Sacco and Vanzetti threatened the whole structure of capitalism and government. Not those two poor proletarians as
individuals. No; rather what those two men represented — thespirit of conscious rebellion against existing conditions of exploitation and oppression.
It is that spirit which capital and government meant to kill in
the persons of those men. To kill that spirit and the movement
for labor’s emancipation by striking terror into the hearts of all
who might think and feel like Sacco and Vanzetti; to make an
example of those two men that would intimidate the workers
and keep them away from the proletarian movement.
This is the reason why neither the courts not the governmentof Massachusetts could be induced to give Sacco and Vanzetti
a new trial. There was danger of their being acquitted in theatmosphere of an aroused public sense of justice; there was
the fear that the plot to murder them would be exposed. That
is why the Justices of the Federal Supreme Court declined tohear the case, just as the judges of the Supreme Court of theState of Massachusetts refused a new trial in spite of important
new evidence. For that reason also the President of the UnitedStates did not intercede in the matter, though it was no lesshis moral than his legal duty to do so. His moral duty, in theinterests of justice; his legal obligation because as President hehad sworn to uphold the Constitution which guarantees every
one a fair trial, which Sacco and Vanzetti did not get.
President Coolidge had sufficient precedents for intercedingin behalf of justice, notably the example of Woodrow Wilson,
in the case of Mooney. But Coolidge had not the courage to doso, being entirely subservient to the Big Interests. No doubt thecase of Sacco and Vanzetti was also considered of even greater
importance and class significance than that of Mooney. At any
rate, both capital and government agreed in their resolve to
uphold the courts of Massachusetts at all cost and to sacrifice
Nicolo Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti.

76

What Is Communist
Anarchism?
Alexander Berkman

1929

degree. But can you name a single one of them ever executedin the United States? Will you even discover many of them inprison? Does not the law always find excuses of ‘mental excitation’, of ‘brain storm’, of ‘legal irresponsibility in cases of richmen convicted of crime?
But even if Sacco and Vanzetti had been ordinary criminals
sentenced to die, would not appeals from prominent men in all
walks of life, from charitable societies, and hundreds of thousands of friends and sympathizers have secured clemency forthem? Would not doubt of their guilt, expressed by the highest
legal authorities, have resulted in a new trial, a revision of theold testimony, and the consideration of new evidence in theirbehalf?
Why was all this refused to Sacco and Vanzetti? Why
did ‘law and order’, beginning with the local police andFederal detectives, up to the confessedly prejudiced trial judge,
all through the Supreme Court of the State, the Governor,
and ending with the Federal Supreme Court show such a
determination to send them to the electric chair?
Because Sacco and Vanzetti were dangerous to the interestsof capital. These men voiced the dissatisfaction of the workers
with their condition of servitude. They expressed consciously
what the workers mostly feel unconsciously. It is because they
were class-conscious men, Anarchists, that they were a greater
menace to the security of capitalism than if they had been awhole army of strikers not conscious of the real objects of theclass struggle. The masters know that when you strike you demand only higher pay or shorter hours of work. But the classconscious struggle of labor against capital is a far more serious
matter; it means the entire abolition of the wage system andthe freeing of labor from the domination of capital. You canreadily understand then why the masters saw a greater dangerin such men as Sacco and Vanzetti than in the biggest strike forthe mere improvement of conditions with in capitalism.

75hysteria. Such rank injustice could take place only in thosedays, you might say; it could hardly be repeated to-day.
Let us then shift the scene to our own day, to the very
heart of America, the proud seat of culture — to Boston,
Massachusetts.
It is sufficient to mention Boston to call up the picture oftwo proletarians, Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti, one apoor shoemaker, the other a fish peddler, whose names to-day
are known and honored in every civilized country the world
over.
Martyrs to humanity, if ever there were any; two men who
gave up their lives because of their devotion to mankind, because of their loyalty to the ideal of an emancipated and freed
working class. Two innocent men who bravely suffered tortureduring seven long years, and who died a terrible death with aserenity of spirit rarely equaled by the greatest martyrs of alltime.
The story of that judicial murder of two of the noblest of men,the crime of Massachusetts that will neither be forgotten nor
forgiven as long as the State exists, is too fresh in the memoryof every one to need recapitulation here.
But why did Sacco and Vanzetti have to die? This question isof utmost moment; it bears directly upon the matters at issue.
Do you think that if Sacco and Vanzetti had been just a pairof criminals, as the prosecution tried to make you believe, there
would have been such ruthless determination to execute themin the face of the appeals, pleadings, and protests of the entire
world?
Or if they had been plutocrats actually guilty of murder,
with no other issue involved, would they have been executed?
Would no appeal to the higher courts of the State have been
allowed, would the Federal Supreme Court have refused toconsider the case?
You have often heard of some rich fellow killing a man, or of
the sons of wealthy parents found guilty of murder in the first74

Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5
7

Chapter 1: What Do You Want Out Of Life?

10

Chapter 2: The Wage System

16

Chapter 3: Law and Government

21

Chapter 4: How the System Works

29

Chapter 5: Unemployment

38

Chapter 6: War?

43

Chapter 7: Church and School

54

Chapter 8: Justice58

Chapter 9: Can The Church Help You?

80

Chapter 10: Reformer and Politician

85

Chapter 11: The Trade Union

98

Chapter 12: Whose Is The Power?

111

Chapter 13: Socialism

118

Chapter 14: The February Revolution

136
3

Chapter 15: Between February and October

143

Chapter 16: The Bolsheviki

151

Chapter 17: Revolution and Dictatorship

163

Chapter 18: The Dictatorship at Work

169

Chapter 19: Is Anarchism Violence?

179

Chapter 20: What is Anarchism?

188

Chapter 21: Is Anarchy Possible?

192

Chapter 22: Will Communist Anarchism Work?

201

Chapter 23: Non-Communist Anarchists

217

Chapter 24: Why Revolution?

220

Chapter 25: The Idea is the Thing

226

Chapter 26: Preparation

234

Chapter 27: Organization of Labor for the Social
Revolution

249

Chapter 28: Principles and Practice269

Chapter 29: Consumption and Exchange

274

Chapter 30: Production

284

Chapter 31: Defense of the Revolution

294

4

Since then most of the State witnesses, having failed to receive the reward promised them, confessed to having perjured
themselves at the instigation of Charles M. Fickert, then District Attorney of San Francisco and known tool of the Chamber of Commerce. Draper Hand and R. W. Smith, police officials of the city, have both declared in sworn affidavits thatthe evidence against Mooney and Billings was manufactured
from beginning to end by the District Attorney and his bribed
witnesses from the lowest social dregs of the coast.
The Mooney-Billings case attracted national and even international attention. President Wilson felt induced to wire to theGovernor of California twice, asking for a revision of the case.
Mooney’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment,
but no effort has succeeded in securing him a new trial. The
money power of California was bent on keeping Mooney andBillings in the penitentiary. The Supreme Court of the State,obedient to the Chamber of Commerce, steadfastly refused, on
technical grounds, to review the trial testimony, the perjured
character of which had become a byword in California.
Since then all the surviving jurors have made statements
to the effect that if the true facts of the case had been known
to them during the trial, they would have never convicted
Mooney. Even Judge Fraser, who presided at the trial, has
asked for Mooney’s pardon, on similar grounds.
Yet both Tom Mooney and Warren Billings still remain in
the penitentiary. The Chamber of Commerce of California isdetermined to keep them there, and their power is supremewith the courts and the government.
Can you still speak of justice? Do you think justice to labor
possible under the reign of capitalism?
The judicial murder of the Chicago Anarchists took place
many years ago, in 1887. Considerable time has also elapsed
since the Mooney-Billings case, in 1916–1917. The latter, moreover, happened far away, on the Pacific Coast, at a time of war

73

police never made any serious effort to find the responsible
party or parties. Immediately following the tragic occurrenceThomas Mooney and his wife Rena were arrested, as well as
Warren Billings, Edward D. Nolan, member of the machinists’union, and I. Weinberg, of the jitney drivers’ union.
The trial of Billings and Mooney proved one of the worst
scandals in the history of American courts.
The State witnesses were self-confessed perjurers, bribed
and threatened by the police into giving false testimony. Evidence showing the entire innocence of Mooney and Billings
was ignored. Mooney was accused of having placed the infernal machine at the very time when he was in the company
of friends upon the roof of a house about a mile and a half
distant from the scene of the explosion. A photograph takenof the demonstration by a film company during the parade
clearly shows Mooney on the roof, and in the backgrounda street clock indicating the time as 2.02 p.m. The explosion
having taken place at 2.06 p.m., it would have been a physicalimpossibility for Mooney to have been at both places at almost
the same time.
But it was not a question of evidence, of guilt or innocence.
Tom Mooney was bitterly hated by the vested interests of San
Francisco. He had to be gotten out of the way. Mooney andBillings were convicted, the former being sentenced to death,the latter receiving a lifetime term.
The outrageous manner in which the trial was conducted,
the evident perjury of the State witnesses, and the clear handof the manufacturers back of the prosecution aroused the country. The matter ultimately was brought up before Congress. The
latter passed a resolution ordering the Labor Department to investigate the case. The report of Commissioner John B. Densmore, sent to San Francisco for this purpose, exposed the conspiracy to hang Mooney as one of the methods of the Chamberof Commerce to destroy organized labor in California.

72

Foreword
I consider anarchism the most rational and practical conception of a social life in freedom and harmony. I am convincedthat its realization is a certainty in the course of human development.
The time of that realization will depend on two factors: first,
on how soon existing conditions will grow spiritually and physically unbearable to considerable portions of mankind, particularly to the laboring classes; and, secondly, on the degree inwhich Anarchist views will become understood and accepted.
Our social institutions are founded on certain ideas; as longas the latter are generally believed, the institutions built onthem are safe. Government remains strong because people
think political authority and legal compulsion necessary.
Capitalism will continue as long as such an economic system
is considered adequate and just. The weakening of the ideas
which support the evil and oppressive present-day conditions
means the ultimate breakdown of government and capitalism.
Progress consists in abolishing what man has outlived andsubstituting in its place a more suitable environment.
It must be evident even to the casual observer that society
is undergoing a radical change in its fundamental conceptions.
The World War and the Russian Revolution are the main causesof it. The war has unmasked the vicious character of capitalist
competition and the murderous incompetency of governments
to settle quarrels among nations, or rather among the ruling financial cliques. It is because the people are losing faith in theold methods that the Great Powers are now compelled to discuss limitation of armaments and even the outlawing of war. It
is not so long ago that the very suggestion of such a possibility
met with utmost scorn and ridicule.
Similarly is breaking down the belief in other establishedinstitutions. Capitalism still ‘works’, but doubt about its expediency and justice is gnawing at the heart of ever-widening so5

cial circles. The Russian Revolution has broadcasted ideas andfeelings that are undermining capitalist society, particularly its
economic bases and the sanctity of private ownership of themeans of social existence. For not only in Russia did the October change take place: it has influenced the masses throughout
the world. The cherished superstition that what exists is permanent has been shaken beyond recovery.
The war, the Russian Revolution, and the post-war developments have combined also to disillusion vast numbers about
Socialism. It is literally true that, like Christianity, Socialism
has conquered the world by defeating itself. The Socialist parties now run or help to run most of the European governments,
but the people do not believe any more that they are different from other bourgeois régimes. They feel that Socialism has
failed and is bankrupt.
In like manner have the Bolsheviks proven that Marxian
dogma and Leninist principles can lead only to dictatorship andreaction.
To the Anarchists there is nothing surprising in all this. They
have always claimed that the State is destructive to individual
liberty and social harmony, and that only the abolition of coercive authority and material inequality can solve our political,
economic and national problems. But their arguments, though
based on the age-long experience of man, seemed mere theory to the present generation, until the events of the last two
decades have demonstrated in actual life the truth of the Anarchist position.
The breakdown of Socialism and of Bolshevism has cleared
the way for Anarchism.
There is considerable literature on Anarchism, but most of
its larger works were written before the World War. The experience of the recent past has been vital and has made certain revisions necessary in the Anarchist attitude and argumentation.
Though the basic propositions remain the same, some modifications of practical application are dictated by the facts of cur6

It was just this, and no other reason, that doomed them. The
Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, the money power ofCalifornia, could not tolerate the activities of two such energetic and militant men. Labor in San Francisco was becoming restive, strikes were taking place, and demands were being
voiced by the toilers for a greater share of the wealth they were
producing.
The industrial magnates of the coast declared war upon organized labor. They proclaimed the ‘open shop’ and their determination to break the unions. That was the preliminary step
towards placing the workers in a position of helplessness andthen reducing wages. Their hatred and persecution were directed first of all against the most active members of labor.
Tom Mooney had organized the street-car men of San Francisco, a crime for which the traction company could not forgive
him. Mooney together with Warren Billings and other workers
had also been active in a number of strikes. They were known
and admired for their devotion to the union cause. That wasenough for the employers and the San Francisco Chamber ofCommerce to try to get them out of the way. On several occasions they had been arrested on frame-up charges by agents ofthe traction and other corporations. But the cases against themwere of such flimsy nature that they had to be dismissed. The
Chamber of Commerce bided its opportunity to ‘get’ those twolabor men, as their agents openly threatened to do.
The opportunity came with the explosion during the Preparedness Parade in San Francisco, July 22, 1916. The labor
unions of the city had decided not to participate in the parade,because the latter was merely a show of strength by California
capital as against unionized labor which the Chamber of Commerce had set out to crush. The ‘open shop’ was its frankly
proclaimed policy, and it made no secret of its determined andbitter hostility to unions.
It has never been ascertained who placed the infernal machine which exploded during the parade, but the San Francisco
71the great number of them. They are dealt with in numerous
books and publications, to which I refer the reader for a nearer
acquaintance with the Golgotha of the American proletariat.
On a smaller scale the Chicago judicial murders are repeatedin every struggle of labor. It is sufficient to mention the strikesof the miners in the State of Colorado, with its fiendish Ludlow chapter, where the State militia deliberately shot into theworkers’ tents, setting the latter afire and causing the death of
a number of men, women and children; the murder of strikers in the hopfields of Wheatland, California, in the summer of1913; in Everett, Washington, in 1916; in Tulsa, Oklahoma; in
Virginia and in Kansas; in the copper mines of Montana, andin numerous other places throughout the country.
Nothing so arouses the hatred and vengeance of the masters
as the effort to enlighten their victims. This is as true to-day as
it was in the time of slavery and serfdom. We have seen how thechurch persecuted and martyred her critics and fought every
advance of science as a threat to her authority and influence.
Similarly has every despot always sought to stifle the voice ofprotest and rebellion. In the same spirit capital and government
to-day furiously fall upon and tear to pieces every one whodares shake the foundations of their power and interests.
Take two recent cases as instances of this never-changing
attitude of authority and ownership: the Mooney-Billings caseand that of Sacco and Vanzetti. One took place in the East, theother in the West, the two separated by a decade and the wholewidth of the continent. Yet they were exactly alike, proving that
there is neither East nor West, nor any difference of time orplace in the masters’ treatment of their slaves.
Mooney and Billings are in prison in California for life.
Why? If I were to answer in just a few words, I should say,with perfect truth and completeness: because they were intelligent union men who tried to enlighten their fellow-employees
and improve their condition.

70

rent history. The lessons of the Russian Revolution in particular
call for a new approach to various important problems, chief
among them the character and activities of the social revolution.
Furthermore, Anarchist books, with few exceptions, are notaccessible to the understanding of the average reader. It is thecommon failing of most works dealing with social questions
that they are written on the assumption that the reader is already familiar to a considerable extent with the subject, whichis generally not the case at all. As a result there are very few
books treating of social problems in a sufficiently simple andintelligible manner.
For the above reason I consider a restatement of the Anarchist position very much needed at this time — a restatementin the plainest and clearest terms which can be understood byevery one. That is, an ABC of Anarchism.
With that object in view the following pages have been written.
Paris, 1928.

Introduction
I want to tell you about Anarchism.
I want to tell you what Anarchism is, because I think it iswell you should know it. Also because so little is known about
it, and what is known is generally hearsay and mostly false.
I want to tell you about it, because I believe that Anarchismis the finest and biggest thing man has ever thought of; the only
thing that can give you liberty and well-being, and bring peaceand joy to the world.
I want to tell you about it in such plain and simple languagethat there will be no misunderstanding it. Big words and highsounding phrases serve only to confuse. Straight thinking
means plain speaking.
7

But before I tell you what Anarchism is, I want to tell you
what it is not.
That is necessary because so much falsehood has been
spread about Anarchism. Even intelligent persons often haveentirely wrong notions about it. Some people talk about
Anarchism without knowing a thing about it. And some lie
about Anarchism, because they don’t want you to know thetruth about it.
Anarchism has many enemies; they won’t tell you the truth
about it. Why Anarchism has enemies and who they are, youwill see later, in the course of this story. Just now I can tell youthat neither your political boss nor your employer, neither thecapitalist nor the policeman will speak to you honestly about
Anarchism. Most of them know nothing about it, and all ofthem hate it. Their newspapers and publications — the capitalistic press — are also against it.
Even most Socialists and Bolsheviks misrepresent Anarchism. True, the majority of them don’t know any better. But
those who do know better also often lie about Anarchism andspeak of it as ‘disorder and chaos’. You can see for yourself how
dishonest they are in this: the greatest teachers of Socialism —Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels — had taught that Anarchism
would come from Socialism. They said that we must first haveSocialism, but that after Socialism there will be Anarchism,
and that it would be a freer and more beautiful condition ofsociety to live in than Socialism. Yet the Socialists, who swear
by Marx and Engels, insist on calling Anarchism ‘chaos anddisorder’, which shows you how ignorant or dishonest theyare.
The Bolsheviki do the same, although their greatest teacher,
Lenin, had said that Anarchism would follow Bolshevism, andthat then it will be better and freer to live.
Therefore I must tell you, first of all, what Anarchism is not.
It is not bombs, disorder, or chaos.
It is not robbery and murder.
8

ican stock, whose forebears had fought in the American Revolution. Associated with him in the agitation for the shorter
workday were August Spies, Adolf Fischer, George Engel, andLouis Lingg. The money interests of Chicago and of the Stateof Illinois determined to ‘get’ them. Their object was to punish
and terrorize labor by murdering their most devoted leaders.
The trial of those men was the most hellish conspiracy of capital against labor in the history of America. Perjured evidence,
bribed jurymen, and police revenge combined to bring about
their doom.
Parsons, Spies, Fischer, Engel, and Lingg were condemnedto death, Lingg committing suicide in jail; Samuel Fielden andMichael Schwab were sentenced to prison for life, while Oscar Neebe received 15 years. No greater travesty of justice wasever staged than the trial of these men known as the Chicago
Anarchists.
What a legal outrage the verdict was you can judge fromthe action of John P. Altgeld, later Governor of Illinois, who
carefully reviewed the trial proceedings and declared that theexecuted and imprisoned men had been victims of a plot of the
manufacturers, the courts, and the police. He could not undo
the judicial murders, but most courageously he liberated thestill imprisoned Anarchists, stating that he was merely making
good, so far as was in his power, the terrible crime that had
been committed against them.
The vengeance of the exploiters went so far that they punished Altgeld for his brave stand by eliminating him from thepolitical life of America.
The Haymarket tragedy, as the case is known, is a striking
illustration of the kind of ‘justice’ labor may expect from themasters. It is a demonstration of its class character and of themeans to which capital and government will resort to crush
the workers.
The history of the American labor movement is replete withsuch examples. It is not within the scope of this book to review
69place the police and Pinkertons deliberately shot a volley into
the assembled workers, killing four and wounding a score ofothers.
To protest against the outrage a meeting was called at Haymarket Square on the 4th of May, 1886.
It was an orderly gathering, such as were daily taking placein Chicago at the time. The Mayor of the city, Carter Harrison, was present; he listened to several speeches and then —according to his own sworn testimony later on in court — he returned to police headquarters to inform the Chief of Police thatthe meeting was all right. It was growing late — about ten in
the evening, heavy clouds overcast the sky; it looked like rain.
The audience began to disperse till only about two hundred
were left. Then suddenly a detachment of a hundred policemen
rushed upon the scene, commanded by Police Inspector Bonfield. They halted at the speakers’ wagon, from which SamuelFielden was addressing the remnant of the audience. The Inspector ordered the meeting to disperse. Fielden replied: ‘This
is a peaceful assembly.’ Without further warning the policethrew themselves upon the people, mercilessly clubbing andbeating men and women. At that moment something whizzed
through the air. There was an explosion, as of a bomb. Seven
policemen were killed and about sixty wounded.
It was never ascertained who threw the bomb, and even tothis day the identity of the man has not been established.
There had been so much brutality by the police and Pinkertons against the strikers that it was not surprising that someone should express his protest by such an act. Who was he?
The industrial masters of Chicago were not interested in thisdetail. They were determined to crush rebellious labor, to down
the eight-hour movement, and to stifle the voice of the spokesmen of the workers. They openly declared their determination
to ‘teach the men a lesson’.
Among the most active and intelligent leaders of the labor
movement at the time was Albert Parsons, a man of old Amer68

It is not a war of each against all.
It is not a return to barbarism or to the wild state of man.
Anarchism is the very opposite of all that.
Anarchism means that you should be free; that no one
should enslave you, boss you, rob you, or impose upon you.
It means that you should be free to do the things you want
to do; and that you should not be compelled to do what you
don’t want to do.
It means that you should have a chance to choose the kind ofa life you want to live, and live it without anybody interfering.
It means that the next fellow should have the same freedom
as you, that every one should have the same rights and liberties.
It means that all men are brothers, and that they should live
like brothers, in peace and harmony.
That is to say, that there should be no war, no violence
used by one set of men against another, no monopoly andno poverty, no oppression, no taking advantage of yourfellow-man.
In short, Anarchism means a condition or society where allmen and women are free, and where all enjoy equally the benefits of an ordered and sensible life.
‘Can that be?’ you ask; ‘and how?’‘Not before we all become angels,’ your friend remarks.
Well, let us talk it over. Maybe I can show you that we can bedecent and live as decent folks even without growing wings.

