The very thing which makes the weakness of the collectivist party in electoral struggles is that the relatively more intelligent men have been overthrown by the “opportunists” who reckon upon the shallow parakeets of the rostrum only; and that they have wanted to keep intact—though not everywhere—their revolutionary program, and at the same time to present a program of reforms. The voter who is of course very stupid, says to himself: “If I must, after all, revolt, what is the good of asking for reforms? If these reforms do not prevent the necessity for recourse to arms, what is the use of sending deputies to propose them in the chamber?” If he does not go through this reasoning in the concrete form here given—which would in fact be a little above the average intelligence of the voters—it is at least what has come out of the debates at the campaign meetings, what has intuitively presented itself to his mind; and he has voted for the Radicals, who boasted of the efficacy of the reforms which they promised him, or for a few opportunists who likewise preached the virtues of parliamentary panaceas, giving them plausibility and substance—with the idea of flattering the workers—by attacks upon the bourgeoisie; taking good care not to speak of revolution and finding more profit in intriguing with the old political parties to secure the election of their candidates, basing their action upon the adage: “Pass me the cinnamon and I will pass you the senna.”18
Another nullifying defect: universal suffrage is a means of stifling individual initiative which we proclaim, and which we should on the contrary seek to develop with all our might. Suffrage is an instrument of authority, and what we are after is the complete enfranchisement of human individuality; it is an instrument of repression, while we seek to inspire revolt. Far from being able to serve us, universal suffrage can but fetter us; we must fight it. Since we tell people not to deliver themselves up to masters, to act according to their own inspirations, not to submit to the repression which forces them to do what they think wrong, we cannot, under pain of being illogical, tell them to be plastic under the intrigues behind the scenes of an electoral committee, to choose men who are to be charged with making laws for them which all must obey, and into whose hands they must resign all will and initiative. Therein would lie a flagrant contradiction which would strike even the least clear-sighted; for this contradiction would break the weapon in our very hands, showing us to be what we really should be did we lower ourselves to such means: common fakirs.
Furthermore we are aware of the imperfections of human nature; in so choosing we should greatly risk falling in with the ambitious and intriguing, who, once in the midst of the bourgeois environment, would profit thereby to create for themselves situations and let the ideas go. As to those who were sincere we should only be sending them into an environment of rottenness where they could do nothing but declare their powerlessness and retire, or else yield to parliamentary customs and become bourgeois in their turn. Now, we, who seek to caution the masses against infatuation with persons; we, who seek to make them understand that they have nothing to expect from such persons, we should be doing finely to try to lift somebody to a pinnacle!
The treachery of persons could not fail to cast discredit upon the ideas. There would be many more of those who would say, “The Anarchists are no better than the rest,” than of those who would know enough to separate persons from ideas and not blame the weakness and unworthiness of the former upon the latter. After having lost much precious time and vainly exhausted our strength in winning triumphs for those individuals, we should again be compelled to lose more time not less precious to exhaust our forces, not less vainly, in order to prove these persons were traitors, but that their treason in nowise invalidated the justice of our avowed principles—and then begin over again by presenting other candidates! Go to! The comparison to the rotten apple which spoils a whole basket of sound apples is very trite, but it is always true; how much more so when it is a question of putting a healthy apple not indeed into a basket but into a dung-cart of rotten apples. We have, therefore, no service to expect from universal suffrage, not only because it can do nothing, but above all because it is contrary to the end in view, the principles which we defend.
Other opponents and some Anarchists as well claim that in time of revolution it will be necessary to have authority, not exactly of a chief—they do not go so far as that—but to recognize someone’s supremacy and to subordinate ourselves to his admitted superior skill. Strange anomaly! Remnant of the prejudices with which we have been imbued, atavistic return begotten of our education, which makes us, while proclaiming liberty with loud voices, recoil before its consequences and deny its efficacy, and leads us to demand authority in order to obtain—liberty! O inconsistency!
Is not the best means of becoming free to make use of liberty, acting up
