Those who would like to see society transformed without shocks must make up their minds to surrender the hope; it is impossible. Ideas in the course of evolving lead to revolution. We may regret it, deplore it, but the fact is there; we must accept our lot, lamentations cannot prevail against it. And since revolution is inevitable there is but one means of preventing it from going against progress, viz., to take part in it, endeavoring to utilize it towards the realization of the ideal in view. We are not of those who preach acts of violence; nor those who want to devour the employer and the capitalist, as these formerly devoured the priest; nor of those who incite people to do this or that, or accomplish such and such an act. We are convinced that people do not do anything but what they themselves have decided to do. We believe that actions are taught by example and not by writing or counsel. Therefore we confine ourselves to drawing the conclusions of things in order that people may themselves decide what they want to do. But we are also convinced that the ideas, when well understood, must in their ascending march multiply acts of revolt. The more they penetrate the mass the more will consciousness of them be awakened, the more intense will become the appreciation of their worth, and consequently the less will men be willing to submit to the meddlings of authoritarian power and the exploitation of capitalistic robbers, the more frequent and more multiplied will become acts of independence. This result has nothing disconsoling for us, quite the contrary; for every act of individual revolt is an ax-stroke against the props of the social edifice which is crushing us. And since it is admitted that progress cannot go on without shocks and victims, we salute those who disappear in this terrible tempest, hoping that their example will raise up champions more numerous and better armed, whose blows may have greater effect. But whatever the number of those who perish in the struggle, it is still very small compared to the innumerable victims daily devoured by the social Minotaur. The more intense the struggle, the shorter; and in consequence the more lives, else devoted to poverty, sickness, consumption, and degeneracy, will be spared.
XVII
As to What Means Follow from the Principles
Some men, with good intentions we like to believe, appear stupefied at seeing the Anarchists repudiate certain means of struggle as contrary to their principles. “Why should you not try to get possession of power,” they say, “in order to force people to put your ideas into practice?”—“Why,” exclaim others, “should you not send your own men to the chamber as deputies, or into the municipal councils, where they could be of service to you and would have the advantage of authority to propagate your ideas among the masses?” On the other hand some Anarchists, imagining themselves very logical, carry their reasoning to absurdity; with Anarchy as an excuse they accept a mass of ideas which have nothing to do with it. Thus under color of attacking property certain persons have constituted themselves defenders of theft; others apropos of free love have come to sustain the most absurd fancies, which they would not hesitate to qualify as debauchery and vulgar excess if practiced by the bourgeoisie; the most extreme however are those who war upon principles. “Another prejudice,” they say, and declare, “I laugh at principles; I ‘sit down’ on them; to hasten the revolution all means are good; we must not allow ourselves to be checked by scruples which are out of season.”
Those who make use of such language are, in our opinion, mistaken, and if they reflect thoroughly upon it they will soon discover that not all means are good to bring about Anarchy; there are some which are quite the contrary. They may present an appearance of success, but will really have the effect of retarding the acceptance of the idea, of giving triumph to a person at the expense of the thing; and consequently, whether it be admitted or denied, there follows from the ideas which one professes a directing principle which must guide him in the choice of the means suitable for putting those ideas into practice or facilitating a comprehension of them;—a principle as inevitable as a natural law, which one cannot transgress without being punished by the transgression itself, for it carries one farther away from the proposed goal by producing the contrary of the results hoped for.
Thus, for example, take universal suffrage, allusion to which was made at the beginning of this chapter. It is easy to say with some of our opponents who, seeing nothing but immediate facts, ask us, “Why do you not try to send your own men to the chamber where they could enact the changes which you demand, or, at least, more easily group together the forces which will organize the revolution?” By a well understood and well directed opposition the ballot might certainly bring about a revolution as well as any other means; but as it is a perfected instrument of authority it could produce nothing but an authoritarian political revolution; this is the reason that Anarchists repudiate it equally with authority itself. If our ideal were merely to accomplish a transformation of society