9Chapter 1: What Do You
Want Out Of Life?
What is it that every one wants most in life? What do you
want most?
After all, we are all the same under our skins. Whoever you
be — man or woman, rich or poor, aristocrat or tramp, white,yellow, red or black, of whatever land, nationality, or religion— we are all alike in feeling cold and hunger, love and hate; we
all fear disaster and disease, and try to keep away from harmand death.
What you most want out of life, what you fear most, that
also is true, in the main, of your neighbor.
Learned men have written big books, many of them, on sociology, psychology, and many other ‘ologies’, to tell you what
you want, but no two of those books ever agree. And yet I thinkthat you know very well without them what you want.
They have studied and written and speculated so much about
this, for them so difficult a question, that you, the individual,
have become entirely lost in their philosophies. And they haveat last come to the conclusion that you, my friend, don’t countat all. What’s important, they say, is not you, but ‘the whole’, all
the people together. This ‘whole’ they call ‘society’, ‘the commonwealth’, or ‘the State’, and the wiseacres have actually decided that it makes no difference if you, the individual, are miserable so long as ‘society’ is all right. Somehow they forget to
explain how ‘society’ or ‘the whole’ can be all right if the single
members of it are wretched.

10

and probably you remember with what bitterness and determination the employers opposed that effort of labor. In some industries in America and in most European countries the struggle is still going on. In the United States it began in 1886, andit was fought by the bosses with the greatest brutality in orderto drive their workers back to the factories under the old conditions. They resorted to lockouts, throwing thousands out ofwork, to violence by hired thugs and Pinkertons upon labor assemblies and their active members, to the demolition of union
headquarters and meeting places.
Where was ‘law and order’? What side of the struggle was
the government on? What did the courts and the judges do?
Where was justice?
The local, State, and Federal authorities used all the machinery and power at their command to aid the employers. They did
not even shrink from murder. The most active and able leadersof the movement had to pay with their lives for the attempt of
the workers to reduce their hours of toil.
Many books have been written on that struggle, so that it isunnecessary for me to go into details. But a brief summary of
those events will refresh the reader’s memory.
The movement for the eight-hour workday started in
Chicago, on May 1, 1886, gradually spreading throughout thecountry. Its beginning was marked by strikes declared in mostof the large industrial centers. Twenty-five thousand workers
laid down their tools in Chicago on the first day of the strike,and within two days their number was doubled. By the 4th of
May almost all unionized labor in the city was on strike.
The armed fist of the law immediately hastened to the aid of
the employers. The capitalist press raved against the strikers
and called for the use of lead against them. There followed immediately assaults by police upon the strikers’ meetings. The
most vicious attack took place at the McCormick works, where
the conditions of employment were so unbearable that the men
were compelled to go on strike already in February. At this67

nor independence. To add insult to injury, they have given you
a Thanksgiving Day, that you may offer up pious thanks forwhat you have not!
So great is the assurance of your masters in your stupiditythat they dare do such things. They feel safe in having duped
you so thoroughly and reduced your naturally rebellious spirit
to such abject worship of ‘law and order’ that you will never
dream of opening your eyes and letting your heart cry out inoutraged protest and defiance.
At the least sign of your rebellion the entire weight of thegovernment, of law and order, comes down upon your head, beginning with the policeman’s club, the jail, the prison, and ending with the gallows or the electric chair. The whole system ofcapitalism and government is mobilized to crush every symptom of dissatisfaction and rebellion; aye, even any attempt toimprove your condition as a workingman. Because your masters well understand the situation and fully know the dangerof your waking up to the actual facts of the case, to your realcondition of slave. They are aware of their interests, of the interests of their class. They are class conscious, while the workers
remain muddled and befuddled.
The industrial lords know that it is good for them to keep
you unorganized and disorganized, or to break up your unions
when they get strong and militant. By hook and crook they
oppose your every advance as a class-conscious worker. Every movement for the improvement of labor’s condition theyhate and fight tooth and nail. They’ll spend millions on thekind of education and propaganda that serves the continuation of their rule rather than on improving your conditions as
a worker. They will spare neither expense nor energy to stifle
any thought or idea that may reduce their profits or threaten
their mastery over you.
It is for this reason that they try to crush every aspirationof labor for better conditions. Consider, for instance, the movement for the eight-hour day. It is comparatively recent history,
66

So they go on spinning their philosophic webs and producing thick volumes to find out where you really enter in thescheme of things called life, and what you really want.
But you yourself know very well what you want, and so does
your neighbor.
You want to be well and healthy; you want to be free, to serveno master, to crawl and humiliate yourself before no man; youwant to have well-being for yourself, your family, and thosenear and dear to you. And not to be harassed and worried by
the fear of to-morrow.
You may feel sure that every one else wants the same. So thewhole matter seems to stand this way:
You want health, liberty, and well-being. Every one is likeyourself in this respect.
Therefore we all seek the same thing in life.
Then why should we not all seek it together, by joint effort,
helping each other in it?
Why should we cheat and rob, kill and murder each other, if
we all seek the same thing? Aren’t you entitled to the things
you want as well as the next man?
Or is it that we can secure our health, liberty, and well-being
better by fighting and slaughtering each other?
Or because there is no other way?
Let us look into this.
Does it not stand to reason that if we all want the same thingin life, if we have the same aim, then our interests must also be
the same? In that case we should live like brothers, in peaceand friendship; we should be good to each other, and help eachother all we can.
But you know that it is not at all that way in life. You knowthat we do not live like brothers. You know that the world isfull of strife and war, of misery, injustice, and wrong, of crime,
poverty, and oppression.
Why is it that way then?

11

It is because, though we all have the same aim in life, ourinterests are different. It is this that makes all the trouble in theworld.
Just think it over yourself.
Suppose you want to get a pair of shoes or a hat. You go into
the store and you try to buy what you need as reasonably andcheaply as you can. That is your interest. But the store-keeper’s
interest is to sell it to you as dearly as he can, because then his
profit will be greater. That is because everything in the life welive is built on making a profit, one way or another. We live ina system of profit-making.
Now, it is plain that if we have to make profits out of eachother, then our interests cannot be the same. They must be different and often even opposed to each other.
In every country you will find people who live by making a
profit out of others. Those who make the biggest profits are rich.
Those who cannot make profits are poor. The only people who
cannot make any profits are the workers. You can therefore
understand that the interests of the workers cannot be the sameas the interests of the other people. That is why you will find inevery country several classes of people with entirely different
interests.
Everywhere you will find:
1. a comparatively small class of persons who make big
profits and who are very rich, such as bankers, great
manufacturers and land owners — people who havemuch capital and who are therefore called capitalists.
These belong to the capitalistic class;
2. a class of more or less well-to-do people, consisting ofbusiness men and their agents, real estate men, speculators, and professional men, such as doctors, lawyers,
inventors, and so on. This is the middle class or the bourgeoisie.
12

see that it is a bitter fight, a struggle of opposed interests, a warof two classes? Can you expect justice in war?
Truly the capitalistic class knows that it is war, and it uses
every means at its command to defeat labor. But the workers
unfortunately do not see the situation as clearly as their masters, and so they still foolishly twaddle about ‘justice’, ‘equality
before the law’, and ‘liberty’.
It is useful to the capitalist class that the workers should believe in such fairy tales. It guarantees the continuation of therule of the masters. Therefore they use every effort to keep
up this belief. The capitalistic press, the politician, the public
speaker, never miss an opportunity to impress it upon you that
law means justice, that all are equal before the law, and that every one enjoys liberty and has the same opportunity in life as
the next fellow. The whole machinery of law and order, of capitalism and government, our entire civilization is based uponthis gigantic lie, and the constant propaganda of it by school,church, and press is for the sole purpose of keeping conditions
as they are, of sustaining and protecting the ‘sacred institutions’ of your wage slavery and keeping you obedient to law
and authority.
By every method they seek to instill this lie of ‘justice’, ‘liberty’, and ‘equality’ in the masses, for full well they know that
their whole power and mastery rest on this faith. On every appropriate and inappropriate occasion they feed you this buncombe; they have even created special days to impress the lesson more emphatically upon you. Their spellbinders fill you
full of this stuff on the Fourth of July, and you are permitted
to shoot your misery and dissatisfaction off in firecrackers andforget your wage slavery in the big noise and hullabaloo. Whatan insult to the glorious memory of that great event, the American Revolutionary War, which abolished the tyranny of George
III and made the American Colonies an independent republic!
Now the anniversary of that event is used to mask your servitude in the country where the workers have neither freedom65is divided into different classes with differing interests. So longas that is the case, justice must be one-sided, class justice; thatis, injustice in favor of one class as against the other.
You can see it still more clearly illustrated in cases involving
definite class issues, cases of the class struggle.
Take, for instance, a strike of workers against a corporation
or a rich employer. On what side will you find the judges, thecourts? Whose interests will the law and government protect?
The workers are striking for better conditions of living; they
have wives and children at home for whom they are trying to
get a little bigger share of the wealth they are creating. Does
the law and government help them in this worthy aim?
What actually happens? Every branch of government comesto the aid of capital as against labor. The courts will issue an injunction against the strikers, they will forbid picketing or makeit ineffectual by not permitting the strikers to persuade outsiders not to take the bread out of their mouths, the police willbeat up and arrest the pickets, the judges will impose fines onthem and railroad them to jail. The whole machinery of thegovernment will be at the service of the capitalists to break the
strike, to smash the union, if possible, and reduce the workers to submission. Sometimes the Governor of the State will
even call out the militia, the President will order out the regular troops — all in support of capital against labor.
Meanwhile the trust or corporation where the strike is taking place will order their employees to vacate the company
houses, will throw them and their families out in the cold, andwill fill their places in the mill, mine, or factory with strikebreakers, under the protection and with the aid of the police,
the courts, and the government, all of whom are supported byyour labor and taxes.
Can you speak of justice under such circumstances? Can you
be so naïve as to believe that justice is possible in the struggleof the poor against the rich, of labor against capital? Can’t you

64

3. great numbers of workingmen employed in various industries — in mills and mines, in factories and shops, intransport and on the land. This is the working class, also
called the proletariat.
The bourgeoisie and the capitalists really belong to the same
capitalistic class, because they have about the same interests,
and therefore the people of the bourgeoisie also generally sidewith the capitalist class as against the working class.
You will find that the working class is always the poorestclass, in every country. Maybe you yourself belong to the workers, to the proletariat. Then you know that your wages will
never make you rich.
Why are the workers the poorest class? Surely they labor
more than the other classes, and harder. Is it because the workers are not very important in the life of society? Perhaps we
can even do without them?
Let us see. What do we need to live? We need food, clothing,and shelter; schools for our children; street cars and trains fortravel, and a thousand and one other things.
Can you look about you and point out a single thing thatwas made without labor? Why, the shoes you stand in, and thestreets you walk on, are the result of labor. Without labor there
would be nothing but the bare earth, and human life would beentirely impossible.
So it means that labor has created everything we have — all
the wealth of the world. It is all the product of labor applied tothe earth and its natural resources.
But if all the wealth is the product of labor, then why does
it not belong to labor? That is, to those who have worked
with their hands or with their heads to create it — the manual
worker and the brain worker.
Everybody agrees that a person has a right to own the thingthat he himself has made.

13

But no one person has made or can make anything all byhimself. It takes many men, of different trades and professions,to create something. The carpenter, for instance, cannot makea simple chair or bench all by himself; not even if he should cut
down a tree and prepare the lumber himself. He needs a saw
and a hammer, nails and tools, which he cannot make himself.
And even if he should make these himself, he would first haveto have the raw materials — steel and iron — which other men
would have to supply.
Or take another example — let us say a civil engineer. He
could do nothing without paper and pencil and measuring
tools, and these things other people have to make for him. Not
to mention that first he has to learn his profession and spend
many years in study, while others enable him to live in themeantime. This applies to every human being in the world
to-day.
You can see then that no person can by his own efforts alone
make the things he needs to exist. In early times the primitive
man who lived in a cave could hammer a hatchet out of stone or
make himself a bow and arrow, and live by that. But those days
are gone. To-day no man can live by his own work: he mustbe helped by the labor of others. Therefore all that we have,
all wealth, is the product of the labor of many people, even ofmany generations. That is to say: all labor and the products oflabor are social, made by society as a whole.
But if all the wealth we have is social, then it stands to reason
that it should belong to society, to the people as a whole. How
does it happen, then, that the wealth of the world is owned
by some individuals and not by the people? Why does it notbelong to those who have toiled to create it — the masses who
work with hand or brain, the working class as a whole?
You know very well that it is the capitalistic class whichowns the greatest part of the world’s wealth. Must we therefore not conclude that the working people have lost the wealththey created, or that somehow it was taken away from them?
14

decide justly, since a verdict in favour of one or other of thelitigants in no way affects the position, feelings, or interests of
the judge.
But suppose the case before him is that of a workingman inlitigation with his landlord or with his employer. In such circumstances the entire character and personality of the judge
will affect his decision. Not that the latter will necessarily beunjust. That is not the point I am trying to make. What I wantto call your attention to is that, in the given case, the attitudeof the judge cannot and will not be impartial. His sentiments
toward workingmen, his personal opinion of landlords or employers, and his social views will influence his judgment, sometimes even unconsciously to himself. His verdict may or may
not be just; in any case it will not be based exclusively on theevidence. It will be affected by his personal, subjective feelings
and by his views regarding labor and capital. His attitude will
generally be that of his circle of friends and acquaintances, of
his social group, and his opinions in the matter will correspondwith the interests of that group. He may even himself be a landlord or have stock in a corporation which employs labor. Consciously or unconsciously his view of the evidence given at thetrial will be colored by his own feelings and prejudices, and his
verdict will be a result of that.
Besides, the appearance of the two litigants, their manner ofspeech and behavior, and particularly their respective ability
to employ clever counsel, will have a very considerable influence on the impressions of the judge and consequently on his
decision.
It is therefore clear that in such cases the verdict will depend
more on the mentality and class-consciousness of the particular judge than on the merits of the case.
This experience is so general that the popular voice has expressed it in the sentiment that ‘the poor man can’t get justiceagainst the rich.’ There may be exceptions now and then, but
generally it is true and can’t be otherwise as long as society63

It is said that ‘justice is blind.’ By that is meant that it recognizes no distinction of station, of influence, of race, creed, or
color.
This proposition needs only to be stated to be seen as thoroughly false. For justice is administered by human beings, byjudges and juries, and every human being has his particularinterests, not to speak of his personal sentiments, opinions,likes, dislikes, and prejudices, from which he can’t get away
by merely putting on a judge’s gown and sitting on the bench.
The judge’s attitude to things — like every one else’s — will be
determined, consciously and unconsciously, by his education
and bringing up, by the environment in which he lives, by his
feelings and opinions, and particularly by his interests and theinterests of the social group to which he belongs.
Considering the above, you must realize that the alleged impartiality of the courts of justice is in truth a psychological impossibility. There is no such thing, and cannot be. At best thejudge can be relatively impartial in cases in which neither his
sentiments nor his interests — as an individual or member ofa certain social group — are in any way concerned. In suchcases you might get justice. But these are usually of small importance, and they play a very insignificant rôle in the generaladministration of justice.
Let us take an example. Suppose two business men are disputing over the possession of a certain piece of property, thematter involving no political or social considerations of any
kind. In such a case the judge, having no personal feeling orinterest in the matter, may decide the case on its merits. Even
then his attitude will to a considerable extent depend on his
state of health and his digestion, on the mood in which he left
home, on a probable quarrel with his spouse, and other seemingly unimportant and irrelevant yet very decisive human factors.
Or suppose that two workingmen are in litigation over theownership of a chicken coop. The judge may in such a case
62

They did not lose it, for they never owned it. Then it must bethat it was taken away from them.
This is beginning to look serious. Because if you say that thewealth they created has been taken away from the people who
created it, then it means that it has been stolen from them, thatthey have been robbed, for surely no one has ever willinglyconsented to have his wealth taken away from him.
It is a terrible charge, but it is true. The wealth the workers have created, as a class, has indeed been stolen from them.
And they are being robbed in the same way every day of theirlives, even at this very moment. That is why one of the greatest thinkers, the French philosopher Proudhon, said that thepossessions of the rich are stolen property.
You can readily understand how important it is that every
honest man should know about this. And you may be sure that
if the workers knew about it, they would not stand for it.
Let us see then how they are robbed and by whom.

15Chapter 2: The Wage System
Did you ever stop to ask yourself this question: why were
you born from your parents and not from some others?
You understand, of course, what I am driving at. I mean thatyour consent was not asked. You were simply born; you did nothave a chance to select the place of your birth or to choose yourparents. It was just chance.
So it happened that you were not born rich. Maybe your people are of the middle class; more likely, though, they belong to
the workers, and so you are one of those millions, the masses,
who have to work for a living.
The man who has money can put it into some business orindustry. He invests it and lives on the profits. But you have nomoney. You have only your ability to work, your labor power.
There was a time when every workingman worked for himself. There were no factories then and no big industries. The
laborer had his own tools and his own little workshop, and heeven bought himself the raw materials he needed. He worked
for himself, and he was called an artisan or craftsman.
Then came the factory and the large workshop. Little by little they crowded out the independent workman, the artisan,because he could not make things as cheaply as the factory —he could not compete with the big manufacturer. So the artisan had to give up his little workshop and go to the factory towork.
In the factories and large plants things are produced on a
big scale. Such big-scale production is called industrialism. It
has made the employers and manufacturers very rich, so thatthe lords of industry and commerce have accumulated much
16

Now, then, can you expect your boss to feel and act against
his interests? Can you expect the capitalist to be guided by theinterests of his employees? Can you expect the mine owner torun his business in the interests of the miners?
We have seen that the interests of the employer and employee are different; so different that they are opposed to eachother.
Can there be justice between them? Justice means that eachgets his due. Can the worker get his due or have justice in capitalist society?
If he did, capitalism could not exist: because then your employer could not make any profits out of your work. If theworker would get his due — that is, the things he producesor their equivalent — where would the profits of the capitalist
come from? If labor owned the wealth it produces, there would
be no capitalism.
It means that the worker cannot get what he produces, cannot get what is due to him, and therefore cannot get justiceunder wage slavery.
‘If that is the case,’ you remark, ‘he can appeal to the law, tothe courts.’
What are the courts? What purpose do they serve? They exist to uphold the law. If someone has stolen your overcoat andyou can prove it, the courts would decide in your favor. If theaccused is rich or has a clever lawyer, the chances are that theverdict will be to the effect that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, or that it was an act of aberration, and the man
will most likely go free.
But if you accuse your employer of robbing you of thegreater part of your labor, of exploiting you for his personal
benefit and profit, can you get your due in the courts? The
judge will dismiss the case, because it is not against the law
for your boss to make profits out of your work. There is no
law to forbid it. You will get no justice that way.

