“History is there to tell us that those who have been a minority on the eve of the revolution, become the predominant force on the day of the revolution, if they truly express popular aspirations and if—the other essential condition—the revolution lasts long enough to allow the revolutionary idea to spread, to germinate and to bear its fruit. For we must not forget that it is not by a revolution lasting a couple of days that we shall come to transform society in the direction posed by anarchist communism. An uprising of short duration can overthrow a government to put another in its place […] but it changes nothing in the basic institutions of society.
“It is a whole insurrectionary period of three, four, perhaps five years that we must traverse to accomplish our revolution in the property system and in social organisation […]
“[…] The idea of anarchist communism, today represented by feeble minorities but increasingly finding popular expression, will make its way among the mass of the people. Spreading everywhere, the anarchist groups, however slight they may be, will take strength from the support they find among the people, and will raise the red flag of the revolution. And this kind of revolution, breaking out simultaneously in a thousand places, will prevent the establishment of any government that might hinder the unfolding of events, and the revolution will burn on until it has accomplished its mission: the abolition of individual property owning and of the State.
“On that day, what is now the minority will become the People, the great mass, and that mass rising up against property and the State, will march forward towards anarchist communism.”
—“Revolutionary Minorities,” Words of a Rebel