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Title: Local Action Author: Freedom Press (London) Date: May, 1887 Language: en Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 1, No. 8, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3040, retrieved on April 12, 2020.
Before going further, let us sum up the conclusions at which we have
arrived in our preceding articles. They are two, and each of them is of
importance in enabling us to see what we brave to do.
We have established -- and if space permitted we might do so with a much
greater display of arguments -- that we must rely for the accomplishment
of the Social Revolution which we feel approaching all over the
civilized world, neither on the present parliaments, nor on any
representative bodies which might be summoned during a more disturbed
period than the present. A mere change of Government would not
necessarily be a revolution, even though the overthrow of the Government
might be accompanied by acts of violence. European society is in need of
a deep, thorough, economical transformation, and this cannot be
accomplished by mere decrees. To have any chance of life, any change
accomplished in the economical conditions must come from the very depths
of the popular life itself -- it must result from the popular
initiative.
To accomplish an economical revolution is not the function of a body of
representatives. All that can be hoped from such a body is that it will
not oppose strong resistance to the action of the people, but under due
popular pressure give its final sanction to accomplished facts. Never
will such a body be capable of taking the initiative, for it is itself a
compromise with the past and cannot even claim to be an outpost of the
future. The French Convention of 1793 -- the ideal of so many
Jacobinists -- did not do more than give its sanction to what the
peasants already had accomplished, since they had retaken possession of
the communal lands enclosed by the landlords, had ceased to pay the
redemption for the feudal taxes, and had burned the charters by which
they had formerly been bound. All these things being already done, the
Convention -- under due pressure of the Paris workmen and clubs -- gave
its sanction in the form of laws, consecrating the results of the
peasants' revolt, it could not do more than that, because a body of
representatives is a dead weight attached to the revolution -- not the
leader of it.
Another conclusion which we arrived at was, that the tree action of the
people towards the abolition of the existing monopolies on land,
dwellings, railways, and capital will, in every way, be favored by the
movements which will necessarily break out all over Europe before this
century has come to an end. The immediate cause of these movements
cannot be foreseen, and there is no need to know it beforehand. All we
can and must know is, that thousands of causes contribute towards
creating a revolutionary situation in Europe, and that there being such
a situation, any cause may be the signal of widely spread revolts. The
mass outbreaks which we have witnessed during the last few years are
unmistakable tokens of the approach of the disturbed period.
These two conclusions being kept in mind, we may proceed further, and
add now a third conclusion to the above.
Although no revolutionary movement can break out in Europe -- be it in
France, Germany, Austria, or Russia -- without being closely followed by
like outbreaks in other countries of Europe, we must be prepared to see
these outbreaks taking very different characters in different countries.
Germany most probably will try to overthrow the Monarchy and to
introduce a Republican form of Government; and it is most. probable that
attempts at substituting the present private ownership of land and great
industrial concerns by State ownership will be made in the same country.
But State ownership and State help to associations of workmen would not
find much echo in this country, and still less in France, or in Spain.
In France, the revolution will almost. undoubtedly proceed by
proclaiming independent communes which communes will endeavor to
accomplish the economical transformation within their walls, or rather
within their respective surroundings. And in Spain, the whole history of
the country is an unceasing struggle for the independence of provinces
and municipalities -- a struggle which has its causes deeply rooted both
in the former history and in the present wide differences of economical
conditions in different parts of that country. State ownership and
State's rule find no support even from the present political parties of
Spain, still less will they find it in the new economical conditions.
Add to these another example; while in this country we see the
middle-classes seeking the support of working men in order to break down
the power of the landed aristocracy, no such coalition is possible any
longer in France. There the upper middle-classes stand in open and
direct conflict with the Socialist working-men -- a circumstance which
obviously will impart, as it already has in 1848 and 187l, new and quite
different features to the movement.
To dream that the next revolution may follow one single program all over
Europe, is thus a fallacy.