61

Even in this simple instance you can observe the effect of authority: its effect on the one who possesses it and on those overwhom it is exercised. Authority tends to make its possessor unjust and arbitrary; it also makes those subject to it acquiesce inwrong, subservient, and servile. Authority corrupts its holder
and debases its victims.
If this is true of the simplest relations of existence, how much
more so in the larger field of our industrial, political, and sociallife?
We have seen how your economic dependence upon yourboss will affect your actions. Similarly it will influence others
who are dependent upon him and his good will. Their interests
will thus control their actions, even if they are not clearly awareof it.
And the boss? Will he also not be influenced by his interests?
Will not his sympathies, his attitude and behavior be the resultof his particular interests?
The fact is, every one is controlled, in the main, by his interests. Our feelings, our thoughts, our actions, our whole life isshaped, consciously and unconsciously, by our interests.
I am speaking of ordinary human nature, of the average man.
Here and there you will find cases that seem to be exceptions.
A great idea or an ideal, for example, may take such hold of aperson that he will entirely devote himself to it and sometimes
even sacrifice his life for it. In such an instance it might look
as if the man acted against his interests. But that is a mistake— it only seems so. For in reality the idea or ideal for which theman lived or even gave his life, was his chief interest. The only
difference is that the idealist finds his main interest in living
for some idea, while the strongest interest of the average man
is to get on in the world and live comfortably and peacefully.
But both are controlled by their dominant interests.
The interests of men differ, but we are all alike in that eachof us feels, thinks, and acts according to his particular interests,
his conception of them.
60

money, much capital. Therefore that system is called capitalism.
We all live to-day in the capitalist system.
In the capitalist system the workingman cannot work forhimself, as in the old days. He cannot compete with the big
manufacturers. So, if you are a workman, you must find an employer. You work for him; that is, you give him your labor forso and so many hours a day or week, and he pays you for it.
You sell him your labor power and he pays you wages.
In the capitalist system the whole working class sells its labor power to the employing class. The workers build factories,
make machinery and tools, and produce goods. The employers
keep the factories, the machinery, tools and goods for themselves as their profit. The workers get only wages.
This arrangement is called the wage system.
Learned men have figured out that the worker receives as his
wage only about one-tenth of what he produces. The other ninetenths are divided among the landlord, the manufacturer, therailroad company, the wholesaler, the jobber, and other middlemen.
It means this:Though the workers, as a class, have built the factories, aslice of their daily labor is taken from them for the privilege ofusing those factories. That’s the landlord’s profit.
Though the workers have made the tools and the machinery, another slice of their daily labor is taken from them forthe privilege of using those tools and machinery. That’s the
manufacturer’s profit.
Though the workers built the railroads and are runningthem, another slice of their daily labor is taken from themfor the transportation of the goods they make. That’s therailroad’s profit.
And so on, including the banker who lends the manufacturer
other people’s money, the wholesaler, the jobber, and othermiddlemen, all of whom get their slice of the worker’s toil.

17

What is left then — one-tenth of the real worth of theworker’s labor — is his share, his wage.
Can you guess now why the wise Proudhon said that the possessions of the rich are stolen property? Stolen from the producer,
the worker.
It seems strange, doesn’t it, that such a thing should be permitted?
Yes, indeed, it is very strange; and the strangest thing of allis that the whole world looks on and doesn’t do a thing about it.
Worse yet, the workers themselves don’t do anything about it.
Why, most of them think that everything is all right, and thatthe capitalist system is good.
It is because the workers don’t see what is happening tothem. They don’t understand that they are being robbed. The
rest of the world also understands very little about it, and whensome honest man tries to tell them, they shout ‘anarchist!’ athim, and they shut him up or put him in prison.
Of course, the capitalists are very much satisfied with thecapitalist system. Why shouldn’t they be? They get rich by it.
So you can’t expect them to say it’s no good.
The middle classes are the helpers of the capitalists and theyalso live off the labor of the working class, so why should theyobject? Of course, here and there you will find some man or
woman of the middle class stand up and speak the truth about
the whole matter. But such persons are quickly silenced andcried down as “enemies of the people”, as crazy disturbers andanarchists.
But you would think that the workers should be the first to
object to the capitalist system, for it is they who are robbed andwho suffer most from it.
Yes, so it should be. But it isn’t so, which is very sad.
The workers know that the shoe pinches somewhere. They
know that they toil hard all their lives and that they get justenough to exist on, and sometimes not even enough. They seethat their employers can ride about in fine automobiles and live
18

Not justice, but possession.
Broaden this example to cover your own life, and you willfind that justice and equality are only cheap talk, lies which you
are taught, while money and power are the real thing, realities.
Yet there is a deep-seated sense of justice in mankind, andyour better nature always resents it when you see injusticedone to any one. You feel outraged and you become indignant
over it: because we all have an instinctive sympathy with our
fellow-man, for by nature and habit we are social beings. But
when your interests or safety are involved, you act differently;
you even feel differently.
Suppose you see your brother do wrong to a stranger. You
will call his attention to it, you will chide him for it.
When you see your boss do an injustice to some fellow
worker, you also resent it and you feel like protesting. But you
will most probably refrain from expressing your sentiments
because you might lose your job or get in bad with your boss.
Your interests suppress the better urge of your nature. Yourdependence upon the boss and his economic power over you
influence your behavior.
Suppose you see John beat and kick Bill when the latter ison the ground. Both may be strangers to you, but if you are notafraid of John, you’ll tell him to stop kicking a fellow who is
down.
But when you see the policeman do the same thing to somecitizen you will think twice before interfering, because hemight beat you up too and arrest you to boot. He has theauthority.
John, who has no authority and who knows that some one
might interfere when he is acting unjustly, will — as a rule —be careful what he is about.
The policeman, who is vested with some authority and who
knows there is little chance of any one interfering with him,
will be more likely to act unjustly.

59

Chapter 8: JusticeNo, my friend, terrible as it is to admit it, there is no justicein the world.
Worse yet: there can be no justice as long as we live underconditions which enable one person to take advantage of another’s need, to turn it to his profit, and exploit his fellow man.
There can be no justice as long as one man is ruled by another; as long as one has the authority and power to compel
another against his will.
There can be no justice between master and servant.
Nor equality.
Justice and equality can exist only among equals. Is the poor
street cleaner the social equal of Morgan? Is the washer woman
the equal of Lady Astor?
Let the washer woman and Lady Astor enter any place, private or public. Will they receive equal welcome and treatment?
Their very apparel will determine their respective reception.
Because even their clothes indicate, under present conditions,the difference in their social position, their station in life, theirinfluence, and wealth.
The washer woman may have toiled hard all her life long,
may have been a most industrious and useful member of thecommunity. The Lady may have never done a stroke of work,
never been of the least use to society. For all that it is the richlady who will be welcomed, who will be preferred.
I have chosen this homely example because it is typical of
the entire character of our society, of our whole civilization.
It is money and the influence and authority which moneycommands, that alone count in the world.
58

in the greatest luxury, with their wives decked out in expensive
clothes and diamonds, while the worker’s wife can hardly afford a new calico dress. So the workers seek to improve theircondition by trying to get better wages. It is the same as if I
woke up at night in my house and found that a burglar had collected all my things and is about to get away with them. Suppose that instead of stopping him, I should say to him: ‘Please,
Mr. Burglar, leave me at least one suit of clothes so I can havesomething to put on’, and then thank him if he gives me backa tenth part of the things he has stolen from me.
But I am getting ahead of my story. We shall return to theworker and see how he tries to improve his condition and how
little he succeeds. Just now I want to tell you why the worker
does not take the burglar by the neck and kick him out; that is,
why he begs the capitalist for a little more bread or wages, andwhy he does not throw him off his back, altogether.
It is because the worker, like the rest of the world, has been
made to believe that everything is all right and must remain as
it is; and that if a few things are not quite as they should be,then it is because ‘people are bad’, and everything will rightitself in the end, anyhow.
Just see if that is not true of yourself. At home, when you
were a child, and when you asked so many questions, you weretold that ‘it is right so,’ that ‘it must be so,’ that ‘God made itso,’ and that everything was all right.
And you believed your father and mother, as they had believed their fathers and mothers, and that is why you now think
just as your grandfather did.
Later, in school, you were told the same things. You were
taught that God had made the world and that all is well; that
there must be rich and poor, and that you should respect therich and be content with your lot. You were told that your country stands for justice, and that you must obey the law. The
teacher, the priest, and the preacher all impressed it upon youthat your life is ordained by God and that ‘His will be done.’
19And when you saw a poor man dragged off to prison, they told
you that he was bad because he had stolen something, and that
it was a great crime.
But neither at home, nor in school, nor anywhere else were
you ever told that it is a crime for the rich man to steal the
product of the worker’s labor, or that the capitalists are richbecause they have possessed themselves of the wealth whichlabor created.
No, you were never told that, nor did any one else ever hear
it in school or church. How can you then expect the workers
to know it?
On the contrary, your mind — when you were a child andlater on, too — has been stuffed so full of false ideas that when
you hear the plain truth you wonder if it is really possible.
Perhaps you can see now why the workers do not understand that the wealth they have created has been stolen fromthem and is being stolen every day.
‘But the law,’ you ask, ‘the government — does it permit suchrobbery? Is not theft forbidden by law?’20

in bondage, then you might rightly feel outraged and cry out,
‘Is there no justice in the world?’

57

and ruler. Again they thunder against the ‘heretics’, the godless ones who wish the people to be free and happy. Again
church and school preach to you ‘the will of God’: capitalism
is good and necessary, they tell you; you must be obedient toyour masters, for ‘it is God’s will’ that there be rich and poor,
and whoever goes against it is a sinner, a non-conformist, ananarchist.
So you see that church and school are still with the masters
against their slaves, just as in the past. Like the leopard, they
may change their spots, but never their nature. Still church andschool side with the rich against the poor, with the powerfulagainst their victims, with ‘law and order’ against liberty andjustice.
Now as formerly they teach the people to respect andobey their masters. When the tyrant was king, church andschool taught respect for and obedience to the ‘law andorder’ of the king. When the king is abolished and a republic
instituted, church and school teach respect for and obedience
to republican ‘law and order’. OBEY! that is the eternal cry ofchurch and school, no matter how vile the tyrant, no matter
how oppressive and unjust ‘law and order’.
OBEY! For if you will cease obedience to authority you might
begin to think for yourself! That would be most dangerous to‘law and order’, the greatest misfortune for church and school.
For then you would find out that everything they taught you
was a lie, and was only for the purpose of keeping you enslaved,in mind and body, so that you should continue to toil and suffer
and keep quiet.
Such an awakening on your part would indeed be the greatest calamity for church and school, for Master and Ruler.
But if you have gone thus far with me, if you have now begun
to think for yourself if you understand that capitalism robs you
and that government with its ‘law and order’ is there to help
it do it; if you realize that all the agencies of institutionalized
religion and education serve only to delude you and keep you
56

Chapter 3: Law andGovernment
Yes, you are right: the law forbids theft.
If I should steal something from you, you can call a policeman and have me arrested. The law will punish the thief, andthe government will return to you the stolen property, if possible, because the law forbids stealing. It says that no one has
a right to take anything from you without your consent.
But your employer takes from you what you produce. The
whole wealth produced by labor is taken by the capitalists andkept by them as their property.
The law says that your employer does not steal anythingfrom you, because it is done with your consent. You haveagreed to work for your boss for certain pay, he to have allthat you produce. Because you consented to it, the law saysthat he does not steal anything from you.
But did you really consent?
When the highwayman holds his gun to your head, you turnyour valuables over to him. You ‘consent’ all right, but you do
so because you cannot help yourself, because you are compelledby his gun.
Are you not compelled to work for an employer? Your needcompels you, just as the highwayman’s gun. You must live, andso must your wife and children. You can’t work for yourself;
under the capitalist industrial system you must work for an
employer. The factories, machinery, and tools belong to theemploying class, so you must hire yourself out to that class inorder to work and live. Whatever you work at, whoever your21

employer may be, it always comes to the same: you must workfor him. You can’t help yourself. You are compelled.
In this way the whole working class is compelled to work forthe capitalist class. In this manner the workers are compelled
to give up all the wealth they produce. The employers keep that
wealth as their profit, while the worker gets only a wage, justenough to live on, so he can go on producing more wealth for
his employer. Is that not cheating, robbery?
The law says it is a ‘free agreement’. Just as well might the
highwayman say that you ‘agreed’ to give up your valuables.
The only difference is that the highwayman’s way is called
stealing and robbery, and is forbidden by law. While the capitalist way is called business, industry, profit making, and isprotected by law.
But whether it is done in the highwayman’s way or in thecapitalist way, you know that you are robbed.
The whole capitalist system rests on such robbery.
The whole system of law and government upholds and justifies this robbery.
That’s the order of things called capitalism, and law and government are there to protect this order of things.
Do you wonder that the capitalist and employer, and all
those who profit by this order of things, are strong for ‘lawand order’?
But where do you come in? What benefit have you from thatkind of ‘law and order’? Don’t you see that this ‘law and order’
only robs you, fools you, and just enslaves you?
‘Enslave me?’ you wonder. ‘Why, I am a free citizen!’
Are you free, really? Free to do what? To live as you please?
To do what you please?
Let’s see. How do you live? What does your freedom amountto?
You depend on your employer for your wages or your salary,
don’t you? And your wages determine your way of living, don’t
they? The conditions of your life, even what you eat and drink,22

school said that it was right, that they deserved death as rebels
against the laws of God and man. And the slaves believed it.
But the truth cannot be suppressed forever. More and more
persons gradually came to see that the ‘agitators’ who had been
killed were right. They came to understand that slavery waswrong and bad for them, and their numbers grew all the time.
The tyrant made severe laws to suppress them: his government
did everything to stop them and their ‘evil designs’. Churchand school denounced those men. They were persecuted andhounded and executed in the manner of those days.
Sometimes they were put on a big cross and nailed to it,or they had their heads cut off with an axe. At other times
they were strangled to death, burned at the stake, quartered,or bound to horses and slowly torn apart.
This was done by the church and the school and the law,often even by the deluded mob, in various countries, and in
the museums to-day you can still see the instruments of tortureand death which were used to punish those who tried to tell thetruth to the people.
But in spite of torture and death, in spite of law and government, in spite of church and school and press, slavery was atlast abolished, though people had insisted that ‘it was always
so and must remain so’.
Later, in the days of serfdom, when the nobles lorded it overthe common people, church and school were again on the sideof the rulers and the rich. Again they threatened the people
with the wrath of God if they should dare to become rebellious and refuse to obey their lords and governors. Again theybrought down their maledictions upon the heads of the ‘disturbers’ and heretics who dared defy the law and preach thegospel of greater liberty and well-being. Again those ‘enemiesof the people’ were persecuted, hounded, and murdered — but
the day came when serfdom was abolished.
Serfdom gave place to capitalism with its wage slavery, andagain you find church and school on the side of the master55

Chapter 7: Church and
SchoolYes, my friend, it has always been so. That is, law and government have always been on the side of the masters. The richand powerful have always doped you by ‘God’s will’, with thehelp of the church and the school.
But must it always remain so?
In olden days, when the people were the slaves of sometyrant — of a tsar or other autocrat — the church (of every
religion and denomination) taught that slavery existed by ‘thewill of God,’ that it was good and necessary, that it could not
be otherwise, and that whoever was against it went against
God’s will and was a godless man, a heretic, a blasphemer anda sinner.
The school taught that this was right and just, that the tyrant
ruled by ‘the grace of God’, that his authority was not to bequestioned, and that he was to be served and obeyed.
The people believed it and remained slaves.
But little by little there arose some men who had come tosee that slavery was wrong: that it was not right for one man
to hold a whole people in subjection and be lord and masterover their lives and toil. And they went among the people andtold them what they thought.
Then the government of the tyrant pounced upon those men.
They were charged with breaking the laws of the land; they
were called disturbers of the public peace, criminals, and enemies of the people. They were killed, and the church and the54

where you go and with whom you associate, — all of it depends
on your wages.
No, you are not a free man. You are dependent on your employer and on your wages. You are really a wage slave.
The whole working class, under the capitalist system, is dependent on the capitalist class. The workers are wage slaves.
So, what becomes of your freedom? What can you do with
it? Can you do more with it than your wages permit?
Can’t you see that your wage — your salary or income —is all the freedom that you have? Your freedom, your liberty,
don’t go a step further than the wages you get.
The freedom that is given you on paper, that is written downin law books and constitutions, does not do you a bit of good.
Such freedom only means that you have the right to do a certain thing. But it doesn’t mean that you can do it. To be able to
do it, you must have the chance, the opportunity. You have aright to eat three fine meals a day, but if you haven’t the means,the opportunity to get those meals, then what good is that rightto you?
So freedom really means opportunity to satisfy your needs
and wants. If your freedom does not give you that opportunity,
than it does you no good. Real freedom means opportunity andwell-being. If it does not mean that, it means nothing.
You see, then, that the whole situation comes to this:Capitalism robs you and makes a wage slave of you.
The law upholds and protects that robbery.
The government fools you into believing that you are independent and free.
In this way you are fooled and duped every day of your life.
But how does it happen that you didn’t think of it before?
How is it that most other people don’t see it, either?
It is because you and every one else are lied to about this all
the time, from your earliest childhood.
You are told to be honest, while you are being robbed all your
life.
23

You are commanded to respect the law, while the law protects the capitalist who is robbing you.
You are taught that killing is wrong, while the government
hangs and electrocutes people and slaughters them in war.
You are told to obey the law and government, though law
and government stand for robbery and murder.
Thus all through life you are lied to, fooled, and deceived, sothat it will be easier to make profits out of you, to exploit you.
Because it is not only the employer and the capitalist who
make profits out of you. The government, the church, and theschool — they all live on your labor. You support them all. That
is why all of them teach you to be content with your lot andbehave yourself.
‘Is it really true that I support them all?’ you ask in amazement.
Let us see. They eat and drink and are clothed, not to speakof the luxuries they enjoy. Do they make the things they use
and consume, do they do the planting and sowing and building
and so on?
‘But they pay for those things,’ your friend objects.
Yes, they pay. Suppose a fellow stole fifty dollars from you
and then went and bought with it a suit of clothes for himself.
Is that suit by right his? Didn’t he pay for it? Well, just so thepeople who don’t produce anything or do no useful work pay
for things. Their money is the profits they or their parents before them squeezed out of you, out of the workers.
‘Then it is not my boss who supports me, but I him?’
Of course. He gives you a job; that is, permission to workin the factory or mill which was not built by him but by otherworkers like yourself. And for that permission you help to support him for the rest of your life or as long as you work for him.
You support him so generously that he can afford a mansion in
the city and a home in the country, even several of them, andservants to attend to his wants and those of his family, and forthe entertainment of his friends, and for horse races and for24

debts, and put unbearable burdens upon their working classes.
The resources of every country were strained. The progress ofscience was registered by new facilities of destruction. Christian precept was proven by the multiplication of murder, andthe treaties were signed with human blood.
The World War built huge fortunes for the lords of finance— and tombs for the workers.
And to-day? To-day we stand again on the brink of a newwar, far greater and more terrible than the last holocaust. Everygovernment is preparing for it and appropriating millions ofdollars of the workers’ sweat and blood for the coming carnage.
Think it over, my friend, and see what capital and government are doing for you, doing to you.
Soon they will again be calling on you to ‘defend your country!’
In times of peace you slave in field and factory, in war you
serve as cannon fodder — all for the greater glory of your masters.
Yet you are told that ‘everything is all right’, that it is ‘God’s
will’, that it ‘must be so’.
Don’t you see that it is not God’s will at all, but the doings ofcapital and government? Can’t you see that it is so and ‘must
be so’ only because you permit your political and industrial
masters to fool and dupe you, so they can live in comfort andluxury off your toil and tears, while they treat you as the ‘common’ people, the ‘lower orders’, just good enough to slave forthem?
‘It has always been so,’ you remark meekly.

