You say that the demands of the workers are in a certain measure justified, as long as they do not assume a violent form; but have you reflected that they have been struggling for thousands of years; that these ever fruitless demands were born together with the historic period? Know, then, that if they do take violent form, it is because all satisfaction has been denied them. Must they remain upon their knees repeating, “Thank you,” when they have never obtained anything save by laying their masters low at their feet and taking the liberties they wanted? Our masters thinking they were addressing slaves might disdainfully say, “Couch your demands politely; we will then consider whether we ought to grant them.” But those who behold in the enfranchisement of the workers nothing but an act of justice and not a concession, will say, “We want” so-and-so. So much the worse for the dudes whom such language offends.
Everything is linked together in this system which is crushing us. To be animated with good intentions is not enough to obtain the result desired; no amelioration is possible save by the destruction of the system. It is established solely for exploitation and oppression. We do not want to modify exploitation and oppression but to destroy them. To this conclusion all who are capable of lifting themselves above the narrow standpoint of the circumstances in which they themselves are placed, must inevitably come—those who are capable of facing a question in its entirety and understanding that revolutions are not the creations of men alone, but of institutions which bar the path of progress, and that consequently they are necessary and inevitable. Let all those who sincerely desire to work for the future of humanity understand, once for all, that if they would succeed in realizing their particular ideals they must not traduce nor seek to fetter the Revolution; it alone can enable them to attain their goal by preventing parasitism from stifling progress or twisting it to the profit of vampires.
Reforms! Reforms! When will men discover that they have exhausted their best energies upon reforms without ever getting anything by it? The people are tired of struggling for utopias more futile than that of individual enfranchisement, since the only objection which can be raised against the latter is that it is unrealizable—a purely gratuitous assertion, seeing that it has never been tried, while the realization of any reform is sufficient to demonstrate its ineffectualness. The Anarchists are reproached with being a hindrance to the peaceful emancipation of the workers, with being opposed to reforms. Double mistake! The Anarchists are not at all opposed to reforms; it is not the reforms themselves which we fight, but the lies of those who would set them up as an ultimate goal for the workers, knowing as we do that where they are not lies such reforms are but plasters for social ulcers. Let those who believe in reforms work for their realization; we see nothing wrong in that. On the contrary the more the bourgeoisie try them the sooner the workers will see that in spite of continual changes they still retain the same old thing, The point where we rebel is when people offer these reforms to us as panaceas, and say to the workers: “Be very good, very mild, very calm, and we will see whether we can do anything for you!”—Then we who understand how illusory these reforms are, and that the exploiters are occupying a usurped position, we say: “Workers, they are making fools of you! Their promised reforms are only snares, and they want to make you beg for such things as alms into the bargain, while you really have the right to obtain much more. You are at liberty to try the means they offer you; but knowing beforehand that they can in no way contribute to your emancipation, do not tarry in the vicious circle into which they wish to drag you, but organize for the purpose of taking possession of what is your due. Leave the laggards to amuse themselves with such deceptions; the Revolution engendered by the evil social organization, is here, advancing, growing formidable, and compelling you, in spite of yourselves, to take up arms and make good your right to live. Once having taken them up, do not be simple enough to content yourselves with reforms which will leave the cause of your ills still in existence. Behold the trap that has fooled you, behold the ideal towards which you should strive! It rests with you not to lose time with sops and to know enough to help on the overthrow of this worm-eaten and everywhere cracking edifice which they still presume to call society. Do not stay it by stopping up the holes with these plasters they propose to you; make a clean sweep, that you may not be trammeled in the reconstruction of a better society.”
XX
The Experimental Method
But when, driven to the necessity of admitting the evil functioning of the social organization to which we are subjected, honest opponents of the Anarchistic idea confess that this organization needs to be transformed and allow that the means so far
