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Title: The First Work of the Revolution Date: August, 1887 Language: en Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 1, No. 11, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=2992, retrieved on April 12, 2020.
Whatever turn, pacific or warlike, events may take when the time has
come for a thorough modification of present conditions, those who will
take an active part in the movement will find two different courses open
to them; and upon their choice will depend the success or the failure of
the attempt.
Deeply imbued with the teachings of Political Economy, which has devoted
its chief attention to the best means of increasing the intensity of the
present capitalist production; accustomed to reason under the open or
unspoken presumption that the economical life of a Society cannot but be
organized on some kind of wage-system, –most social reformers have built
up their schemes of reform on the supposition that our endeavors must be
merely directed towards some improvement of the present system of
wage-payment, and it is usually supposed that this improvement would
result from the State, or the Municipality, taking industry under their
management, and eliminating the present owners of land and capital.
In the opinion of these persons the Social Revolution, after having
proclaimed the rights of the nation to its soil, mines, machinery, and
means of communication, and after having expropriated the present owners
of these necessities of production, ought to organize industry so as to
guarantee to the worker " the full value of his labor," and thus to
prevent anybody from pocketing for himself the surplus-value. added by
the laborer to the cotton and wool which he transforms into stuffs, to
the coal which he brings to the surface of the earth, or to the metals
he transforms into tools or machines. But, as far as we understand the
social reformers belonging to this school, they consider it quite
possible provisionally to maintain existing industry as it is, both as
to the kinds of produce it brings to market, and the territorial
distribution of the various workshops and manufactures. As to how the
very first needs of the producer–those of food, of shelter, of clothing,
and so on-should be satisfied, we must recognize that these grave
questions are rather driven into the back-ground in the schemes of all
social reformers of the Collectivist and previous schools.
Well, it seems to us Communist-Anarchists, that if the Social Revolution
should really follow this course, it would be doomed beforehand to be
defeated, and to be crushed in the blood of the working classes.
We have already said that the, abolition of private ownership of land,
mines, machinery, and productive capital altogether, surely will be the
distinctive feature of any movement worthy of the name of Socialist; and
we have said, moreover, that no Parliament, no Government can do this.
The expropriation can be carried out only by local initiative, by local
action, by being not only written on paper, but accomplished de facto.
But suppose it is done; that is, suppose the nation has loudly
proclaimed that the soil, the houses thereupon and the mines beneath,
the factories and railways, are the property of the nation, and suppose
that even the idea is so ripe that no serious objections are raised
against it –what next?
It is not enough to proclaim, "These factories are ours," and to put on
them the inscription, "National Property." They will become ours when we
really bring them into action, when we use them and set their machinery
at work. But how will that be done?
We are answered, "The State will do that, and it will pay wages, either
in money or in 'labor notes.' But it seems to us that those who answer
the question in this way, are merely paying a tribute to the false and
portentious pseudo-science which middle-class people have elaborated
under the name of Political Economy. Their point of view is altogether
wrong; because, instead of basing our reasonings on the present
production we ought to base them on consumption. Production is, for us,
the mere servant of consumption; it must mold itself on the wants of the
consumer, not dictate to him conditions.
Suppose we have entered a revolutionary period, with or without civil
war–it does not matter,–a period when old institutions are falling into
ruins and new ones are growing in their place. The movement may be
limited to one State, or spread over the world,–it will have
nevertheless the same consequence: an immediate slackening of individual
enterprise all over Europe. Capital will conceal itself, and hundreds of
capitalists will prefer to abandon their undertakings and go to
watering-places rather than to risk their unfixed capital in industrial
production. And we know how a restriction of production in any one
branch of industry affects many others, and these in their turn spread
wider and wider the area of depression.
Already, at this moment, millions of those who have created all riches
suffer from want of what must be considered as necessaries for the life
of a civilized man. Already hundreds of thousands are in want of even
food and shelter. Let the slightest commotion be felt in the industrial
world, and it will take the shape of a general stoppage of work. Let the
first attempt at expropriation be made, and the capitalist production of
our days will at once come to a stop, and millions and millions of
"unemployed" will join the ranks of those who are already unemployed
now.
More than that. Our production cannot continue to go on as it does. The
very first advance towards a Socialist society will imply a thorough
reorganization of industry as to what we have to produce. Socialism
implies, not only a reorganization as to the division of profits: its
economical meaning is much deeper. It implies also a transformation of
industry so that it may be adapted to the needs of the consumer, not to
those of the profit-maker. Many a branch of our present industry must
disappear, or limit its production; many a new one must develop. We are
now producing to a great extent for export. But the export trade will be
the first to be reduced as soon as attempts at Social Revolution are
made anywhere in Europe. The British weaver, for instance, does not
stand in direct exchange with the Hindu - there is between them a series
of middle-men both in this country and in India, and in a time of
industrial disturbance such middle-men would cease their orders. The
industry of this country being calculated for an immense export trade,
must undergo a deep modification to adjust it to the needs of the
inhabitants of these isles.
All that can be, and will be reorganized in time-not by the State, of
course (why, then, not say by Providence?), but by the workers
themselves. But, in the meantime, the worker, who has not even so much
wealth as will enable him to live for a fortnight, cannot wait for the
gradual reorganization of industry. Having no employment, he would
meanwhile lose even those wages which formerly permitted him to keep
body and soul together.
The great problem of how to supply the wants of the millions will thus
start up at once in all its immensity. And the necessity of finding an
immediate solution for it is the reason why we consider that a step in
the direction of communism will be imposed on the revolted society–not
in the future, but as soon as it applies its crowbar to the first stones
of the capitalist edifice.
It is because none of the three revolutions through which France has
passed during the last hundred years grasped this necessity that each of
them was crushed in the blood of its best defenders. By forgetting that
the workmen who can earn no wages during a revolutionary period, cannot
continue to be defenders of the revolution, the leaders of those
enterprises reduced the working classes to the most terrible raisery,
and finally compelled them to accept any dictator, any Emperor who
guaranteed them work and wages, whatever were the conditions of work and
however low the rate of wages.
Therefore we differ from all other Socialist schools in the manner in
which we look at the next social movements. We hold that the
satisfaction of the wants of all must be the first consideration of the
revolutionists; that in the very first twenty-four hours after a
Socialist movement has broken out in a city, there must not be one
single family in want of food; not one single man or woman reduced to
sleep under a bridge or in the meadows. Our first object must be to care
for providing this food and this shelter for those who are most in need
of them, for those precisely who have been the outcasts of the old
society.
Is it possible? Are we able immediately to provide everybody with food,
shelter, and clothes? None of those who know the richness of our modern
society will doubt the possibility. We have plenty; and we have plenty
of food in our stores to satisfy their first wants.
And if we thus consider the satisfaction of everybody's first wants as
the first duty of each social movement, we shall soon find out the best
means of reorganizing our production so as to supply everybody with, at
least, the first necessaries of life.
We shall return again and again to this subject in subsequent numbers of
Freedom; but the preliminary point upon which we wish especially to
insist is, that unless Socialists are prepared openly and avowedly to
profess that the satisfaction of the needs of each individual must lie
their very first aim; unless they have prepared public opinion to
establish itself firmly at this standpoint, the people in their next
attempt to free themselves will once more suffer a defeat.