53

Woodrow Wilson, the former college president, discovered a‘war for democracy’, a ‘war to end war’. With that hypocriticalmotto a country-wide campaign was started, rousing theworst tendencies of intolerance, persecution, and murderin American hearts; filling them with venom and hatredagainst every one who had the courage to voice an honest andindependent opinion; beating up, imprisoning, and deporting
those who dared to say that it was a capitalistic war for profits.
Conscientious objectors to the taking of human life werebrutally maltreated as ‘slackers’ and condemned to long penitentiary terms; men and women who reminded their Christiancountrymen of the Nazarene’s command, ‘Thou shalt not kill’,
were branded cowards and shut up in prison; radicals who
declared that the war was only in the interests of capitalism
were treated as ‘vicious foreigners, and ‘enemy spies’. Special
laws were rushed through to stifle every free expression of
opinion. Dire punishment was meted out to every objector.
From the Atlantic to the Pacific hundred-percenters, drunkwith murderous patriotism, spread terror. The whole country
went mad with the frenzy of jingoism. The nation-wide
militarist propaganda at last swept the American people into
the field of carnage.
Wilson was ‘too proud to fight’, but not too proud to send
others to do the fighting for his financial backers. He was ‘tooproud to fight’, but not too proud to help the American plutocracy coin gold out of the lives of seventy thousand Americans
left dead on European battlefields.
The ‘war for democracy’, the ‘war to end war’ proved thegreatest sham in history. As a matter of fact, it started a chainof new wars not yet ended. It has since been admitted, even by
Wilson himself, that the war served no purpose except to reap
vast profits for Big Business. It created more complications in
European affairs than had ever existed before. It pauperized
Germany and France, and brought them to the brink of national
bankruptcy. It loaded the peoples of Europe with stupendous
52

boat races, and for a hundred other things. But it is not only
to him that you are so generous. Out of your labor, by direct
and indirect taxation, are supported the entire government, local, state, and national, the schools and the churches, and all
the other institutions whose business it is to protect profits
and keep you fooled. You and your fellow workers, labor asa whole, support them all. Do you wonder that they all tell youthat everything is all right and that you should be good andkeep quiet?
It is good for them that you should keep quiet, because they
could not keep on duping and robbing you once you open youreyes and see what’s happening to you.
That’s why they are all strong for this capitalist system, for‘law and order’.
But is that system good for you? Do you think it right andjust? If not, then why do you put up with it? Why do you support it? ‘What can I do?’ you say; ‘I’m only one.’
Are you really only one? Are you not rather one out of many
thousands, out of millions, all of them exploited and enslaved
the same as you are? Only they don’t know it. If they knew it,
they wouldn’t stand for it. That’s sure. So the thing is to makethem know it.
Every workingman in your city, every toiler in your country,
in every country, in the whole world, is exploited and enslaved
the same as you are.
And not only the workingmen. The farmers are duped androbbed in the same manner.
Just like the workingmen, the farmer is dependent on thecapitalist class. He toils hard all his life, but most of his labor
goes to the trusts and monopolies of the land which by right is
no more theirs than the moon is.
The farmer produces the food of the world. He feeds all of us.
But before he can get his goods to us, he is made to pay tributeto the class that lives by the work of others, the profit-making,capitalist class. The farmer is mulcted out of the greater part25

of his product just as the worker is. He is mulcted by the landowner and by the mortgage holder; by the steel trust and therailroad. The banker, the commission merchant, the retailer,and a score of other middlemen squeeze their profits out of
the farmer before he is allowed to get his food to you.
Law and government permit and help this robbery by rulingthat the land, which no man created, belongs to the landlord;
the railroads, which the workers built, belong to the railroad
magnates; the warehouses, grain elevators, and storehouses,
erected by the workers, belong to the capitalists; all those monopolists and capitalists have a right to get profits from thefarmer for using the railroads and other facilities before he canget his food to you.
You can see then, how the farmer is robbed by big capitaland business, and how the law helps in that robbery, just as
with the workingman.
But it is not only the worker and the farmer who are exploited and forced to give up the greater part of their product to the capitalists, to those who have monopolized the land,
the railroads, the factories, the machinery, and all natural resources. The entire country, the whole world is made to pay
tribute to the kings of finance and industry.
The small business man depends on the wholesaler; thewholesaler on the manufacturer; the manufacturer on thetrust magnates of his industry; and all of them on the moneylords and banks for their credit. The big bankers and financiers
can put any man out of business by just withdrawing their
credit from him. They do so whenever they want to squeeze
any one out of business. The business man is entirely at theirmercy. If he does not play the game as they want it, to suit
their interests, then they simply drive him out of the game.
Thus the whole of mankind is dependent upon and enslavedby just a handful of men who have monopolized almost theentire wealth of the world, but who have themselves never created anything.
26

Take the World War, for instance. Consider how the peopleof America were tricked into participation. They did not want
to mix in European affairs. They knew little of them, and they
did not care to be dragged into the murderous brawls. Theyelected Woodrow Wilson on a ‘he kept us out of the war’ slogan.
But the American plutocracy saw that huge fortunes could
be gained in the war. They were not satisfied with the millions
they were reaping by selling ammunition and other supplies tothe European combatants; immeasurably greater profits were
to be made by getting a big country like the United States, with
its over 100 millions of population, into the fray. President Wilson could not withstand their pressure. After all, governmentis but the maid-servant of the financial powers: it is there to dotheir bidding.
But how get America into the war when her people wereexpressly against it? Didn’t they elect Wilson as President on
the clear promise to keep the country out of war?
In former days, under absolute monarchs, the subjects were
simply compelled to obey the king’s command. But that often involved resistance and the danger of rebellion. In modern
times there are surer and safer means of making the people
serve the interests of their rulers. All that is necessary is to talkthem into believing that they themselves want what their masters want them to do; that it is to their own interests, good fortheir country, good for humanity. In this manner the noble andfine instincts of man are harnessed to do the dirty work of thecapitalistic master class, to the shame and injury of mankind.
Modern inventions help in this game and make it comparatively easy. The printed word, the telegraph, the telephone, andradio are all sure aids in this matter. The genius of man, having
produced those wonderful things, is exploited and degraded in
the interests of Mammon and Mars.
President Wilson invented a new device to snare theAmerican people into the war for the benefit of Big Business.
51

rich on your ‘patriotism’ and self-sacrifice. It is the munitions
manufacturers, the speculators in food and other supplies, thewarship builders. In short, it is the great lords of finance, industry, and commerce who alone benefit by war.
For these war is a blessing. A blessing in more than one way.
Because war also serves to distract the attention of the laboring masses from their everyday misery and turns it to ‘highpolitics’ and human slaughter. Governments and rulers haveoften sought to avoid popular uprising and revolution by staging a war. History is full of such examples. Of course, war is adouble-edged sword. Often it, in turn, leads to revolt. But thatis another story to which we shall return when we come to theRussian Revolution.
If you have followed me thus far, you must realize that war isjust as much a direct result and inevitable effect of the capitalist
system as are the regular financial and industrial crises.
When a crisis comes, in the manner in which I have described it, with its unemployment and hardships, you are toldthat it is no one’s fault, that it is ‘bad times’, the result of‘over-production’ and similar humbug. And when capitalisticcompetition for profits brings about a condition of war, thecapitalists and their flunkies — the politicians and the press— raise the cry ‘Save your country!’ in order to fill you withfalse patriotism and make you fight their battles for them.
In the name of patriotism you are ordered to stop being decent and honest, to cease being yourself, to suspend your own
judgment, and give up your life; to become a will-less cog in amurderous machine, blindly obeying the order to kill, pillage,and destroy; to give up your father and mother, wife and child,and all that you love, and proceed to slaughter your fellow-men
who never did you any harm — who are just as unfortunate anddeluded victims of their masters as you are of yours.
Only too truly did Carlyle say that ‘patriotism is the refugeof scoundrels.’
Can’t you see how you are fooled and duped?
50‘But those men work hard,’ you say.
Well, some of them don’t work at all. Some of them are justidlers, whose business is managed by others. Some of them dowork. But what kind of work do they do? Do they produce anything, as the worker and the farmer do? No, they produce nothing, though they may work. They work to mulct people, to get
profits out of them. Does their work benefit you? The highwayman also works hard and takes great risks to boot. His ‘work’,like the capitalist’s, gives employment to lawyers, jailers, anda host of other retainers, all of whom your toil supports.
It seems indeed ridiculous that the whole world should slave
for the benefit of a handful of monopolists, and that all shouldhave to depend upon them for their right and opportunity tolive. But the fact is just that. And it is the more ridiculous when
you consider that the workers and farmers, who alone create
all wealth, should be the most dependent and the poorest of all
the other classes in society.
It is really monstrous, and it is very sad. Surely your common sense must tell you that such a situation is nothing shortof madness. If the great masses of people, the millions throughout the world, could see how they are fooled, exploited and enslaved, as you see it now, would they stand for such goings on?
Surely they would not!
The capitalists know they wouldn’t. That is why they need
the government to legalize their methods of robbery, to protect
the capitalist system.
And that is why the government needs laws, police and soldiers, courts and prisons to protect capitalism.
But who are the police and the soldiers who protect the capitalists against you, against the people?
If they were capitalists themselves, then it would stand toreason why they want to protect the wealth they have stolen,
and why they try to keep up, even by force, the system thatgives them the privilege of robbing the people.

27

But the police and the soldiers, the defenders of ‘law and order’, are not of the capitalist class. They are men from the ranksof the people, poor men who for pay protect the very systemthat keeps them poor. It is unbelievable, is it not? Yet it is true.
It just comes down to this: some of the slaves protect their masters in keeping them and the rest of the people in slavery. In
the same way Great Britain, for instance, keeps the Hindoos in
India in subjection by a police force of the natives, of the Hindoos themselves. Or as Belgium does with the black men in theCongo. Or as any government does with a subjugated people.
It is the same system.
Here is what it amounts to: Capitalism robs and exploits thewhole of the people; the laws legalize and uphold this capitalistrobbery; the government uses one part of the people to aid andprotect the capitalists in robbing the whole of the people. The
entire thing is kept up by educating the people to believe that
capitalism is right, that the law is just, and that the government
must be obeyed. Do you see through this game now?

Consider what a terrible indictment this is against thepresent system. Imagine a condition of things where it is goodfor the people of a certain community to have some of their
number killed off, so the rest could live better! Would it not be
the worst man-eating system, the worst cannibalism?
That is just what capitalism is: a system of cannibalism inwhich one devours his fellow-man or is devoured by him. Thisis true of capitalism in time of peace as in war, except that in
war its real character is unmasked and more evident.
In a sensible, humane society that could not be. On the contrary, the greater the population of a certain community thebetter it would be for all, because the work of each would thenbe lighter.
A community is no different in this regard than a family. Every family needs a certain amount of work to be done in orderto keep its wants supplied. Now the more persons there are in
the family to do the necessary work, the easier for each member, the less work for each.
The same holds true of a community or a country, which isonly a family on a large scale. The more people there are to do
the work necessary to supply the needs of the community, theeasier the task of each member.1
If the contrary is the case in our present-day society, it
merely goes to prove that conditions are wrong, barbaric, andperverse. Nay, more: that they are absolutely criminal if thecapitalist system can thrive on the slaughter of its members.
It is evident then that for the workers war means only
greater burdens, more taxes, harder toil, and the reduction of
their pre-war standard of living.
But there is one element in capitalist society for whom war
is good. It is the element that coins money out of war, that gets
1

There never need be any danger of over-populating the earth. Natureprovides her own checks against it. What we need is a more rational distribution of population, intensive agriculture and a more intelligent control over
our birth rate.

28

49

worker, are helping to pay the American bankers the intereston their European loans?
There are people who claim that war is good because it cultivates physical courage. The argument is stupid. It is made onlyby those who have themselves never been to war and whosefighting is done by others. It is a dishonest argument, to induce
poor fools to fight for the interests of the rich. People who haveactually fought in battles will tell you that modern war has
nothing to do with personal courage: it is mass fighting at agreat distance from the enemy. Personal encounters, in which
the best man may win, are extremely rare. In modern war you
don’t see your antagonists: you fight blindly, like a machine.
You go into battle scared to death, fearing that the next minute
you may be shot to pieces. You go only because you don’t havethe courage to refuse.
The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who canstand up against the popular current, even against his friends
and his country when he knows he is right, who can defy thosein authority over him who can take punishment and prison andremain steadfast — that is a man of courage. The fellow whom
you taunt as a ‘slacker’ because he refuses to turn murderer —he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey
orders, to do as you are told and to fall in line with thousandsof others to the tune of general approval and the ‘Star Spangled
Banner’?
War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true
manhood. It degrades and stupefies with the sense that you
are not responsible that ’‘tis not yours to think and reason why,
but to do and die’, like the hundred thousand others doomed
like yourself. War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible
murder.
I have met persons who say that war is good because it kills
many people, so that there is more work for the survivors.

48

Chapter 4: How the System
Works
But take a closer look at it and see how the system ‘works’.
Consider how life and its real meaning have become turned
upside down and topsy-turvy. See how your own existence ispoisoned and made miserable by the crazy arrangement.
Wherein is the purpose of your life, where the joy of it?
The earth is rich and beautiful, the bright sunshine should
gladden your heart. Man’s genius and labor have conquered
the forces of nature and harnessed the lightning and the air tothe service of humanity. Science and invention, human industry and toil have produced untold wealth. We’ve bridged theshoreless seas, the steam engine has annihilated distance, theelectric spark and gasoline motor have unfettered man fromthe earth and chained even the atmosphere to do his bidding.
We have triumphed over space, and the farthest corners of the
globe have been brought close together. The human voice now
circles the hemispheres, and through the azure there dart-fleet
messengers, carrying man’s greeting to all the peoples of theworld.
Yet the people groan under heavy burdens, and there is no
joy in their hearts. Their lives are full of misery, their souls
cold with want and need. Poverty and crime fill every land;
thousands are a prey to disease and insanity, war slaughters
millions and brings to the living tyranny and oppression.
Why all this misery and murder in a world so rich and beautiful? Why all the pain and sorrow upon an earth so full of
nature’s bounty and sunshine?
29‘It’s God’s will,’ says the church.
‘People are bad, ‘says the lawmaker.
‘It must be so,’ says the fool.
Is it true? Must it really be so?
You and I and each of us, we all want to live. We have but
one life and we want to make the best of it — rightly so. We
want some joy and sunshine while we live. What will happen
to us when we are dead, we don’t know. No one knows. The
chances are that once dead we’ll stay dead. But whether so ornot, while we live our whole being hungers for joy and laughter, for sunshine and happiness. Nature has made us that way.
Made you and me, and millions of others like us, to long forlife and joy. Is it right and just that we should be deprived of it
and forever remain the slaves of a handful of men who lord it
over us and over life?
Can that be ‘God’s will’, as the church tells you?
But if there be a God, he must be just. Would he permit us
to be cheated and despoiled of life and its joys? If there be aGod, he must be our father, and all men his children. Would agood father let some of his children go hungry and miserable
while others have so much they don’t know what to do with it?
Would he suffer thousands, even millions, of his children to be
killed and slaughtered, just for the glory of some king or the
profit of the capitalist? Would he sanction injustice, outrage,
and murder? No, my friend, you cannot believe that of a good
father, of a just God. If people tell you that God wants suchthings they just lie to you.
Maybe you say that God is good, but it is people who arebad, and that is why things are so wrong in the world.
But if people are bad, who made them so? Surely you don’t
believe that God made people bad, because in that case he himself would be responsible for it. Then it means that if people
are bad, something else has made them so. That may well be.
Let us look into it

30

War is bad for your country, bad for humanity: it spells
slaughter and destruction. Everything that war destroys —bridges and harbors, cities and ships, fields and factories — allmust be built up again. That means that the people are taxed,
directly and indirectly, to build it up. For in the last analysis
everything comes from the pockets of the people. So war isbad for them materially, not to speak of the brutalizing effectwar has upon mankind in general. And don’t forget that 999
out of every 1,000 who are killed, blinded, or maimed in war
are of the laboring class, sons of workers and farmers.
In modern war there is no victor, for the winning side loses
almost as much as the defeated one. Sometimes even more, likeFrance in the late struggle: France is poorer to-day than Germany. The workers of both countries are taxed to starvation to
make good the losses sustained in the war. Labor’s wages andstandards of living are much lower now in the European countries that participated in the World War than they were before
the great catastrophe.
‘But the United States got rich through the war,’ you object.
You mean that a handful of men gained millions, and thatthe big Capitalists made huge profits. Surely they did: the great
financiers by lending Europe money at a high rate of interestand by supplying war material and munitions. But where do
you come in?
Just stop to consider how Europe is paying off its financial
debt to America or the interest on it. It does so by squeezing
more labor and profits out of the workers. By paying lower
wages and producing goods more cheaply the European manufacturers can undersell their American competitors, and forthis reason the American manufacturer is compelled also to
produce at lower cost. That’s where his ‘economy’ and ‘rationalization’ come in, and as a result you must work harder orhave your wages reduced, or be thrown out of employment altogether. Do you see how low wages in Europe directly affectyour own condition? Do you realize that you, the American47

or say only to the south of Spain, and fed there tillwanted.
‘And now to that same spot in the south of Spain
are thirty similar French artisans, from a French
Dumdrudge, in like manner wending, till at length,
after infinite effort, the two parties come into
actual juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting
Thirty, each with a gun in his hand.
‘Straightway the word ‘Fire!’ is given, and theyblow the souls out of one another, and in the placeof sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty
dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anonshed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busyas the devil is, not the smallest! They lived far
enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in
so wide a universe, there was even, unconsciously,
by commerce, some mutual helpfulness between
them. How then? Simpleton! Their governors had
fallen out; and instead of shooting one another,
had the cunning to make these poor blockheads
shoot.’
It is not for your country that you fight when you go to war.
It’s for your governors, your rulers, your capitalistic masters.
Neither your country, nor humanity, neither you nor yourclass — the workers — gain anything by war. It is only the big
financiers and capitalists who profit by it.
War is bad for you. It is bad for the workers. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain by it. They don’t even get
any glory from it, for that goes to the big generals and field
marshals.
What do you get in war? You get lousy, you get shot, gassed,
maimed, or killed. That is all the workers of any country getout of war.
46

Let us see how people are, what they are, and how they live.
Let us see how you live.
From your earliest childhood it has been drilled into youthat you must become successful, must ‘make money’. Moneymeans comfort security, power. It does not matter who you are,you are valued by what you are ‘worth’, by the size of yourbank account. So you have been taught, and everybody else
has been taught the same. Can you wonder that every one’s
life becomes a chase for money, for the dollar and your whole
existence is turned into a struggle for possession, for wealth?
The money hunger grows on what it feeds. The poor man
struggles for a living, for a bit of comfort. The well-to-do man
wants greater riches to give him security and protect him
against the fear of to-morrow. And when he becomes a big
banker he must not relax his efforts, he must keep a sharp eyeon his competitors, for fear of losing the race to some otherman.
So every one is compelled to take part in the wild chase, andthe hunger for possession gets ever stronger hold of man. It
becomes the most important part of life; every thought is on
money, all the energies are bent on getting rich, and presently
the thirst for wealth becomes a mania, a madness that possesses those who have and those who have not.
Thus life has lost its sole true meaning of joy and beauty;
existence has become an unreasoning, wild dance around thegolden calf, a mad worship of God Mammon. In that dance andin that worship man has sacrificed all his finer qualities of heartand soul — kindness and justice honor and manhood, compassion and sympathy with his fellow-man.
‘Each for himself and the devil take the hindmost’ — thatmust perforce become the principle and urge of most people
under such conditions. Is it any wonder that in this mad moneychase are developed the worst traits of man — greed, envy, hatred, and the basest passions? Man grows corrupt and evil; he31becomes mean and unjust; he resorts to deceit, theft, and murder.
Look closer about you and see how many wrongs and crimes
are perpetrated in your city, in your country, in the world atlarge, for money, for property, for possession. See how full theworld is of poverty and misery, see the thousands falling a prey
to disease and insanity, to folly and outrage, to suicide and murder — all because of the inhuman and brutalizing conditions welive under.
Truly has the wise man said that money is the root of all evil.
Wherever you look you will see the corroding and degrading
effect of money, of possession, of the mania to have and to hold.
Every one is wild to get, to grab by hook or crook, to accumulate as much as he can, so that he may enjoy to-day and secure
himself for to-morrow.
But can you therefore say that man is bad? Is he not compelled to take part in this money chase by the conditions of existence, by the crazy system we live in? For you have no choice— you must get into the race or go under.
Is it your fault, then, that life forces you to be and act likethat? Is it the fault of your brother or your neighbor or of any
one? Is it not rather that we are all born into this mad schemeof things and that we have to fall into line?
But is not the scheme itself wrong that makes us act likethat? Think it over and you will see that at heart you are notbad at all, but that conditions often compel you to do things
that you know are wrong. You would rather not do them. When
you can afford it, your urge is to be kind and helpful to others.
But if you should follow your inclinations in this direction, you
would neglect your own interests and you would soon be inwant yourself.
So the conditions of existence suppress and stifle the instincts of kindness and humanity in us, and harden us against
the need and misery of our fellow-man.

