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Title: Revolutionary Terror Author: Errico Malatesta Date: October 1924 Language: en Topics: terrorism, revolution, violence Source: The Anarchist Revolution: Polemical Articles 1924–1931, edited and introduced by Vernon Richards. Published by Freedom Press London 1995.
My short article in the last number, ‘Against the Excesses of Language,’
has provoked some criticism which, over and above the original scope of
the argument, raises the general problem of revolutionary’ tactics.
which always need to be discussed, and discussed again, because upon its
solution could depend the fate of the revolution to come.
I will not deal here with the way in which the tyranny oppressing the
Italian people today can be fought and destroyed. I propose simply to
clarify ideas and speak of moral preparation, with either a near or
distant future in mind, because it is not possible for us to do anything
else. Moreover, when we think the moment for real action has come, we
shall have even less opportunity than we do now to discuss it.
I am here concerned exclusively, and hypothetically, with the aftermath
of a triumphant insurrection and the violent methods which some would
like to adopt by way of ‘dispensing justice’ and which others believe to
be necessary to defend the Revolution against the tricks of the enemy.
Let us leave ‘justice’ aside. It is too relative a concept; it has
always served as a pretext for all manner of oppression and injustice
and has often come to mean no more than vendetta. Hatred and lust for
vengeance are irrepressible feelings which are naturally awakened and
fuelled by oppression. But if they can be a positive force in shaking
off the yoke, they become a negative force when the moment comes to
replace oppression, not with a new oppression but with freedom and
solidarity. We must therefore strive to awaken higher sentiments, which
draw their energy from the love of what is good, while at the same time
guarding against a loss of impetus. Let the mass of the people act as
passion dictates, if the alternative is a controlling force that puts a
brake on it, that would translate into a new tyranny. But let us always
remember that, as anarchists, we can neither be avengers nor
executioners. If we want to be liberators we must act as such by
propaganda and deed.
Let us deal with the most important question, which is also the only
serious one to have been raised on this subject by my critics: defence
of the revolution.
Many people are still fascinated by the idea of ‘terror.’ To them it
seems that guillotines, firing squads, massacres, deportations and
imprisonment (’gallows and the galley,’ as a prominent communist
recently put it to me) are powerful and indispensable weapons of the
revolution, and that if so many revolutions have been defeated or
expectations dashed, this has been because of too much kindness,
‘weakness’ on the part of the revolutionaries, who have not persecuted,
repressed or killed enough.
This bias that runs through certain revolutionary groups originated in
the rhetoric and historical falsifications of the apologists of the
French Revolution, and in recent years has been given fresh life by
Bolshevik propaganda. But in fact the opposite is true. Terror has
always been the tool of tyranny. In France it served the grim tyranny of
Robespierre and paved the way for Napoleon and the subsequent
counter-revolution. In Russia it persecuted and killed anarchists and
socialists, massacred rebellious workers and peasants and, indeed,
brought a halt to a revolution that stood a real chance of opening up
the civilised world to a new era.
Those who believe in the liberatory revolutionary efficiency of
repression and ferocity, have the same backward mentality as the jurists
who believe that meting out severe punishments is the key to avoiding
crime and making the world more law abiding.
Terror, like war, awakens brutal, atavistic sentiments, still only
thinly veiled by the varnish of civilisation, and it brings the worst
elements of the people to the fore. Rather than help to defend the
revolution it helps to discredit it, make it hateful to the majority;
and after a period of ferocious struggle, leads inevitably to what is
nowadays called ‘normalisation’ — the legalisation and perpetuation of
tyranny. Whatever party wins out, it always ends in the establishment of
strong government, to some assuring peace at the expense of liberty, to
others power without too many dangers.
I am well aware that the terrorist anarchists (the few there are) reject
any form of organised terror, government-ordered by hired agents, and
that they would like their enemies to be put to death by the mass of the
people directly. But this would only make the situation worse. Terror
can please the fanatics, but above all it suits the real villains,
greedy for blood and money. And there should be no attempt to idealise
the masses and imagine them to be composed of simple men and women who,
if they commit excesses, do so from good intentions. The police and the
fascists serve the bourgeoisie, but come from the bosom of the people!
Fascism has welcomed many criminals into its ranks and has thus, to some
extent, purified in advance the ambiance in which the revolution will
take place. But there is no need to believe that all the Duminis and the
Cesarino Rossis of this world are fascists. There are those who, for
whatever reason, do not want or have not been able to become fascists,
but who, in the name of ‘revolution’ are willing to do what the fascists
do in the name of the ‘fatherland.’ Just as the cutthroats of any and
all regimes are ever ready to hire themelves out to new ones, and become
their most zealous supporters, so today’s fascists will hasten to become
tomorrow’s anarchists or communists, or whatever, as long as they can
tyrannise others and give vent to their own wicked intentions. And if
they cannot do so in their own land, because they are known and
compromised there, they will bring the revolutionary standard to other
lands and will try to rise to prominence by being more violent, more
‘energetic’ than the others, and by treating as moderates, reactionaries
and counter-reactionaries those who see the revolution as a great labour
of goodness and love.
Of course, the revolution has to be defended and developed with an
inexorable logic; but it must not and cannot be defended with means that
contradict its own ends.
The great means for the defence of the revolution remain as ever that of
depriving the bourgeoisie of the economic means by which they rule, of
arming everyone (until such time as they can be induced to toss their
weapons aside as useless and dangerous toys) and of interesting the
great mass of the population in victory.
If, to win, we have to set up the gallows in the public square, I would
prefer to lose.