Translation by Paul Sharkey
In this article published in Le Révolté (February 1881), Kropotkin discusses labour movement and the importance of creating a fighting union organisation. In this, he is repeating the ideas of Bakunin and the libertarian wing of the First International.
No question about it: there is a reawakening of the spirit of revolution in Europe at present. People want more and want it more passionately than hitherto; they are more daring and more outspoken about their unhappiness. There is a greater cogency and boldness in everything that is being said, everything that is being done, in all of the demands articulated. Skirmishing is already under way. Besides, none who have pondered the runaway disintegration of States, the spreading disarray in industry, the increasing predicaments of governments in the governance of peoples grown less docile, the accumulation of discontent and the new ideas struggling to be born—none heedful of these symptoms could have any remaining doubts today but that a revolution in Europe is imminent.
The coincidence of these two factors, a revolutionary situation and the awakened spirit of revolution, thus leads us to the conviction that in a few years—no matter what may transpire—a time is coming when a European revolution, or indeed a series of national revolutions, will set Europe ablaze.
That said, the question naturally arises: what are we to do, what must we do in anticipation of those events?
History has a valuable lesson to teach us. She tells us that a revolution profits only those who have a clear conception of what they are out to achieve and who seek to make a reality of their own idea, without handing that task over to others; those who are working towards a goal of their own, heedless of whatever obstacles are placed in their path, and who do not allow themselves to be stopped, not by promises, nor by the fine words of interested people out to derail the movement.
So acted, for example, the peasants of 1789.
In January 1789, the Court finally made up its mind to summon the States-General and invited the French people to spell out its demands and its grievances. The peasants spelled out theirs: abolition of seigneurial rights and obligations of all sorts, reduced taxes and the restoration of the communal lands upon which the seigneurs had encroached. But when it was put to them: “Name your delegates and leave it to them to pursue your grievances,” they did not fall into the trap set for them.
Profiting from the general ferment and the disorganisation of power, they took it upon themselves to burn the chateaux, tear down the enclosures and force the seigneurs into abjuring their rights. They did not wait for the abolition of feudal dues to come from the deputies they had just appointed: long before the States-General was constituted as a National Assembly, they had already set about destroying the feudal system.
And later, when the frightened nobility voted seigneurial rights out of existence on the night of 4th August [1789]—they did not let themselves be lulled by such “patriotic” prattle. They continued to prosecute the war against the chateaux. It could be said that they foresaw that which shortly came to pass—that the Constituent [Assembly] would retreat from its decisions of 4th August and would look for ways and means of softening them and neutralising their implications. Trusting no one, not the Legislature nor the fine words of the Convention, they stuck at their work of destruction for four years, so much so that when in 1793 the Convention passed laws intended to deliver the coup de grace to feudal rights, it was merely sanctioning a fait accompli.
And serfdom was done away with forever.
On the other hand, what had the urban workers gained? Finding themselves in closer contact with the bourgeoisie, they allowed themselves to be duped by it. Failing to see that the bourgeoisie had its own objective—absolute freedom of industrial exploitation—that this was the opposite of their own objectives, and that it was only in order to achieve that purpose that the bourgeoisie was out to take power… and they placed their brawn and blood in the service of the very people who were about to become their worst exploiters. They ran to applaud fine orators’ speeches about liberty, equality and fraternity even as they were forging the shackles for the proletariat. They stormed Bastilles, chopped the heads off the aristos, marched to their deaths in battle, and grew drunk on words concerning political freedoms without so much as dreaming of making an economic revolution—and they woke from their dreams to find themselves more enslaved than ever.
Once free artisans, they had become the master’s serfs, and such they remain today.
Well, the closer we get to the supreme moment of the coming European conflagration, the more we wonder: do the working class, the worker in the fields and in the towns, “the factory negro and the helot of the fields,” have well-defined aspirations? Are they aware of the economic and social revolution that they will have to carry out lest they be trapped for another century in the same slavish circumstances, exploited by a handful of idlers? In the name of what will they be making the revolution?—If any such aspirations exist, if they have been formulated, will the workers not let themselves be diverted from their goal by that whole gang of people who will see the revolution as nothing but a means of hoisting themselves and their friends into the vacancy left by those whom the people will have driven out?—And if the workers’ aspirations are not quite definite enough yet, not quite widespread enough yet, what is being done to make them definite and to bring the watchword of the true revolution, the social revolution, to the darkest corners and into the most isolated villages?
As to aspirations, these already exist. If workers throw themselves into the revolutionary movement, it shall not be for the pleasure of a change of masters: it will be because they expect the revolution to deliver a new era of justice and equality; an era of guaranteed work for all; an era of adequately recompensed work in which human beings will be able to live as human beings should live and not like a wild beast in a hovel; an era of justice leading to the eradication of idlers and exploiters.