32

get yourself shot to swell the profits of plutocrats. But without
you and others like you they can’t make war! So they raise thecry of ‘Defend your country! Your flag is insulted!’ Sometimes
they actually hire thugs to insult your country’s flag in a foreign land, or get some American property destroyed there, so
as to make sure the people at home will get wild over it andrush to join the Army and Navy.
Don’t think I exaggerate. American capitalists are known tohave caused even revolutions in foreign countries (particularly
in South America) so as to get a more ‘friendly’ new government there and thus secure the concessions they wanted.
But generally they don’t need to go to such lengths. All they
have to do is appeal to your ‘patriotism’, flatter you a bit, tell
you that you can ‘lick the whole world,’ and they get you readyto don the soldier’s uniform and do their bidding.
This is what your patriotism, your love of country is used
for. Truly did the great English thinker Carlyle write:‘What, speaking in quite unofficial language, isthe net purport and upshot of war? To my own
knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in
the British village of Dumdrudge, usually somefive hundred souls. From these, by certain ‘natural
enemies’ of the French there are successively
selected, during the French war, say thirty ablebodied men. Dumdrudge, at her own expense, hassuckled and nursed them; she has, not without
difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to man hood,and even trained them to crafts, so that one canweave, another build, another hammer, and theweakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois.
Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing,
they are selected; all dressed in red; and shipped
away, at public charge, some two thousand miles,

45

land. He goes to England, Germany, France, or to some othercountry, and tries to dispose there of his ‘over-production’, ofhis ‘surplus’.
But there he finds the same conditions as in his own country. There they also have ‘over-production’; that is, the workers
are so exploited and underpaid that they cannot buy the commodities they have produced. The manufacturers of England,
Germany, France, etc., are therefore also looking for other markets, just as the American manufacturer.
The American manufacturers of a certain industry organize
themselves into a big combine, the industrial magnates of theother countries do the same, and the national combines begin
competing with each other. The capitalists of each country try
to grab the best markets, especially new markets. They findsuch new markets in China, Japan India, and similar countries;that is, in countries that have not yet developed their own industries. When each country will have developed its own industries, there will be no more foreign markets, and then somepowerful capitalistic group will become the international trustof the whole world. But in the meantime the capitalistic interests of the various industrial countries fight for the foreign markets and compete with each other there. They compel someweaker nation to give them special privileges, ‘favored treatment’; they arouse the envy of their competitors get into trouble about concessions and sources of profit, and call upon theirrespective governments to defend their interests. The American capitalist appeals to his government to protect ‘American’interests. The capitalists of France, Germany, and England do
the same: they call upon their governments to protect theirprofits. Then the various governments call upon their people
to ’defend their country’.
Do you see how the game is played? You are not told thatyou are asked to protect the privileges and dividends of someAmerican capitalist in a foreign country. They know that if theytell you that, you would laugh at them and you would refuse to
44

You will see this in every phase of existence, in all the relations of men, all through our social life. Of course, if our interests were the same, there would be no need of any one taking
advantage of another. Because what would be good for Jack
would also be good for Jim. To be sure, as human beings, as
children of one humanity, we really do have the same interests.
But as members of a foolish and criminal social arrangement,
our present-day capitalist system, our interests are not at all thesame. In fact, the interests of the different classes in society areopposed to each other; they are inimical and antagonistic, as I
have pointed out in preceding chapters.
That is why you see men taking advantage of each otherwhen they can profit by it, when their interests dictate it. In
business, in commerce, in the relations between employer andemployee — everywhere you will find this principle at work.
Every one is trying to get ahead of the other fellow. Competition becomes the soul of capitalistic life, beginning with thebillionaire banker, the great manufacturer and lord of industry, all through the social and financial scale, down to the lastworker in the factory. For even the workers are compelled tocompete with each other for jobs and better pay.
In this way our whole life becomes a struggle of man againstman, of class against class. In that struggle every method isused to achieve success, to down your competitor, to raise yourself above him by every means possible.
It is clear that such conditions will develop and cultivate theworst qualities of man. It is just as clear that the law will protect
those who have power and influence, the rich and the wealthy,
however they got their riches. The poor man must inevitably
get the worst of it under such circumstances. He will try to
do the same as the rich man does. But as he has not the same
opportunity to advance his interests under the protection of
the law, he will often attempt it outside of the law and he will
fall into its meshes. Though he did nothing more than the rich33

man — took advantage of some one, cheated some one — hedid it ‘illegally’, and you call him a criminal.
Look at that poor boy, for instance, on the street corner there.
He is ragged, pale, and half-starved. He sees another boy, theson of wealthy parents, and that boy wears nice clothes, heis well fed, and he does not even deign to play with the poorkid. The ragged boy is angry at him he resents and hates therich boy. And everywhere the poor boy goes he experiences
the same thing: he is ignored and scorned, often kicked about— he feels people don’t think him as good as the rich boy, towhom every one is respectful and attentive. The poor boy gets
embittered. And when he grows up, he again sees the samething: the rich are admired and respected, the poor are kicked
about and looked down upon. So the poor boy gets to hate hispoverty, and he thinks of how he might become rich, get money,
and he tries to get it in any way he can, by taking advantage
of others, as others have always taken advantage of him, bycheating and lying, and sometimes even by committing crime.
Then you say that he is ‘bad’. But don’t you see what madehim bad? Don’t you see that the conditions of his whole life
have made him what he is? And don’t you see that the system
which keeps up such conditions is a greater criminal than the
petty thief? The law will step in and punish him, but is it not
the same law that permits those bad conditions to exist andupholds the system that makes criminals?
Think it over and see if it is not the law itself, the government which really creates crime by compelling people to live
in conditions that make them bad. See how law and government uphold and protect the biggest crime of all, the motherof all crimes, the capitalistic wage system, and then proceeds
to punish the poor criminal.
Consider: does it make any difference whether you do wrong
protected by the law, or whether you do it unlawfully? The
thing is the same and the effects are the same. Worse even: legal
wrongdoing is the greater evil because it causes more misery
34

Chapter 6: War?
War! Do you realize what it means? Do you know of any
more terrible word in our language? Does it not bring to yourmind pictures of slaughter and carnage, of murder, pillage, anddestruction? Can’t you hear the belching of cannon, the cries ofthe dying and wounded? Can you not see the battlefield strewn
with corpses? Living humans torn to pieces, their blood andbrains scattered about, men full of life suddenly turned to carrion. And there, at home, thousands of fathers and mothers’
wives and sweethearts living in hourly dread lest some mischance befall their loved ones, and waiting, waiting for the return of those who will return nevermore.
You know what war means. Even if you yourself have neverbeen at the front, you know that there is no greater curse thanwar with its millions of dead and maimed, its countless human sacrifices, its broken lives, ruined homes its indescribableheartache and misery.
‘It’s terrible’, you admit, ‘but it can’t be helped’. You thinkthat war must be, that times come when it is inevitable, thatyou must defend your country when it is in danger.
Let us see, then, whether you really defend your country
when you go to war. Let us see what causes war, and whether
it is for the benefit of your country that you are called upon to
don the uniform and start off on the campaign of slaughter.
Let us consider whom and what you defend in war: who isinterested in it and who profits by it.
We must return to our manufacturer. Unable to sell his product at a profit in his own country, he (and manufacturers ofother commodities likewise) seeks a market in some foreign
43

Your wages are cut; you are put on part time or you lose yourwork altogether. Thousands of men and women are thrown outof employment in that manner. Their wages stop and they cannot buy the food and other things they need. Are those things
not to be had? No, on the contrary; the warehouses and storesare filled with them, there is too much of them there’s ‘overproduction’.
So the capitalist system of production for profit results inthis crazy situation:
1. people have to starve — not because there is not enoughfood but because there is too much of it; they have to dowithout the things they need, because there is too muchof those things on hand;
2. because there is too much, manufacture is cut down,throwing thousands out of work;
3. being out of work and therefore not earning, those thousands lose their buying capacity. The grocer, the butcher,the tailor all suffer, as a result. That means increased unemployment all around, the crisis gets worse.
Under capitalism this happens in every industry.
Such crises are inevitable in a system of production for profit.
They come from time to time; they return periodically, always
getting worse. They deprive thousands and hundreds of thousands of employment causing poverty, distress, and untold misery. They result in bankruptcy and bank failures, which swallow up whatever little the worker have saved in time of ‘prosperity’. They cause want and need, drive people to despair andcrime, to suicide and insanity.
Such are the results of production for profit; such the fruitsof system of capitalism.
Yet that is not all. There is another result of this system, areeven worse than all the others combined.
That is War.
42

and injustice than illegal wrong. Lawful crime goes on all thetime; it is not punishable and it is made easy, while unlawfulcrime is not so frequent and is more limited in its scope andeffect.
Who causes more misery: the rich manufacturer reducing
the wages of thousands of workers to swell his profits, or thejobless man stealing something to keep from starving?
Who commits the greater wrong: the wife of the industrial
magnate spending a thousand dollars for a silver collar for her
lapdog, or the underpaid girl in the magnate’s department store
unable to withstand temptation and appropriating some trinket?
Who is the greater criminal: the speculator cornering thewheat market and making a million-dollar profit by raising theprice of the poor man’s bread, or the homeless tramp committing some theft?
Who is the greater enemy of man: the greedy coal baron responsible for the sacrifice of human lives in his badly ventilated
and dangerous mines, or the desperate man guilty of assault
and robbery?
It is not the wrongs and crimes punishable by law that cause
the greatest evil in the world. It is the lawful wrongs and unpunishable crimes, justified and protected by law and government, that fill the earth with misery and want, with strife andconflict, with class struggles, slaughter, and destruction.
We hear much about crime and criminals, about burglary
and robbery, about offenses against person and property. The
columns of the daily press are filled with such reports. It isconsidered the ‘news’ of the day.
But do you hear much about the crimes of capitalistic
industry and business? Do the papers tell you anything about
the constant robbery and theft represented by low wages
and high prices? Do they write much about the widespread
misery caused by market speculation, by adulterating food,by the thousand and one other forms of fraud, extortion, and35

usury on which business and trade thrive? Do they tell you of
the wrong and evils, of the poverty, of the broken hearts andblasted hearths of disease and premature death, of desperationand suicide that follow in constant and regular procession in
the wake of the capitalist system?
Do they tell you of the woe and worry of the thousands
thrown out of work, no one caring whether they live or die?
Do they tell you about the starvation wages paid to womenand girls in our industries, pittances, that directly compel manyof them to prostitute their bodies to help eke out a living? Do
they tell you of the army of unemployed that capitalism holds
ready to take the bread from your mouth when you go on strikefor better pay? Do they tell you that unemployment, with allits heartache, suffering, and misery is due directly to the system of capitalism? Do they tell you how the wage slave’s toiland sweat are coined into profits for the capitalist? How the
worker’s health, his mind and body are sacrificed to the greedof the lords of industry? How labor and lives are wasted instupid capitalist competition and planless production?
Indeed, they tell you a lot about crimes and criminals, aboutthe ‘badness’ and ‘evil’ of man, especially of the ‘lower’ classes,of the workers. But they don’t tell you that capitalist conditions
produce most of our evils and crime, and that capitalism itself
is the greatest crime of all; that it devours more lives in a single
day than all the murderers put together. The destruction of lifeand property caused by criminals throughout the world sincehuman life began is mere child’s play when compared with theten millions killed and twenty millions wounded and the incalculable havoc and misery wrought by a single capitalist event,
the recent World War. That stupendous holocaust was the legitimate child of capitalism, as all wars of conquest and gain
are the result of the conflicting financial and commercial interests of the international bourgeoisie. It was a war for profits,
as later admitted even by Woodrow Wilson and his class.

36

few workers as possible to manufacture the quantity of shoes
he wants, and he will have them work as ‘efficiently’ and hard
as he can compel them to.
You see that production for profit means longer hours andfewer persons employed than would be the case if production
were for use.
Capitalism is the system of production for profit, and that is
why capitalism always must have unemployed.
But look further into this system of production for profit andyou will see how its basic evil works a hundred other evils.
Let us follow the shoe manufacturer of your city. He has no
way of knowing, as I have already pointed out, who will or will
not be able to buy his shoes. He makes a rough guess, he ‘estimates’, and he decides to manufacture, let us say, 50,000 pairs.
Then he puts his product on the market. That is, the wholesaler,
the jobber, and the storekeeper put them up for sale.
Suppose only 30,000 pairs were sold; 20,000 pairs remain on
hand. Our manufacturer, unable to sell the balance in his own
city, will try to dispose of it, in some other part of the country.
But the shoe manufacturers there have also had the same experience. They also can’t sell all they have produced. The supply
of shoes is greater than the demand for them, they tell you.
They have to cut down production. That means the dischargeof some of their employees, thus increasing the army of theunemployed.
‘Over-production’ this is called. But in truth it is not overproduction at all. It is under-consumption, because there aremany people who need new shoes, but they can’t afford to buy
them.
The result? The warehouses are stocked with the shoes thepeople want but cannot buy, shops and factories close becauseof the ‘oversupply’. The same things happen in other industries.
You are told that there is a ‘crisis’ and your wages must be
reduced.

41

vantageous to the boss: it is a whip in his hands constantly held
over you, so you will slave hard for him and ‘behave’ yourself.
You can see for yourself how dangerous and degrading sucha situation is for the worker, not to speak of the other evils of
the system.
‘Then why not do away with unemployment?’ you demand.
Yes, it would be fine to do away with it. But it could be accomplished only by doing away with the capitalist system andits wage slavery. As long as you have capitalism — or any othersystem of labor exploitation and profit-making — you will haveunemployment. Capitalism can’t exist without it: it is inherent
in the wage system. It is the fundamental condition of successful capitalist production.
‘Why?’
Because the capitalist industrial system does not produce forthe needs of the people; it produces for profit. Manufacturers do
not produce commodities because the people want them andas much of them as is required. They produce what they expect
to sell, and sell at a profit.
If we had a sensible system, we would produce the things
which the people want and the quantity they need. Suppose
the inhabitants of a certain locality needed 1,000 pairs of shoes;
and suppose we’d have 50 shoemakers for the job. Then in 20
hours work those shoemakers would produce the shoes ourcommunity needs.
But the shoemaker of to-day does not know and does notcare how many pairs of shoes are needed. Thousands of people
may need new shoes in your city, but they cannot afford tobuy them. So what good is it to the manufacturer to know who
needs shoes? What he wants to know is who can buy the shoes
he makes: how many pairs he can sell at a profit.
What happens? Well, he will manufacture about as many
pairs of shoes as he thinks he will be able to sell. He will try
his best to produce them as cheaply and sell them as dearly as
he can, so as to make a good profit. He will therefore employ as
40Profits again, as you see. Coining human flesh and blood into
profits in the name of patriotism.
‘Patriotism!’ you protest; ‘why, that is a noble cause!’‘And unemployment,’ inquires your friend, ‘is capitalism responsible for that, too? Is it the fault of my boss that he has nowork for me?’37

Chapter 5: Unemployment
I am glad your friend asked the question, for every workingman realises how important this matter of unemployment is
to him. You know what your life is when you are out of work;
and when you do have a job, how the fear of losing it hangsover you. You are also aware what a danger the standing armyof unemployed is to you when you are out on strike for better
conditions. You know that strikebreakers are enlisted from theunemployed whom capitalism always keeps on hand, to help
break your strike.
‘How does capitalism keep the unemployed on hand?’ youask.
Simply by compelling you to work long hours and as hard as
possible, so as to produce the greatest amount. All the modern
schemes of ‘efficiency’, the Taylor and other systems of ‘economy’ and ‘rationalization’ serve only to squeeze greater profits
out of the worker. It is economy in the interest of the employer
only. But as concerns you, the worker, this ‘economy’ spells thegreatest expenditure of your effort and energy, a fatal waste ofyour vitality.
It pays the employer to use up and exploit your strength andability at the highest tension. True, it ruins your health andbreaks down your nervous system, makes you a prey to illness
and disease (there are even special proletarian diseases), cripples you and brings you to an early grave — but what does yourboss care? Are there not thousands of unemployed waiting foryour job and ready to take it the moment you are disabled or
dead?