But again, to imagine that in each separate State, all the nation will
rise at a given moments as one man, with one uniform practical program,
would be also to cherish an illusive and dangerous dream. Of course, all
that is possible will be done by Socialists to awaken everywhere, in
their respective countries, the consciousness of the masses; to
enlighten them as to the bad effects of the present monopolization of
land and capital. When general interest in public affairs will be more
awakened by great events, these ideas will spread still speedier than
they spread now. But, nevertheless, there still will be wide differences
in the views held in different parts of each country as to how far, and
at what a speed, the abolition of monopolies must go, and to what
measures most urgently need to be taken in hand at once. A nation is a
complex being, and to expect uniformity where multiformity reigns would
be to take an utterly erroneous view of public affairs.
One of the deputies of the Scotch miners to the last Miners' Congress
loudly proclaimed the other day that whatever the palliative measures
they might discuss at their Congresses. the Scotch miners consider that
justice will be only done to their claims when they come to be in
possession of the mines they are now working in.
Suppose that after a serious discussion of the whole question in their
small clubs and in their local congresses, the Scotch miners come to the
conclusion that the time has arrived to take possession of the Scotch
mines, and elaborate some scheme as to the working out of these mines,
sharing the produce of their labor with none of the land-grabbers, nor
profit-grabbers. And suppose that the Northumbrian, or the Welsh miners,
the Sheffield cutlers, and the Manchester weavers, cannot yet be brought
to the same views. Must the Scotch miners wait until the whole of the
British nation be converted to their ideas? Must they wait until a
representative body, composed of heterogeneous elements mostly looking
towards the past, happens to elaborate some scheme for the transfer of
the mines into the miners' hands? Is it not preferable that they should
act for themselves, make a new start, lay down the basis of a new
organization, and preach by example? And is it not moat probable that
they really will do so? All human progress has been realized in this
way. A practical application of new principles is the only possible
means of convincing most people of their applicability, showing at once
their advantages and their possible defects.
Or, suppose again, the inhabitants of Paris, discussing the dwelling
question with all the eagerness it deserves, come to this conclusion --
that the houses of Paris cannot continue to belong to their present
owners, not having been built by them, and deriving their immense value,
not from the improvements the present owners have made in these houses
but from the labor which has been expended on Paris by generations past
and present, as well as from the very presence of two million of people
at Paris. Suppose they arrive at the conclusion that these houses must
become like the streets the common property of all the inhabitants --
and the probabilities are that they soon will -- must they wait until
thirty-five millions of Frenchmen arrive at the same conclusion? Or,
having proclaimed their independent commune, will they not act much more
wisely if they organize themselves in order to take possession of these
houses and for making use of them in the most equitable way for the
greatest benefit of all the community?
People may write as much as they like about discipline; they may dream
as much as they like about uniformity. Practical life takes another
course. The inhabitants of Paris will take possession of the Paris
houses, whatever be the course taken by the inhabitants of Bordeaux; and
they will organize themselves for the best use of the houses; and if the
above-mentioned ideas grow with the Scotch miners, it is most probable
that they will act in that direction. Separate cities, mining basins,
and industrial regions will make independent starts, and then -- but
only then -- they will enter into agreements with their neighbors, for
deriving from their local action, the best possible advantages for the
whole of the commonwealth.
We might multiply the examples; we might go further on into this study;
but what has already been said will probably convince most of our
readers that during the next great movements separate cities and
separate regions will make attempts at abolishing within their own
spheres the monopolies of land and capital which are now so many
obstacles in the way towards freedom and equality. The abolition of
these monopolies will not be done by acts of national parliaments: it
will be done, first, by the people of each locality; and the agreement
between different localities will be the result of the accomplished
facts.
As to the aims and the character which these movements may assume and
ought to assume, they will form the subject of our next article.
"Command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life:
society in equality is its normal state. Already in modern life, and
more and more as it progressively improves, command and obedience become
exceptional facts in life, equal association its general rule. The
morality of the first ages rested on the obligation to submit to power;
that of the ages next following, on the right of the weak to the
forbearance and protection of the strong. How much longer is one form of
society and life to content itself with the morality made for another?
We have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry and
generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice. Whenever
in former ages any approach has been made to society in equality,
justice has asserted its claims as the foundation of virtue." -- J. S.
Mill.