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Title: While the Carnage Lasts Author: Errico Malatesta Date: 1915 Language: en Topics: anti-war, war, national liberation, World War I Source: Retrieved on 2022-07-30 from https://mgouldhawke.wordpress.com/2022/07/29/while-the-carnage-lasts-errico-malatesta-1915/ Notes: Originally published in LâEra Nuova of Paterson, New Jersey, May 2, 1915; reprinted in Studi Sociali, of Montevideo, Uruguay, March-May, 1938. Translated from the Italian by Al Raven of the Ravenwood blog and published here collaboratively.
Since we cannot, now, do anything better, let us discuss.
But let us discuss calmly, decently, without raising ill-founded
suspicions about the motives of the contradictors. By discussing in this
way, if we cannot agree, we will at least be able to clarify the nature
and limits of the disagreement. And this will be useful for when the
time comes â and it will certainly come â when it will be possible to
act effectively and we will find ourselves united, on the terrain of
other unequivocal facts, with many with whom we are today in sharp
opposition on the fact of the European war.
And let us begin by eliminating polemical devices and rhetorical
flights, which may serve to confuse or irritate people, but prove
nothing.
Those revolutionaries who believe it is useful to participate in the war
in favour of the Franco-Anglo-Russian alliance lavish on us, who,
faithful to the ideas and tactics we defended before the war, are not
neutral but enemies of the two belligerent parties, the qualifications
of fossils, dogmatists, Dominicans [the Catholic Order of Preachers]. We
could respond by treating the others as turncoats and we would be equal.
Equal in the ability to insult, and equal in the lack of serious
reasoning; for the fact of having changed oneâs opinion or not is not
enough to prove that one is right or wrong. What would our
contradictors, who remain adamant opponents of religious obscurantism,
say if they were called fossils and Muslims by those who, disoriented by
the war, felt the atavistic mysticism bubbling up in them and started
flirting with priests?
Likewise, those who, carried away by the fever of war, have variously
modified the ideas they professed before, like to call themselves
rebels, heretics, iconoclasts, scorners of the misconceived majorities,
and give themselves the air of progressive people who, under the
stimulus of great contemporary events, have taken a step forward towards
new intellectual horizons. This attitude is always sympathetic to
revolutionaries, but in the present case it does not answer the truth.
Even if they were right in denying their old convictions, they would
still be wrong in believing themselves to be innovators. They have
placed themselves in opposition to the respective parties, which are but
small minorities: but to pay homage to the beliefs, respects and
atavistic sentiments that unfortunately still guide the vast majority of
the people. They rebelled against socialist and anarchist âformulasâ,
but to return to ideas and states of mind that they believed they had
surpassed. In essence, they recognise that they were wrong â and those
who recognise and confess their mistakes are highly respected for their
ability to correct themselves and for their sincerity, but would hardly
claim to be heretics and rebels.
An opinion is right or wrong in itself, regardless of whether it is new
or old, and whether it is held by a large or small number of
individuals. Let us therefore discuss in themselves the arguments that
separate us from the interventionists.
As for the vulgar insults and filthy language in which some of the
polemicists of one camp and the other are engaged, allow us to disregard
them. It only proves the bad taste and bad manners of those who use it,
and would not even deserve to be noticed were it not for the trail of
resentment it leaves behind.
---
Our interventionist friends (Iâm speaking of the friends, i.e. those who
see in the intervention in favour of France and England a necessity of
defence against German despotism and a means of overthrowing militarism
and creating an environment of freedom favourable to struggles for
social revolution, and not warmongers who aim at substituting one
imperialism for another and who are as odious to us as the despots of
Berlin and Vienna), our interventionist friends therefore seem not to
understand the real reasons for our equal hostility to the two fighting
parties. And they believe that we, blind and deaf to all the reasons why
the world is moving along a path that does not correspond exactly to any
ideal programme, sacrifice reality to âformulasâ, and, not being able to
do anarchy directly and immediately, prefer to remain inert. This is a
strange judgment indeed when it is made by those who know us and know
how we have always fought every fatalistic and numbing philosophy,
whether from the socialist or anarchist camp.
They claim that we are as hostile to the governments of France and
England as we are to those of Germany and Austria, because we believe
that all governments are equal; and they endeavour to prove to us that
while it is true that all governments are bad, it is also true that they
are not all bad to an equal degree.
This is an old question which, despite the inaccuracies of current
language, should by now be clear to those who are aware of anarchist
ideas and tactics.
We know perfectly well that there is a difference; and there is no need
to make much effort to persuade ourselves that it is better to be put in
prison than to be hanged, and that to be in prison one year is better
than ten. The reason for the difference, more than in the form of
government, lies in the general economic and moral conditions of
society, in the state of public opinion, in the resistance that the
governed know how to oppose the intrusiveness and arbitrariness of
authority; but certainly the forms, which are the consequence of the
struggles of past generations, also have their importance insofar as
they are a more or less powerful obstacle in contemporary struggles. And
it is the task of the historian to objectively study the facts and their
causes; it is his task to tell us, for example, that at a given time in
France people were freer than in Germany, that in a given country under
the republic people were less coerced than under the monarchy.