38

That is why it is to the profit of the capitalist to keep an armyof unemployed ready at hand. It is part and parcel of the wage
system, a necessary and inevitable characteristic of it.
It is in the interest of the people that there should be no
unemployed, that all should have an opportunity to work andearn their living; that all should help, each according to his
ability and strength, to increase the wealth of the country, sothat each should be able to have a greater share of it.
But capitalism is not interested in the welfare of the people.
Capitalism, as I have shown before, is interested only in profits. By employing less people and working them long hours
larger profits can be made than by giving work to more people at shorter hours. That is why it is to the interest of youremployer, for instance, to have 100 people work 10 hours dailyrather than to employ 200 at 5 hours. He would need moreroom for 200 than for 100 persons — a larger factory, more
tools and machinery, and so on. That is, he would require agreater investment of capital. The employment of a larger force
at less hours would bring less profits, and that is why your boss
will not run his factory or shop on such a plan. Which meansthat a system of profit-making is not compatible with considerations of humanity and the well-being of the workers. On thecontrary, the harder and more ‘efficiently’ you work and thelonger hours you stay at it, the better for your employer andthe greater his profits.
You can therefore see that capitalism is not interested in
employing all those who want and are able to work. On thecontrary: a minimum of ‘hands’ and a maximum of effort isthe principle and the profit of the capitalist system. This is thewhole secret of all ‘rationalization’ schemes. And that is why
you will find thousands of people in every capitalist country
willing and anxious to work, yet unable to get employment.
This army of unemployed is a constant threat to your standardof living. They are ready to take your place at lower pay, because necessity compels them to it. That is, of course, very ad39

there to its fullest possibilities. They realized that it was not
merely a bourgeois political change that was taking place. They
knew that the people were not satisfied with the abolition of
the Tsar and not content with a constitution. They saw thatthings were developing further. They understood that the taking of the land by the peasantry and the growing expropriationof the possessing classes did not signify “reform.” Closer to themasses than the Mensheviki, the Bolsheviki felt the popularpulse and more correctly judged the spirit and purpose of thetremendous events. It was foremost of all Lenin, the Bolshevik
leader, who believed that the time was approaching when heand his Party might grasp the reins of government and establish Socialism on the Bolshevik plan.
Bolshevik Socialism meant the seizing of political power by
the Bolsheviki in the name of the proletariat. They agreed with
the Anarchists that Communism would be the best economic
system; that is, the land, the machinery of production and distribution, and all public utilities should be owned in common,
excluding private possession in those things. But while the Anarchists wanted the people as a whole to be the owners, theBolsheviki held that everything must be in the hands of theState, which meant that the government would not only be thepolitical ruler of the country but also its industrial and economic master. The Bolsheviki as Marxists believed in a strong
government to run the country, with absolute power over the
lives and fortunes of the people. In other words, the Bolshevik
idea was a dictatorship, that dictatorship to be in the hands ofthemselves, of their political Party.
They called such an arrangement the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” because their Party, they said, represented the best
and foremost element, the advance guard of the working class,and their Party should therefore be dictator in the name of theproletariat.
The great difference between the Anarchists and the
Bolsheviki was that the Anarchists wanted the masses to
152

The masters were determined to uphold the legend of ‘justice in the courts’, because their whole power rests on the popular belief in such justice. It is not that infallibility is claimed
for judges. If that were the attitude, there would be no appeal
from the decision of a judge, there would be neither superior
nor supreme courts. The fallibility of Justice is admitted, but
the fact that the courts and all government institutions serve
only to support the rule of the masters over their labor slaves— that their justice is but class justice — that could not be admitted for even an instant. Because if the people found that
out, capitalism and government would be doomed. That is exactly why no impartial review of the evidence in the Sacco and
Vanzetti case could be permitted, no new trial given them, forsuch a proceeding would have exposed the motives and objects
back of their prosecution.
Therefore there was no appeal and no new trial — only a starchamber hearing behind closed doors in the Governor’s mansion, by men whose loyalty to the dominant class was above
suspicion; men who by all their training and education, by theirtradition and interests were bound to sustain the courts andclear the Sacco and Vanzetti verdict of any imputation of classjustice. Therefore Sacco and Vanzetti had to die.
Governor Fuller of Massachusetts pronounced the final wordof their doom. There were, even up to the last moment, thousands who had hoped that the Governor would shrink fromcommitting this cold-blooded murder. But they did not knowor had forgotten that years before, in 1919, the same Fuller had
stated in Congress that every ‘radical, socialist, I.W.W., or anarchist should be exterminated’; that is, that those who seek tofree labor should be murdered. Could you reasonably expect
such a man to do justice to Sacco and Vanzetti, two avowed
Anarchists?
Governor Fuller acted according to his sentiments, in keeping with his attitude and interests as a member of the rulingclass, in a manner thoroughly class-conscious. Similarly have77

acted Judge Thayer and all those involved in the prosecution,no less than the ‘respectable gentlemen’ of the Commission appointed by Fuller to ‘review’ the case in secret session. All ofthem class-conscious, they were interested only in sustaining
capitalistic ‘justice’, so as to preserve the ‘law and order’ by
which they live and profit.
Is there justice for labor within capitalism and government?
Can there be any as long as the present system exists? Decide
for yourself.
The cases I have cited are but a few of the numerous struggles of American labor against capital. The same can be duplicated in every country. They clearly demonstrate the fact that
1. there is only class justice in the war of capital against
labor; there can be no justice for labor under capitalism.
2. law and government, as well as all other capitalist institutions (the press, the school, the church, the police, andcourts) are always at the service of capital against labor,
whatever the merits of any given case. Capital and government are twins with one common interest.
3. capital and government will use any and all means tokeep the proletariat in subjection: they will terrorize theworking class and ruthlessly murder its most intelligent
and devoted members.
It cannot be otherwise, because there is a life-and-deathstruggle between capital and labor.
Every time that capital and its servant, the law, hang suchmen as the Chicago Anarchists or electrocute the Saccos andVanzettis, they proclaim that they have ‘freed society from amenace’. They want you to believe that the executed were yourenemies, enemies of society. They also want you to believe that
their death has settled the matter, that capitalistic justice has
been vindicated, and that ‘law and order’ has triumphed. But
78

Chapter 16: The Bolsheviki
Who were the Bolsheviki, and what did they want?
Up to the year 1903, the Bolsheviki were members of the Russian Socialist Party; that is, Social Democrats, followers of KarlMarx and his teachings. In that year the Social Democratic Labor Party of Russia split on the question of organization andother minor matters. Under the leadership of Lenin the opposition formed a new party, which called itself Bolshevik. The oldparty became known as Menshevik.1
The Bolsheviki were more revolutionary than the motherparty from which they seceded. When the world war brokeout they did not betray the cause of the workers and join thepatriotic jingoes, as did the majority of the other Socialist parties. To their credit be it said that, like most of the Anarchists
and Left Socialists Revolutionists, the Bolsheviki opposed thewar on the ground that the proletariat had no interest in thequarrels of conflicting capitalist groups. When the February
Revolution began the Bolsheviki realized that political changes
alone would do no good, would not solve the labor and social
problems. They knew that putting one government in place ofanother would not help matters. What was needed was a radical, fundamental change.
Though Marxists like their Menshevik step-brothers (believers in the theories of Karl Marx), the Bolsheviki did not agreewith the Mensheviki in their attitude to the great upheaval.
They scorned the idea that Russia could not have a proletarian revolution because capitalist industry had not developed
1

From the Russian word bolshe, meaning “more” or majority; menshe
signifying “less.”151But they had a great advantage in that their idea appealed
to the healthy instincts and sound sense of the masses. To theextent of their ability and limited power the Anarchists encouraged the demand for peace, land, and bread, and actively helped
carry out those demands by direct expropriation and the formation of a free communal life.
There was another political party in Russia which was far
more numerous and better organized than the Anarchists. Thatparty realized the value of the Anarchist ideas and set to work
to carry them out.
It was the Bolsheviki.

150

the matter is not settled, and the masters’ victory is only temporary. The struggle goes on, as it has continued all throughthe history of man, all through the march of labor and liberty.
No matter is ever settled unless it is settled right. You can’t
suppress the natural yearning of the human heart for freedom
and well-being, however much terror and murder governments
may resort to. You can’t stifle the demand of the toiler for better conditions. The struggle goes on and will continue in spiteof everything law, government, and capital may do. But thatthe workers may not be wasting their energy and efforts in thewrong direction, they must clearly understand that they canno more hope for justice from the courts, from law and government, than they can expect wage slavery to be abolished bytheir masters.
‘What’s to be done, then?’ you ask. ‘How shall the workers
get justice?’

79

Chapter 9: Can The Church
Help You?
What’s to be done?
How abolish poverty, oppression, and tyranny? How eliminate evil and injustice, weed out corruption, put an end tocrime and murder?
How do away with wage slavery?
How secure liberty and well-being, joy and sunshine for every one?
‘Turn to God,’ commands the church; ‘only a Christian life
can save the world.’‘Let us pass a new law,’ says the reformer; ‘man must becompelled to be good.’‘Vote for me!’ says the politician; ‘I’ll look after your interests.’‘The Trade Union,’ advises your labor friend; ‘that’s yourhope.’‘Only Socialism can abolish capitalism and do away withwage slavery,’ insists the Socialist.
‘I’m a Bolshevik,’ announces another; ‘only the dictatorshipof the proletariat will free the workers.’‘We’ll remain slaves as long as we have rulers and masters,’
says the Anarchist; ‘only liberty can make us free.’
The Protectionist and the Free Trader, the Single Taxer andthe Fabian, the Tolstoyan and the Mutualist, and a score ofother social physicians all prescribe their particular medicine
to cure the ills of society, and you wonder who is right andwhat the true solution might be.
80

The most radical element in Russia were the Anarchists,
who demanded immediate peace, free land for the peasant, andthe socialization of the means of production and distribution.
They wanted the abolition of capitalism and wage slavery,equal rights for all and special privileges to none. The land,
the factories and mills, the machinery of production and themeans of distribution were to become the possession of thewhole people. Each able person was to work according to his
ability and receive according to his needs. There was to be
full liberty for every one and joint use on the basis of mutualinterests. The Anarchists warned the proletariat against delegating power to any government or placing a political party inauthority. Government of any kind, they said, would stifle the
Revolution and rob the workers of the results already achieved.
The life and welfare of a country depended on economics, noton politics, they argued. That is, what people want is to live,
to work and satisfy their needs. For this, sensible managementof industry is necessary, not politics. Politics, they insisted, isa game to rule and govern men, not to help them live. In short,the Anarchists advised the toilers to permit no one to become
their master again, to abolish political government, and to
manage their agrarian, industrial, and social affairs for thegood of all instead of for the benefit of rulers and exploiters.
They called upon the masses to stand by their Soviets and lookafter their interests by means of their own organizations.
The Anarchists were, however, comparatively small in numbers. As the most advanced and revolutionary element they
had been persecuted by the Tsarist régime even worse thanthe Socialists. Many of them had been executed, others imprisoned and their organizations suppressed as illegal. It was mostdangerous to belong to the Anarchists, and their work of education was exceedingly difficult. Therefore, the Anarchists were
not strong and could not exert much influence upon the people
at large in a vast country of 120 millions of population.

149

in a country where capitalism had reached its highest stageof development? Russia was very backward industrially, andtherefore it would be against the teachings of Marx to consider
the Revolution proletarian. For that reason capitalism must remain in Russia and be given a chance to ripen before the people
could think of abolishing wage slavery.
The Social Democrats had a large following among the workers of Russia, many labor unions being Menshevik. But the argument that the Revolution was not proletarian only because
Marx had fifty years before said that it couldn’t be, did not appeal to the toilers. They had made the Revolution, they had
fought and bled for it. They had driven out the Tsar and his
clique, and they were now driving out their industrial masters,
thus abolishing wage slavery and capitalism. They could not
see why they could not do what they were actually doing only
because some one who was dead long ago had believed that it
couldn’t be done. The reasoning of the Socialist leaders was too“scientific” for them. Their common sense told them that it waspure nonsense, and the Mensheviki lost most of their following
among the workers.
Another political party was called Socialists Revolutionists.
To this party belonged many of the terrorists who had been active against Tsardom in the past. The Socialists Revolutionists
had numerous adherents, mainly among the farming population. But they alienated them by taking a stand for the continuation of the war when the country was against it. This
attitude also caused a split in the party, the conservative element becoming known as the Right Socialists Revolutionists,
while the more revolutionary faction called itself Left Socialists Revolutionists. The latter, led by Maria Spiridonova, who
had suffered many years of Siberian imprisonment under the
Tsar, advocated the termination of the war and secured a very
considerable following, particularly among the poorer agricultural classes.

148

You cannot make any greater mistake than to accept blindly
this or that advice. You are sure to go wrong.
Only your own reason and experience can decide where theright road lies. Examine the various proposals and determinewith your own common sense which is the most reasonable
and practical. Only then will you know what is best for yourself, for the worker, and for mankind.
So let us look into the different plans.
Can the church help you?
Maybe you are a Christian, or a member of some other religion — Jew, Mormon, Mohammedan, Buddhist, or what not.
It makes no difference. A man should be free to believe whatever he pleases. The point is not what your religious faith is, butwhether religion can abolish the evils we suffer from.
As I said before, we have only one life to live on this earth,and we want to make the best of it. What will happen to us
after we are dead we don’t know. The chances are we’ll neverknow, and so it’s no use bothering about it.
The question here is of life, not of death. It is the living weare concerned with; with you and me and others like ourselves.
Can the world be made a better place for us to live in? That’s
what we want to know. Can religion do it?
Christianity is about 2,000 years old. Has it abolished any
evil? Has it done away with crime and murder, has it delivered
us from poverty and misery, from despotism and tyranny?
You know that it has not. You know that the Christian
Church, like all other churches, has always been on the side of
the masters, against the people. More: the church has caused
worse strife and bloodshed than all the wars of kings andkaisers. Religion has divided mankind into opposing beliefs,
and the most bloody wars have been fought on account ofreligious differences. The church has persecuted people for
their opinions, imprisoned and killed them. The Catholic
Inquisition terrorized the whole world, tortured so-called
heretics, and burned them alive. Other churches did the same81

when they had the power. They always sought to enslave andexploit the people, to keep them in ignorance and darkness.
They condemned every effort of man to develop his mind,
to advance, to improve his condition. They damned science,and silenced the men who thirsted for knowledge. Till thisvery day institutionalized religion is the Judas of its alleged
Savior. It approves of murder and war, of wage slavery andcapitalistic robbery, and always stands for the ‘law and order’
which crucified the Nazarene.
Consider: Jesus wanted all men to be brothers, to live inpeace and good will. The church upholds inequality, national
strife, and war.
Jesus condemned the rich as vipers and oppressors of thepoor. The church bows before the rich and accumulates vast
wealth.
The Nazarene was born in a manger and remained a pauper
all his life. His alleged representatives and spokesmen on earth
live in palaces.
Jesus preached meekness. The Princes of the Church are
haughty and purse-proud.
‘As you do unto the least of my children,’ Christ said, ‘you
do unto me.’ The church supports the capitalist system which
enslaves little children and brings them to an early grave.
‘Thou shalt not kill,’ commanded the Nazarene. The church
approves of executions and war.
Christianity is the greatest hypocrisy on record. Neither
Christian nations nor individuals practice the precepts of Jesus.
The early Christians did — and they were crucified, burned at
the stake, or thrown to the wild animals in the Roman arena.
Later the Christian Church compromised with those in power;
she gained money and influence by taking the side of thetyrants against the people. She sanctioned everything which
Christ condemned, and by that she won the good will andsupport of kings and masters. To-day king, master, and priest
are one trinity. They crucify Jesus daily; they glorify him with82

Various and even opposing views were represented in theSoviet, as is inevitable in bodies composed of different classesof the population with their particular interests. But the greatest influence under such circumstances is always exerted bythose who voice the deepest feelings and needs of the People.
Therefore, the more revolutionary elements in the Soviet gradually gained the mastery, for they expressed the true wants andaspirations of the masses.
There were those in the Soviet who held that a constitution,
something like that of the United States, was all that Russia
needed to attain freedom and well-being. They asserted that
capitalism was all right: there must be masters and servants,rich and poor; the people should be satisfied with the rights
and liberties which a democratic government would grant
them. These were the Constitutional Democrats, called forshort Cadets in Russia. They quickly lost their influence,
because the “naïve” Russian workers and peasants knew that
it was not rights and liberties on paper they wanted, but
a chance to work and enjoy the fruits of their labor. They
pointed to America with its Constitution and Declaration of
Independence, and said that they did not care for the injustice,corruption, and wage slavery which constitutionally existed
in that country.
The next more liberal element were the Social Democrats,
known as Mensheviki. As Socialists they believed in the abolition of capitalism, but they declared that the Revolution was
not the time to do it. Why not? Because it was not a proletarian revolution, they claimed, even if it looked like one. They
maintained that it could not be a social revolution and therefore it should not alter the fundamental economic conditionsof the country. According to them it was only a bourgeois revolution, a political one, and as such it should make only politicalchanges. It could not be anything more than a bourgeois revolution, the Mensheviki argued, because had not the great KarlMarx taught that a proletarian revolution could take place only147

and useless slaughter. By the hundred thousands they wereleaving the fields of battle and returning home to their farms
and factories. There they began carrying into effect the real
objects of the Revolution. For to them the Revolution did notmean printed constitutions and paper rights, but the land andthe workshop. Between June and October, 1917, while the Provisional Government kept on endlessly discussing “reforms,”
the peasants started confiscating the estates of the large landholders and the workers took possession of the industries.
This was called expropriating the capitalist class: that is, depriving the masters of the things they had no right to monopolize, the things they had appropriated from the laboring classes,
from the people.
In this manner the soil was expropriated from the landlords,
the mines and mills from their “owners,” the warehouses fromthe speculators. The workers and farmers took everything incharge through their labor unions and agrarian organizations.
The “liberal” Government of Miliukov had insisted on keeping up the war because the Allies wanted it. The “revolutionary” Government of Kerensky also remained deaf to the popular demands. It passed drastic laws against the “unauthorized”
taking of land by the peasantry. Kerensky did everything in his
power to keep the army at the front and even reintroduced thedeath penalty for “desertion.” But the people now ignored thegovernment.
The situation again proved that the real power of a countrylies in the hands of the masses, of those who fight, toil, andproduce, and not in any parliament or government. Kerensky
at one time was the adored idol of Russia, more powerful than
any Tsar. Yet his authority was lost, his government fell, and hehimself had to flee for his life when the people realized that hewas not serving their cause. While he was still the head of theProvisional Government, the actual power began to go over tothe Petrograd Soviet, most of whose members were revolutionary workers, peasants, and soldiers.
146

lip service and betray him for silver pieces; they praise hisname and kill his spirit.
It is obvious that Christianity is the greatest sham and shameof humanity, and a complete failure because the Christian appeal is a lie. The churches do not practice what they preach.
Moreover, they preach to you a gospel which they know you
cannot live up to; they call upon you to become a ‘better man’without giving you a chance to do so. On the contrary, thechurches uphold the conditions that make you ‘bad’, while they
command you to be ‘good’. They benefit materially by the existing régime and are financially interested in keeping it up. The
Catholic Church, the Protestant, Anglican, Christian Science,
Mormon, and other denominations are among the wealthiest
organizations in the world to-day. Their possessions represent
the workers’ blood and flesh. Their influence is proof of how
the people are deluded. The prophets of religion are dead andforgotten; there remain only the profits.
‘But if we would lead a truly Christian life,’ you remark, ‘theworld would be different.’
You are right, my friend. But can you live a Christian life
under present conditions? Does capitalism allow you to leadsuch a life? Will the government permit you to do so? Will
even the church give you a chance to live a Christian life?
Just try it for a single day and see what happens to you.
As you leave your house in the morning, determine to be a
Christian that day and speak only the truth. As you pass thepoliceman on the corner, remind him of Christ and His commandments. Tell him to ‘love his enemy as himself’, and persuade him to throw away his club and gun.
And when you meet the soldier on the street, impress it upon
him that Jesus had said, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’
In your shop or office speak the whole truth to you employer.
Tell him of the Nazarene’s warning. ‘What shall it profit you
to gain the whole earth and lose your soul and its salvation?’
Mention that He commanded us to share our last loaf with the83poor; that He said that the rich man has no more chance ofgetting into heaven than the camel can pass through the eye ofa needle.
And when you are brought to court for disturbing the peaceof the good Christians, remind the Judge: ‘Judge not that ye be
not judged.’
You will be declared a fool or a madman, and they will send
you to a lunatic asylum or to prison.
You can see, then, what rank hypocrisy it is for the sky pilot
to preach the Christian life to you. He knows as well as youthat under capitalism and government there is no more chance
to lead a Christian life than for a camel to ‘pass through theneedle’s eye’. All those good folks who pretend to be Christians
are just hypocrites who preach what cannot be practiced, forthey don’t give you any opportunity to lead a Christian life. No,
not even to lead an ordinarily decent and honest life, without
sham and deceit, without pretense and lying.
It is true that if we could follow the precepts of the Nazarene
this would be a different world to live in. There would thenbe no murder and no war; no cheating and lying and profitmaking. There would be neither slave nor master, and weshould all live like brothers, in peace and harmony. There
would be neither poor nor rich, neither crime nor prison, butthat would not be what the church wants. It would be what
the Anarchists want, and that we shall discuss further on.
So, my friend, you have nothing to expect from the Christian
Church or from any church. All progress and improvement in
the world has been made against the will and wishes of thechurch. You may believe in whatever religion you please, but
don’t put any hope of social improvement in the church.
Now let’s see whether the reformer or politician can help us.