As to how this to be brought to pass, the thinking is, as yet, not quite clear. But let us not forget that there is one thing that is certain: that the worker does not share the prejudices that the bourgeois economists have striven to inculcate into him. Expropriation of the factory-owners—that prospect does not frighten urban workers at all; they know that they will lose nothing by it and can only gain from it. Nor is it going to scare the peasants; they know that they are not about to lose their plots of land, and they will not be looking askance at the expropriation of the capitalists in town and of the big landowners in the countryside; and the abolition of mortgages or taxes and the eradication of usurers are surely hardly likely to turn them into enemies of the revolution. The Commune’s direct take-over of the organisation of work and consumption does not scare workers either: from painful personal experience, they know only too well how things stand today when the organisation of industry is left to the individual whims of the exploiters. They know—especially given the propaganda that will be carried out between now and then—that, come the revolution, determined groups will set about doing away with large-scale individual property, banks, usury, and mortgages, and the urban or village workers are certainly not about to go on the warpath to defend them.
The bourgeoisie understands this wonderfully well. It knows very well that the notion of expropriation goes down well with the masses once it is spelled out frankly and bluntly: it knows that it will have a following; it foresees the consequences of this; and, feeling powerless to halt the spread of these ideas, it busies itself right here and right now with trying to derail the coming revolution. It is out to steer the spirit of revolution down a road where it will be reduced to impotence, down the road of political reforms.
It is out to do what it did in 1848. At that time, too, the masses’ dreams were of organised work. Back then, too, just like today, they [the bourgeoisie] proposed to take advantage of the revolution to try out social reforms, and they came up with just the trick. With a great show of economic expertise, the bourgeoisie’s emissaries turned up to tell the people: “But we, dear friends, are socialists and communists, just like you. We too want social revolution. The only thing is that we do not want to see you giving freely of your blood, which we prize so dearly, and getting nothing in return. Thorough study of the matter—something which is, sad to say, impossible for you to do—has taught us that an economic revolution would not be feasible unless a political revolution had first been carried through. So let us first overthrow the throne, let us proclaim the republic and establish universal suffrage. With that mighty snare—sorry, that mighty tool—universal suffrage, you will be able to introduce all the reforms you please: you will put your people in power, you will give them your mandates, and the revolution will be a done deal, and without a single drop of your precious blood being spilt.”
The June massacres, the December massacres, the shame of the Empire, the corpses of May, the penal colonies in New Caledonia and the vileness of the reign of [Napoléon III]—that was the price the French people has paid for heeding such advice from the enemies of the people.
So, are we going to follow such poisonous advice from the bourgeoisie again, a bourgeoisie, sad to say, aided and abetted today by all those workers who, out of ambition or personal sympathy or from some bourgeois turn of mind, or indeed lack of common sense, have let themselves be dragooned into the service of our enemies? Will we let the gathering revolution be derailed yet again? Are we going to abandon the terrain of the economic struggle, of the worker against the capitalist, in order to become compliant tools in the hands of the politicians? Are we yet again to leave the prey in order to chase after its shadow?
No. Enough tomfoolery, enough lies.
We have better things to do than be amused by the war of the paper ballots. We have much more important business to be about.
We have to organise the workers’ forces—not to make them into a fourth party in Parliament, but in order to make them a formidable MACHINE OF STRUGGLE AGAINST CAPITAL. We have to group workers of all trades under this single purpose: “War on capitalist exploitation!” And we must prosecute that war relentlessly, day by day, by the strike, by agitation, by every revolutionary means.
And once we have worked on such organisation over two or three years, once the workers of every land have seen that organisation at work, taking the workers’ interests into its hands, waging unrelenting war on capital, castigating the employer at every opportunity; once the workers from every trade, from village and city alike, are united into a single union,[113] inspired by an identical idea, that of destroying capital, and by an identical hatred, hatred of the exploiters—then, separation of bourgeoisie and worker being complete, we can be sure that it is on his own account that the worker will throw himself into the Revolution. Then, but only then, will he emerge from it victorious, having crushed the tyranny of Capital and State for good.
So let the bourgeois tear one another to pieces over parliamentary lists! Let us found our league, the Workers’ League, against exploiters of every description!
113[] Kropotkin uses the word “faisceau” which is the French for fasces which, in Italian, is fascio (literally “a bundle” of sticks or rods). Before its appropriation by Fascism, it was used by many Italian political groups (“leagues”) as a symbol of strength through unity (for while each rod was weak, as a bundle they were strong). In the late 19th century, it was used by many Italian labour unions and it is in this sense that Kropotkin is using it. (Editor)