But our task, that of those of us who fight for integral liberty and who
know that all governments must by their law of life oppose liberty, is
to try to overthrow the government and not to improve it â convinced,
moreover, that even from the point of view of reform, this is the best
means of forcing the government to make concessions, and it is the only
one that allows us to profit from concessions without paralysing the
struggle and without compromising the future.
In practice, for us the worst government is always the one we are under,
the one we fight most directly against.
When the Cossacks of Italy assassinate demonstrators, we call for revolt
against them and against the government they serve; and we donât think
that in Russia under similar circumstances they would have killed a
greater number of people.
On this single condition, to always look forward, to always aspire to
the best, it is possible to be revolutionary and progressive; otherwise
one would always have to be content with everything, because one always
finds a place where one is worse off than at home, or a time when one
was worse off than now. It would be the state of mind of that old woman
who, having broken her leg, thanked God that she had not broken both of
them. And it is also the state of mind of all sincere conservatives, who
renounce the best for fear of the worst, and do not want to walk towards
the future for fear that the past will return.
It is therefore not true that we ignore the graduations and relativity
of human affairs. We are always ready to contribute to everything that
in our opinion constitutes progress, to everything that comes close to
our ideal of justice, freedom and human solidarity. But we do not wish,
for the sake of mendacious words, to close our eyes to the evidence and
place ourselves at the side of those who are the born enemies of freedom
and justice. We donât want, to come to the concrete case, on the faith
of official speeches, to support the governments of France and England,
which are not only quite liberal, but under the pretext of overthrowing
the tyrants of Berlin and Vienna, would like to put us at the service of
the Russian despot.
---
I understand the generous impatience, the need for activity, the ardent
hope that veiled the intellect of some of our comrades and I admire
those who volunteered to risk their lives, because it is always
admirable when one sacrifices himself for a cause he believes to be
good. But the respect and admiration I feel for them does not prevent me
from regretting the groundlessness of the hopes of some and the futility
and harm of the sacrifice of others.
What can the victory of one side or the other produce in the present
war? What could be so important that revolutionaries would join the most
reactionary elements in their respective countries, free thinkers would
fraternise with priests, socialists and trade unionists would put class
antagonisms on hold, anti-militarists would demand that a government
call the citizens to arms and force them to go to war, anarchists would
collaborate with the State?
---
They say that this war will solve the question of nationalities.
We are cosmopolitans. For us the question of so-called national
independence only matters as a question of freedom. We would like every
human group to be able to live in the conditions it prefers and to be
free to unite and break away from other groups as it pleases; therefore
we consider the question of nationality to be outdated on the ideal
terrain, just as it is being outdated on the factual terrain due to the
internationalisation of economic interests, culture and personal and
class relations.
But we understand that in countries where the government and the main
oppressors are of foreign nationality, the question of freedom and
economic emancipation presents itself under the guise of nationalist
struggle, and we therefore sympathise with national insurrections as
with any insurrection against the oppressors. In that case, as in all
others, we are with the people against the government. Even when it
seems to us that it is not worth fighting a struggle that would result
in a simple change of masters, we bow before the will of those
concerned. Thus, if Trento and Trieste really felt the need to exchange
the stick of the Habsburgs against the shackles of the House of Savoy,
we would be happy if they succeeded, if only to hear no more about it
and to see so many fine energies devoted to more profitable struggles.
Therefore, although we would be sad that the various national problems
are resolved by governmental resolutions and not by the people, we
recognise that it would be a good thing to resolve, as it were, issues
that obstruct the path to progress and distract so many people from the
real struggles for human emancipation.
But the fact is that in this war a question of nationality may have been
the spark that ignited the incendiary material that had been prepared
for a long time and for other purposes; it may have been a pretext and a
means of enthusing the naive and diverting public attention from the
reasons and aims of the war; but certainly the national independence of
peoples is the last thought of those who direct the war and decide on
peace.
One rightly cries out against infamous Austria, which forces subject
peoples to fight in defence of their oppressors. But why is it silent
when France forces the Algerians and other peoples she holds under her
yoke to be killed for her? Or when England leads the Indians to
slaughter?
Who then would think of freeing the independent nations? Perhaps
England, which is already taking advantage of the opportunity to seize
Cyprus, Egypt and all that it can? Perhaps Serbia, which wants to annex
everything that has any connection with Serbian nationality, but holds
on to Macedonia even at the risk of being attacked from behind? Perhaps
Russia, which wherever it sets foot, in Galicia and Bukovina, suppresses
even that little bit of autonomy that Austria granted, proscribes the
countryâs language, massacres the Jews and persecutes the schismatic
Uniates [members of Eastern churches that are in union with the Roman
Catholic church]? Perhaps France, which in the same days that it
celebrated the victory of the Marne against the German invaders,
massacred the Moroccan ârebelsâ and set fire to their villages?
