or all — whichever is

desirable — for the achievement of common goals.

Above all, what socialist, without flushing with shame, maintains he is

not a revolutionary? We say: none!.

And the revolutionary favors constant propagation of principles. While

we have entertained the contention that a deed may make more propaganda

than hundreds of speeches, thousands of articles, and tens of thousands

of pamphlets, we have held that an arbitrary act of violence will not

necessarily have such an effect.

In short, propaganda-by-the-deed has not become our hobbyhorse, which we

ride to the neglect of other propaganda. If on the one side we do not

harbor the illusion that the entire proletariat must be enlightened

before it can be called into battle, so on the other we do not doubt

that as much enlightenment as possible must be produced with oral and

printed agitation.

Fortunately, no country was ever more suited for anarchist agitation

than present-day America. Here nobody wants to experiment further with

the people’s state. It has been more than a century; it has experienced

the profoundest fiasco [the civil war]; and future state-makers had

better learn the lesson. Whoever looks at America will see: the ship is

disgusted noble and intelligent natures; they avoid voting; and they

are, even if they don’t know it, anarchists.

The sharp-minded observer, the upright character, and the independent

thinker see in the people’s state a crude superstition and are ready to

listen to the anarchists. Finally, whatever else may be said, this much

is for sure: the welfare of humanity, which the future can and will

bring, lies in communism. It excludes in logical ways all authority and

servitude, and therefore equals anarchy. The way to the goal is the

social revolution. By energetic, relentless, international action, it

will destroy class rule and establish a free society based on

cooperative organization of production. Long Live the Social Revolution!