84

it will break down every obstacle, sweep away all opposition,and its momentum will carry it even further than its original
intention.
That has been the story of every great conflict, of every revolution.
Recall the American War for Independence, for instance.
The rebellion of the colonies against Great Britain began withthe refusal to pay the tea tax exacted by the Governmentof George III. The comparatively unimportant objection to“taxation without representation,” meeting with the King’s
opposition, resulted in war and ended in completely freeing
the American colonies from English rule. Thus was born the
Republic of the United States.
The French Revolution similarly began with the demand forsmall improvements and reforms. The refusal of Louis XVI tolend ear to the popular voice cost him not only his throne but
also his head, and brought about the destruction of the entire
feudal system in France.
Just so did Tsar Nicholas II believe that a few insignificant
concessions would stop the revolution. He also paid for his stupidity with his crown and life. The same fate overtook the Provisional Government. That is why a wise man said that “history
repeats itself.” It always does with government.
The Provisional Government consisted mostly of conservative men who did not understand the people and who were far
removed from their needs. The masses demanded peace firstof all. The Provisional Government, under the leadership of
Miliukov and later under Kerensky, was determined to continue the war even in the face of the general dissatisfaction
and the serious breakdown of the industrial and economic lifeof the country. The rising waves of the Revolution were soon
to sweep it away: the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
was preparing to take matters into its own hands.
Meanwhile the people did not wait. The soldiers at the front
had already themselves decided to quit the war as unnecessary
145the mines, shops, and factories, so as to produce what theyneeded. But under the Provisional Government, just as under
the Romanovs, those things belonged to the wealthy; theyremained “private property.”
As I say, the simple Russian knew nothing about politics,
but he knew exactly what he wanted. He lost no time in making his wants known, and he was determined to get them. The
soldiers and sailors chose spokesmen from their own midst topresent to the Provisional Government their demand to terminate the war. Their representatives organized themselves as soldiers’ councils, called soviets in Russia. The peasants and thecity workers did the same. In this manner every branch of thearmy and navy, every agricultural and industrial district, every factory even, established its own soviets. In the course oftime the various soviets formed the All-Russian Soviet of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies, which held its sessions
in Petrograd.
Through the Soviets the people presently began to voice
their demands.
The Provisional Government, the new “liberal” régime under
the leadership of Miliukov, paid no attention. It is characteristic of all political parties alike that, once in power, they turn adeaf ear to the needs and wants of the masses. The Provisional
Government was no different in this than the Tsarist autocracy.
It failed to understand the spirit of the time, and it stupidly believed that a few minor reforms would satisfy the country. It
kept busy talking and discussing, proposing new bills and enacting more legislation. But it was not laws the people wanted.
They wanted peace, while the government insisted on continuing the war. They cried for land and bread, but what they got
was more laws.
If history teaches anything at all its clearest lesson is thatyou can’t defy or resist the will of a whole people. You can
suppress it for a while, stem the tide of popular protest, but
the more violently will the storm rage when it comes. Then
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Chapter 10: Reformer andPolitician
Who is the reformer, and what does he propose?
The reformer wants to ‘reform and improve.’ He is not surewhat it is that he really wants to change: sometimes he saysthat ‘people are bad,’ and it is them that he wants to ‘reform’;at other times he means to ‘improve’ conditions. He does notbelieve in abolishing an evil altogether. Doing away with something that is rotten is ‘too radical’ for him. ‘For Heaven’s sake,’he cautions you, ‘don’t be too hasty.’ He wants to change things
gradually, little by little. Take war, for example. War is bad, ofcourse, the reformer admits; it is wholesale murder, a blot upon
our civilization. But — abolish it? Oh, no! He wants to ‘reform’
it. He wants to ‘limit armaments,’ for instance. With less armaments, he says, we’ll kill fewer people. He wants to ‘humanize’
war, to make slaughter more decent, so to speak.
If you should carry out his ideas in your personal life, you
would not have a rotten tooth that aches pulled out all at once.
You would have it pulled out a little to-day, some more next
week for several months or years, and by then you would beready to pull it out altogether, so it should not hurt so much.
That is the logic of the reformer. Don’t be ‘too hasty,’ don’t pulla bad tooth out all at once.
The reformer thinks he can make people better by law. ‘Passa new law,’ he says whenever anything goes wrong; ‘compel
men to be good.’
He forgets that for hundreds, even for thousands, of years
laws have been made to force people to ‘be good,’ yet human85

nature remains about what it always was. We have so manylaws that even the proverbial Philadelphia lawyer is lost in
their maze. The ordinary person can’t tell any more what isright or wrong according to statute, what is just, what true or
false. A special class of persons — judges — decide what is honest or dishonest, when it is permitted to steal and in what manner, when fraud is legal and when it is not, when murder isright and when it is a crime, which uniform entitles you to kill
and which does not. It takes many laws to determine all this,and for centuries legislators have been busy making laws (at agood salary), and yet to-day we still need more laws, for all theother laws have failed to make you ‘good.’
Still the lawmaker continues to compel people to be good. If
the existing laws have not made you better, he says, then weneed more laws and stricter ones. Stiffer sentences will diminish and prevent crime, he claims, while he appeals in behalf ofhis ‘reform’ to the very men who have stolen the earth fromthe people.
If some one has killed another in a business quarrel, formoney or other advantage, the reformer will not admit thatmoney and money getting rouse the worst passions and drive
men to crime and murder. He will argue that the willful takingof human life deserves capital punishment, and he will straightaway help the government send armed men to some foreigncountry to do wholesale killing there.
The reformer cannot think straight. He does not understandthat if men act badly it is because they think it is to their advantage to do so. The reformer says that a new law will change
all that. He is a born prohibitionist: he wants to prohibit men
from being bad. If a man lost his job, for instance, feels blue
about it, and gets drunk to forget his troubles, the reformer
wouldn’t think of helping the man to find work. No; it is drinking that must be prohibited, he insists. He thinks he has reformed you by driving you out of the saloon into the cellar
where you stealthily slush on vile moonshine instead of openly
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Chapter 15: Between
February and October
I remember attending a very large mass-meeting in Madison
Square Garden, New York, called to celebrate the dethronementof the Tsar. The huge hall was crowded with twenty thousandpeople wrought up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. “Russia is free!” the leading speaker began. A veritable hurricane ofapplause, shouts, and hurrahs greeted the declaration. It continued for many minutes, breaking out again and again. But
when the audience became quiet and the orator was about toproceed, there came a voice from the crowd:“Free for what?”
There was no reply. The speaker continued his harangue.
The Russians are a simple and naïve people. Never having
had any constitutional rights, they had no interest in politics
and were not corrupted by it. They knew little of congresses
and parliaments, and cared less about them.
“Free for what?” they wondered.
“You are free from the Tsar and his tyranny,” they were told.
That was very fine, they thought. “But how about the
war?” the soldier asked. “How about the land?” the peasantdemanded. “How about a decent existence?” the proletarian
urged. You see, my friend, those Russians were so “uneducated” they were not satisfied just to be free from something;
they wanted to be free for something, free to do what theywanted. And what they wanted was a chance to live, to workand enjoy the fruits of their labor. That is, they wanted accessto the land, so they could raise food for themselves; access to143

without a fight, — naturally enough, since the entire people
had become tired of its rule and had decided that it was
harmful and unnecessary, and that the country would bebetter off without it. The ceaseless agitation and educational
work carried on by the revolutionary elements (the Socialistsof various groups, including the Anarchists) had taught themasses to understand that Tsardom must be done away with.
So widespread had this sentiment become that even the army
— the most unenlightened group in Russia, as in every land
— had lost faith in the existing conditions. The people hadoutgrown the despotism, had freed themselves in mind andspirit from it, and thereby gained the strength and possibilityof freeing themselves actually, physically.
That is why the all-powerful autocrat could find no more
support in Russia; no, not even a single regiment to protect
him. The mightiest government in Europe broke down like ahouse of cards.
A temporary, Provisional Government, took the place of the
Tsar. Russia was free.

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taking a drink. In the same way he wants to reform you in what
you eat and do, in what you think and feel.
He refuses to see that his ‘reforms’ create worse evils thanthose they are supposed to suppress; that they cause more deceit, corruption, and vice. He puts one set of men to spy uponanother, and he thinks he has ‘raised the standard of morality’;he pretends to have made you ‘better’ by compelling you to bea hypocrite.
I don’t mean to detain you long with the reformer. We aregoing to meet him again as the politician. Without wishing to
be rough on him, I can say frankly that when the reformer ishonest he is a fool; when he is a politician he is a knave. In
either case, as we shall presently see, he cannot solve our problem of how to make the world a better place to live in.
The politician is first cousin to the reformer. ‘Pass a new law,’says the reformer, ‘and compel men to be good.’ ‘Let me pass
the law,’ says the politician, ‘and things will be better.’
You can tell the politician by his talk. In most cases he is a
grafter who wants to climb on your shoulders to power. Once
there, he forgets his solemn promises and thinks only of his
own ambitions and interests.
When the politician is honest he misleads you no less than
the grafter. Perhaps worse, because you put confidence in him
and are the more disappointed when he fails to do you any
good.
The reformer and the politician are both on the wrong track.
To try to change men by law is just like trying to change yourface by getting a new mirror. For men make laws, not laws men.
The law merely reflects men as they are, as the mirror reflects
your features.
‘But the law keeps people from becoming criminals,’
reformer and politician assert.
If that is true, if the law really prevents crime, then the morelaws the better. By the time we have passed enough laws there
will be no more crime. Well, why do you smile? Because you87know that it is nonsense, You know that the best the law can
do is to punish crime; it cannot prevent it.
Should the time ever come when the law could read a man’smind and detect there his intention to commit a crime, thenit might prevent it. But in that case the law would have nopolicemen to do the preventing, because they’d be in prison
themselves. And if the administration of law would be honest
and impartial, there would be neither judges nor lawmakers,
because they would be keeping the police company.
But seriously speaking, as things stand, how can the law prevent crime? It can do so only when the intention to commit acrime has been announced or has somehow become known.
But such cases are very rare. One does not advertise his criminal plans. The claim then that the law prevents crime is entirely
baseless.
‘But the fear of punishment,’ you object, ‘does it not prevent
crime?’
If that were the case crime would have stopped long ago, forsurely the law has done enough punishing. The whole experience of mankind disproves the idea that punishment preventscrime. On the contrary, it has been found that even the most
severe punishments do not frighten people away from crime.
England, as well as other countries, used to punish not only
murder but scores of lesser crimes with death. Yet it did not deter others from committing the same crimes. People were thenexecuted publicly, by hanging, by garroting, by the guillotine,in order to inspire greater fear. Yet even the most fearful punishment failed to prevent or diminish crime. It was found thatpublic executions had a brutalizing effect upon the people, andthere are cases on record where persons who witnessed an execution immediately committed the very crime the terrible punishment of which they had just witnessed. That is why public
execution was abolished: it did more harm than good. Statistics
show that there has been no increase of crime in countries thathave entirely done away with capital punishment.
88

people came out the victor, as they ultimately always do in the
struggle of light against darkness. What a lesson to the world,what encouragement to the weak in spirit, what hope it holds
for the further never-ceasing advance of mankind in spite of
all tyranny and persecution!
In 1905 broke out the first revolution in Russia. Still strong
was the autocracy, and the uprising of the masses was crushed,though not without its having compelled the Tsar to grantcertain constitutional rights. But fearfully did the government
avenge even those small concessions. Hundreds of revolutionists paid for them with their lives, thousands were imprisoned,
and many other thousands doomed to Siberia.
Again despotism drew a fresh breath and felt itself secureagainst the people. But not for long. The hunger for liberty may
he suppressed for a time; yet never exterminated. Man’s natural instinct is for freedom, and no power on earth can succeedin crushing it for very long.
Twelve years later — a very short time in the life of a people— came another revolution, that of February, 1917. It provedthat the spirit of 1905 was not dead, that the price paid for it inhuman lives had not been in vain. Truly has it been said thatthe blood of the martyrs nourishes the tree of liberty. The workand self-sacrifice of the revolutionists had borne fruit. Russia
had learned much from past experience, as succeeding events
proved.
The people had learned. In 1905 they had demanded only
some mitigation of the despotism, some small political liberties;
now they demanded the complete abolition of the tyrannicalrule.
The February Revolution sounded the death-knell of Tsardom. It was the least bloody revolution in all history. As
I have explained before, the power of even the strongest
government evaporates like smoke the moment the people
refuse to acknowledge its authority, to bow to it, and withhold
their support. The Romanov régime was conquered almost141liberty to reach the people, to enlighten the masses. Tsardom
was well protected by its numerous police and secret service, as
well as by the official church, press, and school which trained
the people in abject servility to the Tsar and unquestioning obedience to “law and order.” Dire punishment was visited uponanyone daring to voice a liberal sentiment; the most severelaws punished even the attempt to teach the peasants to read
and write. The government, the nobility, the clergy, and thebourgeoisie all combined, as usual, to stamp out and crush theleast effort to enlighten the masses. Deprived of every meansof spreading their ideas, the liberal elements in Russia were
driven to the necessity of employing violence against the barbarous tyranny, of resorting to acts of terror in order by suchmeans to mitigate, even to a small extent, the rule of despotism,
and at the same time to compel the attention of their country
and of the world at large to the unbearable conditions. It was
this tragic necessity that gave rise in Russia to terroristic activities, turning idealists, to whom human life was sacred, into
executioners of tyrants. Nature’s noblemen they were, thosemen and women who willingly, even eagerly, gave their lives
to lift the fearful yoke from the people. Like bright stars on
the firmament of the age-long warfare between oppression andliberty stand out the names of Sophie Perovskaya, Kibaltchitch,
Grinevitsky, Sasonov, and countless other martyrs, known andunknown, of darkest Russia.
It was a most uneven struggle, apparently a hopeless fight.
For the revolutionists were but a handful as against the almost
limitless power of Tsardom with its large armies, numerous
police, special bureaus of political spies, its notorious Third Department, the secret Okhrana, its universal system of house janitors as police aids, and with all the other great resources of avast country of over a hundred million population.
A losing fight. And yet, the splendid idealism of the Russian
youth — particularly of the student element — their unquenchable enthusiasm and devotion to liberty were not in vain. The
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Of course, there may be some cases in which the fear of punishment prevents a crime; but on the whole its only effect is
to make the criminal more circumspect, so that his detection ismore difficult.
There are, generally speaking, two types of crime: some committed in the heat of anger and passion, and in such cases one
does not stop to consider the consequences, and so the fear ofpunishment does not enter as a factor. The other class of crime
is committed with cold deliberation, mostly professionally, andin such cases fear of punishment only serves to make the criminal more careful to leave no traces. It is a well-known traitof the professional criminal that he thinks himself sufficiently
clever to avoid detection, no matter how often he happens to
be caught. He will always blame some particular circumstance,some accidental cause, or just ‘bad luck’ for having been arrested. ‘Next time I’ll be more careful,’ he says; or, ‘I won’t trust
my pal any more.’ But almost never will you find in him thefaintest thought of giving up crime on account of the punishment which may be meted out to him. I have known thousandsof criminals, yet hardly any of them ever took possible punishment into consideration.
It is just because fear of punishment has no deterrent effectthat crime continues in spite of all laws and courts, prisons andexecutions.
But let us suppose that punishment does have a deterring effect. Must there not be some powerful reasons that cause people to commit crime, notwithstanding all the dire punishment
inflicted?
What are those reasons?
Every prison warden will tell you that whenever there ismuch unemployment, hard times, the prisons get filled. This
fact is also born out by investigation into the causes of crime.
The greatest percentage of it is due directly to conditions, toindustrial and economic reasons. That is why the vast majority of the prison population come from the poor classes. It has
89been established that poverty and unemployment, with theirattendant misery and despair, are the chief sources of crime. Is
there any law to prevent poverty and unemployment?
Is there any law to abolish these main causes of crime? Are
not all the laws designed to keep up the conditions which produce poverty and misery, and thus manufacture crime all thetime?
Suppose a pipe burst in your house. You put a bucket underthe break to catch the escaping water, You can keep on putting
buckets there, but as long as you do not mend the broken pipe,
the leakage will continue, no matter how much you may swear
about it.
Our filled prisons are the buckets. Pass as many laws as you
want, punish the criminals as you may, the leakage will continue until you repair the broken social pipe.
Does the reformer or politician really want to mend thatpipe?
I have said that most crime is of an economic nature. That is,
it has to do with money, with possession, with the desire to getsomething with the least effort, to secure a living or wealth byhook or crook.
But that is just the ambition of our whole life, of our entire
civilization. As long as our existence is based on a spirit of thissort, will it be possible to eradicate crime? As long as society isbuilt on the principle of grabbing all you can, we must continue
to live that way. Some will try to do it ‘within the law’; others,
more courageous, reckless, or desperate, will do it outside thelaw. But the one and the other will really be doing the samething, and it’s the thing that is the crime, not the manner inwhich it is done.
Those who can do it within the law call the others criminals.
It’s for the ‘illegal’ criminals — and for those who might become such — that most of the laws are made.
The ‘illegal’ criminals are often caught. Their conviction andpunishment depend mainly on how successful they have been
90

The autocrat and his ministers, the aristocrats and their advisers all believed that it was just a matter of some street disorders, of strikes, and bread riots. They imagined themselvessafe in the saddle. But the “disorder” continued spreading overthe entire country, and presently the Tsar saw himself forced
to quit the throne. Before long the once mighty monarch wasarrested and exiled to Siberia, where he himself had formerly
sent thousands to their death, and where he and his whole family later met their doom.2 The Russian autocracy was abolished.
The February Revolution against the most powerful government in Europe was accomplished almost without firing a gun.
“How could it be done so easily?” you wonder.
The Romanov régime was an absolutism; Russia under theTsars was the most enslaved country in Europe. The people
practically had no rights. The whim of the autocrat wassupreme, the order of the police the highest law. The masses
lived in poverty and suffered the greatest oppression. They
longed for freedom.
For over a hundred years libertarians and revolutionists
in Russia worked to undermine the régime of tyranny, toenlighten the people and rouse them to rebellion against
their subjection. The history of that movement is replete withthe consecration and devotion of the finest men and women.
Thousands, even hundreds of thousands of them, lined theroad of Golgotha, filling the prisons, tortured and done todeath in the frozen wilds of Siberia. Beginning with theDecembrist attempt to secure a constitution, over a hundredyears ago, all through the century, the fires of liberty were
kept burning by the heroic self-sacrifice of the nihilists andrevolutionists. The story of that great martyrdom has no equalin the annals of man.
Apparently it was a losing struggle, for the complete denialof freedom made it practically impossible for the pioneers of
2

Executed by the Bolsheviki in Ekaterinburg, Siberia, in 1918.

139

Of course, the Russian Revolution did not accomplish thisgreat work over night. Revolutions, like everything else, grow:they begin small, accumulate strength develop, and broaden.
It was during the war that the Russian Revolution started,because of the dissatisfaction of the people at home and thearmy at the front. The country was tired of fighting; it wasworn out by hunger and misery. The soldiers had had enoughof slaughter; they began to ask why they must kill or be killed— and when soldiers begin asking questions, no war can continue much longer.
The despotism and corruption of the Tsarist government
added oil to the fire. The court had become a public scandal,
with the priest Rasputin debauching the Empress and throughhis influence over her and the Tsar controlling the affairsof State. Intrigues, bribery, and every form of venality were
rampant. The army funds were stolen by high officials, and thesoldiers were often forced to go into battle without enoughammunition and supplies. Their boots were paper-soled,
and many had no footgear at all. Some regiments revolted;
others refused to fight. More and more frequently the soldiers
fraternized with the “enemy” — young men like themselves,
who had the misfortune of being born in a different country;
and who, like the Russians, had been ordered to war without
knowing why they must shoot or be shot. Great numbers
dropped their guns and returned home. There they told thefolks about the fearful conditions at the front, the useless carnage, the wretchedness, and disaster. That helped to increase
the discontent of the masses, and presently voices began to bebeard against the Tsar and his régime.
Day by day this sentiment grew; it was fanned into flameby increased taxes and great want, by the shortage of food andprovisions.
In February, 1917, the Revolution broke out. As usual in suchcases, the powers that be were stricken with blindness.