I would understand the enthusiasm of socialists and anarchists for a
struggle that, while not our struggle, had some character of generosity
and sincerity. I would have understood the enthusiasm if France and
England (Iâm not even talking about Russia), called to the conscience of
the law by German arrogance, had declared the peoples subject to them
independent and then had invoked their help in the struggle against
German hegemony and for the national independence of all peoples. But go
and talk about such a project to government men, to Sir Eduardo Grey, to
Lord Kitchener, to Poincaré, and you will be lucky if they do not put
you in an asylum.
---
They say the Anglo-Franco-Russians are fighting for civilisation.
But while they rightly stigmatise the horrors committed in Belgium and
France by the German army, they keep silent or excuse, and sometimes
exalt, the equal or worse horrors committed by the Russians not only in
the invaded countries but also in Russian Poland. And with their
propaganda of blind hatred, not only against the leaders of German and
Austro-Hungarian policy, which would be justified, but against an entire
people, an entire race, they are creating in the Anglo-French treaties
such a state of mind that one trembles at the thought of what would
happen if they ever succeeded in setting foot in Germany.
---
They say this is a war for freedom and that Russia itself will become
liberal⊠after the war. In the meantime, not to speak of Russia, where
the persecution of the advanced parties and the oppression of the
subjected nationalities are more severe than ever, we see that France
and England are rapidly becoming Russified by the suppression of all
freedom and the right to criticism, by the development of the militarist
spirit, by the increase of clerical power.
Thus the public becomes accustomed to obedience and silence, and the way
remains open for all reactionary comebacks.
---
Despite the evidence of the facts, many well-meaning people, and among
them some of our comrades, continue to believe that this is a war of
freedom, a war which will lead to the disappearance, or at least to a
great decrease in militarism, and to an arrangement of Europe in
accordance with the aspirations of the various peoples, so that
international peace will be ensured forever, or for a very long time,
and the progressive elements of the respective countries will be able to
devote themselves to the conquest of liberty and justice for all,
without fear of the interruptions and retrogressions caused by wars. And
they make plans as to what the next congress will have to decide, and
they imagine that their wishes and votes will influence the
deliberations of the heads of state and their generals and diplomats.
It is a generous but foolish (pardon the word) illusion.
The forthcoming Peace Congress will be, as all such congresses have
been, a market place in which the powerful will dispose of the peoples
as if they were herds of cattle.
In international affairs, as in the internal political affairs of the
various states, the only limit to the arrogance of the rulers is the
resistance of the people. And the people have so far allowed themselves
to be led meekly to the slaughter, and so too has that fraction of the
people, who, boasting a class-consciousness and professing an ideal of
justice, have a duty to set an example and guide the masses.
The war had to be prevented at any cost.
Instead, the German social democrats, who had the greatest duty because
they were the strongest and because their government took the initiative
for the attack, cowardly betrayed the International, they almost
unanimously put themselves at the service of the Kaiser.
The French and Belgian socialists knew nothing better than to imitate
the Germans and to solidarise with the governments and the bourgeoisie
of their countries.
And so it came to pass that an aim diametrically opposed to that which
socialism and the International had set itself was achieved. Instead of
uniting the proletarians of all countries in the struggle against their
oppressors, there has been a return to hatreds of race and nationality
and the struggle for emancipation has been abandoned.
Now it would be necessary for the armed proletarians of the various
fighting armies to fraternise among themselves and turn the weapons they
have in their hands against the oppressors.
But can this be hoped for, when the socialists and syndicalists of the
belligerent countries have hastened, almost all of them, to forget
socialism, trade unionism, class struggle, international fraternity, in
order to show themselves to be good subjects, good soldiers, good
patriots?
---
I am perhaps too pessimistic. It may well be that good comes from the
excess of evil. It could be that the weariness, the disgust of war and
the great miseries, which war produces, lead to an insurrection that
would completely change the state of things.
Already, there are some symptoms of resipiscence and the revolutionaries
should be on the alert to take advantage of the opportunities that might
arise.
But in that case donât let the warmongers come and tell us that war is
good. Something good would then have been derived from it, but only
because there are those who have been, or are becoming, opponents of
war.
And this applies to Italy too. Without the European war that changed the
course of events, the expedition to Libya with its disastrous
consequences was about to have a good effect as it was one of the
factors that had put the [Italian] monarchy on the brink of ruin. But
this was because the subversives of Italy, although they had failed to
prevent it, had remained irreducibly hostile to it. For if they had
followed the advice of those few (there were a few even then) who said:
âsince we cannot make revolution, let us make warâ, they would have
accepted responsibility for the monarchyâs faults and would have had no
authority to speak to the people when the war was over.
Errico Malatesta, London, 26^(th) March 1915