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Title: Practical Socialism Author: Freedom Press Date: September, 1887 Language: en Topics: Freedom Press, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 1, No. 12, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3095, retrieved on May 1, 2020. Notes: Freedom Press (ed.)
A common mode of raising objections against Socialism is the following.
An exponent of revolutionary principles is asked how such and such a
particular detail of social life is to be arranged after the advent of
the Social Revolution, and on his deciding either according to his own
individual Judgment or in accordance with the views of this or that
school of Socialists, the critic supposes a case attended with
circumstances which render the decision evidently absurd or unjust, and
turns from the debate in triumph, leaving the propagandist puzzled and
the bystanders amused at his confusion, and, perhaps, impressed with the
is after all impracticable.
The Anarchist, however, possessing a clear notion of the scope and aim
of the coming Social Revolution, is not liable to be nonplussed in any
such fashion: he knows and never ceases to assert that the first work of
the Revolution must be one of destruction, not of construction, and that
its immediate purpose is not to build up some wonderful fabric in
accordance with a pre-arranged program, but simply to uproot, remove,
and utterly annihilate everything that can in any way interfere with the
absolute freedom of men in the arrangement of their affairs by and for
themselves. When asked by opponents what is to done in this or that cam,
be will reply without hesitation that it is not for him nor for anybody
else to decide upon a course of action for others, and that every matter
must be left to the free judgment of the parties concerned; and he will
furthermore declare-what is obvious to common-sense--that it is
impossible to decide upon any question of detail until each and every
point hearing upon it is fully known and weighed. As the change produced
by the Revolution will be a complete one, radically modifying every
relation and condition of social life, it is clearly impossible for
anyone to form such a sufficient idea of what will be required as can
enable him to lay down any absolute rule for individual cases.
As social beings, men must necessarily associate one with another; it is
as much a part of their nature to do so as it is to seek for food and
other necessaries of life. The purpose of the Revolution is to render
them perfectly free in following the guidance of this social nature
which they possess, and it will do so by destroying all those Artificial
contrivances whereby, in all ages of man's history, combined knavery and
ignorance have sought to guide and improve his nature with the solitary
result of crippling and distorting it to the utmost. Among these
contrivances must be numbered all laws, because law is the negation of
liberty, and all institutions which are forcibly imposed upon anybody,
and which are not voluntarily accepted or cannot be set aside at will.
So long as Socialists persist in advocating utopian projects, however
admirably planned those projects may be, valuable time and attention
will be wasted in those fruitless debates which divide the revolutionary
party and afford its opponents unlimited opportunities for picking out
weak points and raising specious objections. An attacking party has
always a balance of advantage on its side, let us therefore be always
assailants and press on to victory without giving our enemy any
opportunity for returning our blows at his leisure. During the time of
.preparation for the Revolution whatever weakens authority or its
possessors must be used by us against them, and at the moment of .actual
Revolution we must be careful to destroy pitilessly whatever they can
possibly use against us. In the very instant of victory on hesitatingly
snatch away from your masters and superiors the property and position
which authorize them to look down upon you as their dependents or to
employ you as their tools! Work such havoc with the documents which
convey and the precedents which consecrate the usurpations of your
tyrants. that the devil himself may not be able to show them their own
again! When, after the great French Revolution, the peasants had seized
upon the land of the nobility and clergy and had made it their own by
cultivating it and reaping the produce for themselves, not even the
reinstated monarchy could restore the original proprietorship.. Nothing
could put Humpty Dumpty together again. It will be still less possible
for our present monopolists to recover their complicated sources of
wealth when once these latter, shall have been appropriated by the
people. As possession is nine points in law, let us make it the whole
ten for Justice!