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in their criminal career. The more successful, the less chanceof their conviction, the lighter their punishment. It is not thecrime they committed which will ultimately decide their fate,
but their ability to employ expensive lawyers, their politicaland social connections, their money and influence. It will generally be the poor and friendless fellow who will be made tofeel the full weight of the law; he’ll get speedy ‘justice’ and theheaviest penalty. He is not able to take advantage of the various delays which the law affords to his richer fellow criminal,
for appeals to higher courts are expensive luxuries which themoneyless criminal cannot indulge in. That is why you almost
never see a rich man behind prison bars; such are occasionally ‘found guilty’, but mighty seldom punished. Nor will you
find many professional criminals in prison. These know ‘theropes’; they have friends and connections; usually they also
have ‘fall money’, for just such occasions, with which to ‘oil’
their way out of the legal meshes. Those you find in our prisonsand penitentiaries are the poorest of society, accidental criminals, mostly workingman and farm boys whom poverty andmisfortune, striking and picketing, unemployment and general
helplessness have brought behind the bars.
Are these at least reformed by the law and the penalties they
undergo? Hardly. They come out of prison weakened in bodyand mind, hardened by the mistreatment and cruelty they suffered from or witnessed there, embittered by their fate. They
have to go back to the same conditions which had made themlaw-breakers in the first place, but now they are labeled ‘criminals’, are looked down upon, scorned even by former friends,
and persecuted and hounded by the police as men ‘with a criminal record’. It is not long before most of them are again behindthe bars.
So our social merry-go-round revolves. And all the time theconditions that had made those unfortunates into criminals
continue manufacturing new crops of them, and ‘law and or-91der’ goes on as before, and the reformer and the politician keepbusy making more laws.
It is a profitable business, this law-making. Have you everstopped to consider whether our courts, police, and the wholemachinery of so-called justice really want to abolish crime? Is it
to the interest of the policeman, the detective, the sheriff, thejudge, the lawyer, the prison contractors, wardens, deputies,
keepers, and the thousands of others who live by the ‘administration of justice’ to do away with crime? Supposing there
were no criminals, could those ‘administrators’ hold their jobs?
Could you be taxed for their support? Would they not have to
do some honest work?
Think it over and see if crime is not a more lucrative sourceof income to the ‘dispensers of justice’ than to the criminals
themselves. Can you reasonably believe that they really want
to abolish crime?
Their ‘business’ is to apprehend and punish the criminal; but
it is not to their interest to do away with crime, for that’s theirbread and butter. That is the reason why they will not look into
the causes of crime. They are quite satisfied with things as theyare. They are the staunchest defenders of the existing system,of ‘justice’ and punishment, the champions of ‘law and order’.
They catch and punish ‘criminals’, but they leave crime and its
causes severely alone.
‘But what is the law for that?’ you demand.
The law is to keep up existing conditions, to preserve ‘lawand order.’ More laws are constantly made, all for the same purpose of defending and sustaining the present order of things.
‘To reform men,’ as the reformer says; ‘to improve conditions,’
as the politician assures you.
But the new laws leave men as they are, and conditions remain, on the whole, the same. Since capitalism and wage slavery began, millions of laws have been passed, but capitalism
and wage slavery still remain. The truth is, all the laws serve
only to make capitalism stronger and perpetuate the workers’
92

worker, who until then were mere serfs. But the power of thebourgeoisie, its industrial mastery, made the farmer its abject
dependent and turned the city worker into a wage slave.
It could not be otherwise, because liberty is an empty soundas long as you are kept in bondage economically. As I havepointed out before, freedom means that you have the right to
do a certain thing; but if you have no opportunity to do it, thatright is sheer mockery. The opportunity lies in your economic
condition, whatever the political situation may be. No politicalrights can be of the least use to the man who is compelled toslave all his life to keep himself and family from starvation.
Great as the French Revolution was as a step toward emancipation from the despotism of king and noble, it could accomplish nothing for the real freedom of man because it did notsecure for him economic opportunity and independence.
It is for that reason that the Russian Revolution was a far
more significant event than all the previous upheavals. It not
only abolished the Tsar and his absolute sway; it did something
more important: it destroyed the economic power of the possessing classes, of the land barons and industrial kings. For thatreason it is the greatest happening in all history, the first andonly time that such a thing has been tried.
This could not have been done by the French Revolution, because the people then still believed that political emancipation
would be enough to make men free and equal. They did not
realize that the basis of all liberty is economic. But that is by
no means to the discredit of the French Revolution; the times
were not ripe for a fundamental economic change.
Coming a hundred and twenty-eight years later, the Russian
Revolution was more enlightened. It went to the root of thetrouble. It knew that no political freedom would do any good
unless the peasants got the soil and the workers the factories intheir possession, so that they should not remain at the mercyof the land monopolists and the capitalistic owners of the industries.
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Chapter 14: The February
Revolution
In Russia the Bolsheviki, known as the Communist Party, arein control of the government. The Revolution of October, 1917,
put them in power.1
That Revolution was the most important event in the world
since the French Revolution in 1789–1793. It was even greaterthan the latter, because it went much deeper to the rock bottomof society. The French Revolution sought to establish political
freedom and equality, believing that it would thereby also secure brotherhood and welfare for all. It was a mighty step inadvance on the road of progress and it ultimately changed theentire political face of Europe. It abolished the monarchy inFrance, established a republic, and gave the death blow to feudalism, to the absolute rule of the church and the nobility. It
influenced every country on the Continent along progressivelines, and helped to further democratic sentiment throughout
Europe.
But fundamentally it altered nothing. It was a political revolution, to secure political rights and liberties. It did secure them.
France is a “democracy” to-day and the motto, “Liberty, Brotherhood, Equality,” is written even on every prison building. But
it did not free man from exploitation and oppression; and that
is, after all, the thing which is needed most.
The French Revolution put the middle classes, the bourgeoisie, into the government, in place of the aristocracy andnobility. It gave certain constitutional rights to the farmer and1

136

According to the old Russian calendar, in November.

subjection. It is the business of the politician, the ‘science of politics’, to make you believe that the law protects you and yourinterests, while it merely serves to keep up the system whichrobs, dupes, and enslaves you in body and mind. All the institutions of society have this one object in view: to instil in you
respect for law and government, to awe you with its authority and sanctity, and thus support the social framework which
rests upon your ignorance and your obedience. The whole secret of the thing is that the masters want to keep their stolen
possessions. Law and government are the means by which they
do it.
There is no great mystery about this matter of government
and laws. Nor is there anything sacred or holy about them.
Laws are made and unmade; old laws are abolished, and newlaws are passed. It is all the work of men, human, and therefore
fallible and temporary. There is nothing eternal or unchangeable about them. But whatever laws you make and however
you change them, they always serve one purpose: to compel
people to do certain things, to restrain them from or punish
them for doing other things. That is to say, the only purpose oflaws and government is to rule the people, to keep them fromdoing what they want and prescribe to them what certain otherpeople want them to do.
But why must people be kept from doing what they want?
And what is it that they want to do?
If you look into this you will find that people want to live,
to satisfy their needs, to enjoy life. And in this all people arealike, as I have already pointed out before. But if people are to
be prevented from living and enjoying their lives, then there
must be some amongst us who have an interest in doing that.
So it is in fact: there are indeed people who don’t want us
to live and enjoy life, because they have taken the joy out of
our lives, and they don’t want to give it back to us. Capitalism
has done it, and government which serves capitalism. To let
the people enjoy life would mean to stop robbing and oppress93

ing them. That is why capitalism needs government, that’s why
we are taught to respect the ‘sanctity of the law’. We have been
made to believe that breaking the law is criminal, though lawbreaking and crime are often entirely different things. We havebeen made to believe that any act against the law is bad for society, though it may be bad only for the masters and exploiters.
We have been made to believe that everything which threatens
the possessions of the rich is ‘evil’ and ‘wrong’, and that everything which weakens our chains and destroys our slavery is‘criminal’.
In short, there has been developed in the course of time akind of ‘morality’ that is useful for the rulers and masters only
— a class morality; really a slave morality, because it helps tokeep us in slavery. And whoever goes against this slave morality is called ‘bad,’ ‘immoral,’ a criminal, an anarchist.
If I should rob you of all you have and then persuade youthat what I did is good for you and that you should guard mybooty against others, it would be a very clever trick on my part,
wouldn’t it? It would secure me in my stolen possessions. Suppose further that I should also manage to convince you that wemust make a rule that no one may touch my stolen wealth andthat I may continue to accumulate more in the same manner,and that the arrangement is just and to your own best interests.
If such a crazy scheme should be actually carried out, then we’dhave the ‘law and order’ of government and capitalism which
we have to-day.
It is clear, of course, that laws would have no force if the people did not believe in them and did not obey them. So the firstthing to do is to make them believe that laws are necessary andthat they are good for them. And it is still better if you can leadthem to think that it is they themselves who make the laws.
Then they will be willing and anxious to obey them. That’s
what is called democracy: to get the people to believe that they
are their own rulers and that they themselves pass the laws of
their country. That’s the great advantage that a democracy or94

on slaughtering each other until ten millions of them lay dead,and twenty millions were blinded, maimed, and crippled.
It was inevitable that the policy of political, parliamentary
activity should lead to such results. For in truth so-called political ‘action’ is, so far as the cause of the workers and of true
progress is concerned, worse than inaction. The very essence ofpolitics is corruption, sail-trimming, the sacrifice of your ideals
and integrity for success. Bitter are the fruits of that ‘success’
for the masses and for every decent man and woman the world
over.
As a direct consequence of it millions of workers in every
country are discouraged and disheartened. Socialism — they
justly feel — has deluded and betrayed them. Fifty, nay, almosta hundred years of Socialist ‘work’ have resulted in the entire
bankruptcy of the Socialist parties, in the disillusionment of themasses, and have brought about a reaction which now dominates the entire world and holds labor by the throat with aniron grip.
Do you still think that the Socialist parties with their elections and politics can help the proletariat out of wage slavery?
By their fruits you shall know them.
‘But the Bolsheviks,’ you protest, ‘they did not betray theworkers. They have Socialism in Russia to-day!’Let us take a look at Russia, then.

135

may some day help us do away entirely with all the forces ofsuperstition and tyranny.
But the Socialists determined to give up this most necessary
work, declaring religion to be a ‘private matter.’Those compromises and the repudiation of the real aimsof Socialism paid rather well. The Socialists gained politicalstrength at the sacrifice of ideals. But that ‘strength’ has in thelong run spelled weakness and ruin.
There is nothing more corrupting than compromise. One
step in that direction calls for another, makes it necessary andcompelling, and soon it swamps you with the force of a rollingsnowball become a landslide.
One by one those features of Socialism which were reallysignificant, educational, and liberating were sacrificed in behalf of politics, to secure more favorable public opinion, lessen
persecution, and accomplish ‘something practical’; that is, toget more Socialists elected to office. In this process, which has
been going on for years in every country, the Socialist parties
in Europe acquired a membership that numbered millions. But
these millions were not socialistic at all; they were party followers who had no conception of the real spirit and meaningof Socialism; men and women steeped in old prejudices andcapitalistic views; bourgeois-minded people, narrow nationalists, church members, believers in divine authority and consequently also in human government, in the domination of man
by man, in the State and its institutions of oppression and exploitation, in the necessity of defending ‘their’ government andcountry, in patriotism and militarism.
Is it any wonder, then, that when the Great War broke out Socialists in every country, with few exceptions, took up arms to‘defend the fatherland’, the fatherland of their rulers and masters? The German Socialist fought for his autocratic Kaiser, theAustrian for the Hapsburg monarchy, the Russian for the Tsar,the Italian for his King, the Frenchman for the ‘republic,’ andso the ‘Socialists’ of every country and their followers went134

a republic has over a monarchy. In olden times the businessof ruling and robbing the people was much harder and moredangerous. The king or feudal lord had to compel people byforce to serve him. He would hire armed bands to make his
subjects submit and pay tribute to him. But that was expensive
and troublesome. A better way was found by ‘educating’ thepopulace to believe that they ‘owe’ the king loyalty and faithful service. Governing then became much easier, but still thepeople knew that the king was their lord and commander. A
republic, however, is much safer and more comfortable for therulers, for there the people imagine that they themselves are
the masters. And no matter how exploited and oppressed they
are, in a ‘democracy’ they think themselves free and independent.
That is why the average workingman in the United States,
for instance, considers himself a sovereign citizen, though he
has no more to say about the running of his country than the
starved peasant in Russia had under the Tsar. He thinks he is
free, while in fact he is only a wage slave. He believes he enjoys‘liberty for the pursuit of happiness’, while his days, weeks andyears, and his whole life, are mortgaged to the boss in the mineor factory.
The people under a tyranny know they are enslaved andsometimes they revolt. The people of America are in bondage
and don’t know it. That is why there are no revolutions in
America.
Modern capitalism is wise. It knows that it prospers best
under ‘democratic’ institutions, with the people electing theirown representatives to the lawmaking bodies, and indirectly
casting a vote even for the president. The capitalist masters do
not care how or for whom you vote, whether it be the Republican or the Democratic ticket. What difference is it to them?
Whoever you elect, he will legislate in favor of ‘law and order,’to protect things as they are. The main concern of the powersthat be is that the people should continue to believe in and up95

hold the existing system. That is why they spend millions forthe schools, colleges, and universities which ‘educate’ you tobelieve in capitalism and government. Politics and politicians,
governors and law-makers are only their puppets. They will
see to it that no legislation is passed against their interests.
Now and then they will make a show of fighting certain laws
and favoring others, else the game would lose its interest foryou. But whatever laws there be, the masters will take care thatthey shouldn’t hurt their business, and their well-paid lawyers
know how to turn every law to the benefit of the Big Interests,
as daily experience proves.
A very striking illustration of it is the famous Sherman
Anti-Trust Law. Organized labor spent thousands of dollars
and years of energy to pass that legislation. It was directedagainst growing capitalist monopoly, against the powerfulcombinations of money which ruled legislatures and courts
and lorded it over the workers with an iron hand. After longand expensive effort the Sherman Law was at last passed,
and labor leaders and politicians were jubilant over the ‘newepoch’ created by that law, as they enthusiastically assured
the toilers.
What has that law accomplished? The trusts have not been
hurt by it; they have remained safe and sound, in fact, they
have grown and multiplied. They dominate the country andtreat the workers as abject slaves. They are more powerful andprosperous than ever before.
But one important thing the Sherman Law did accomplish.
Passed especially in the ‘interests of labor’, it has been turned
against the workers and their unions. It is now used to breakup organizations of labor as being in ‘prevention of freecompetition’. The labor unions are now constantly menacedby that anti-trust law, while the capitalistic trusts go on their
way undisturbed.
My friend, do I need to tell you about the bribery and debauchery of politics, about the corruption of the courts, and96

has been. It is obvious that people who believe in the church,
swear by the priest and bow to his authority, will naturally
be obedient to him and his commands. Such people, steepedin ignorance and superstition, are the easiest victims of themasters. But in order to achieve greater success in their election campaigns, the Socialists decided to eliminate educationalanti-religious propaganda so as not to offend popular prejudices. They declared religion a ‘private matter,’ and excluded
all criticism of the church from their agitation.
What you personally believe in is indeed your private affair; but when you get together with other people and organize them into a body to impose your belief on others, to force
them to think as you do, and to punish them (to the extent of
your power) if they entertain other beliefs, then it is no more
your ‘private matter’. You might as well say that the Inquisition, which tortured and burned people alive as heretics, wasa ‘private affair.’
It was one of the worst betrayals of the cause of liberty by
the Socialists, this declaration that religion is a ‘private matter’.
Mankind has slowly grown out of the fearful ignorance, superstition, bigotry, and intolerance which made religious persecution and inquisitions possible. The advance of science and invention, the printed word and means of communication havebrought enlightenment, and it is that enlightenment which has
to some extent freed the human mind from the clutches of thechurch. Not that she has entirely ceased to damn those who do
not accept her dogmas. There is still enough of that persecution, but the advance of knowledge has robbed the church ofher former absolute sway over the mind, the life, and liberty
of man; just as progress has in the same way deprived government of the power to treat the people as absolute slaves andserfs.
You can easily see then how important it is to continue thework of enlightenment which has proven such a liberating
blessing for the people in the past; to continue it, so that it133

It therefore became their main object to win votes. To
achieve that they had to trim their sails. They had to lop off,
little by little, those parts of Socialism which might result inpersecution by the authorities, in disfavor from the church, or
which would keep bigoted elements from joining their ranks.
They had to compromise.
They did. First of all they stopped talking revolution. They
knew that capitalism cannot be abolished without a bitter
struggle, but they decided to tell the people that they could
bring about Socialism by legislation, by law, and that all thatis necessary is to put enough Socialists in the government.
They ceased denouncing government as an evil; they quit
enlightening the workers about its real character as an agency
for enslavement. Instead they began asserting that they, the Socialists, are the staunchest upholders of ‘the State’ and its best
defenders; that far from being opposed to ‘law and order’, they
are its truest friends; that they are, indeed, the only ones who
sincerely believe in government, except that the government
must be socialistic; that is, that they, the Socialists, are to makethe laws and run the government.
Thus, instead of weakening the false and enslaving belief inlaw and government, to weaken it so that those institutions
could be abolished as a means of oppression, the Socialists actually worked to strengthen the people’s faith in forcible authority and government, so that to-day the members of the Socialist parties the world over are the strongest believers in theState and are therefore called Statists. Yet their great teachers,
Marx and Engels, clearly taught that the State serves only tosuppress, and that when the people will achieve real liberty
the State will be abolished, will ‘disappear.’Socialist compromise for political success did not stop there.
It went further. To gain votes, the Socialist parties decided not
to educate the people about the falsity, hypocrisy, and menace of organized religion. We know what a bulwark of capitalism and slavery the church, as an institution, is and always132

the vile administration of ‘justice’? Do I need to remind you ofthe big Teapot-Dome and oil lease scandals, and the thousand
and one lesser ones of every-day occurence? It would be to insult your intelligence to dwell upon these universally known
things, for they are part and parcel of all politics, in every country.
The great evil is not that politicians are corrupt and the administration of law unjust. If that were the only trouble thenwe might try, like the reformer, to ‘purify’ politics and to work
for a more ‘just administration’. But it is not that which is thereal trouble. The trouble is not with impure politics, but thatthe whole game of politics is rotten. The trouble is not with defects in the administration of the law, but that law itself is an
instrument to subject and oppress the people.
The whole system of law and government is a machine tokeep the workers enslaved and to rob them of their toil. Everysocial ‘reform’ whose realization depends on law and government is already thereby doomed to failure.
‘But the union!’ exclaims your friend; ‘the labor union is thebest defense of the worker.’

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Chapter 11: The Trade Union‘Yes, the union is our only hope,’ you agree; ‘it makes us
strong.’Indeed, there never was a truer word spoken: in union there
is strength. It has taken labor a long time to realize this, andeven to-day many proletarians don’t understand it thoroughly.
There was a time when the workers did not know anything
about organization. Later, when they did begin to get together
to improve their condition, laws were passed against it and labor associations were forbidden.
The masters always opposed the organization of theiremployees, and the governments helped them to preventand suppress unions. It is not so long ago that England andother countries had very severe laws against workers’ gettingorganized. The attempt to better their situation by joint effort
was condemned as ‘conspiracy’ and was prohibited. It took thewage earners a long time to fight out their right of association;
and, mind you, they had to fight for it. Which shows you thatthe bosses have never granted anything to the workers except
when the latter fought for it and compelled them to yield.
Even to-day many employers oppose the organization of theiremployees; they prevent it wherever they can: they get labororganizers arrested and driven out of the city, and the law isalways on their side and helps them do it. Or they resort to thetrick of forming fake labor bodies, yellow company unions,which can be relied on to do the bosses’ bidding.
It is easy to understand why the masters don’t want you to
be organized, why they are afraid of a real labor union. They
know very well that a strong, fighting union can compel higher
98bankrupted Socialism, disillusioned the millions that earnestly
believed in it, and filled the world with black reaction. But it
was not only treachery, not treachery of the ordinary kind. The
real cause lies much deeper.
We are what we eat, a great thinker said. That is, the life welead, the environment we live in, the thoughts we think, andthe deeds we do — all subtly fashion our character and makeus what we are.
The Socialists’ long political activity and coöperation withbourgeois parties gradually turned their thoughts and mental
habits from Socialist ways of thinking. Little by little they forgot that the purpose of Socialism was to educate the masses, tomake them see through the game of capitalism, to teach themthat government is their enemy, that the church keeps them inignorance, that they are duped by ideas designed to perpetuate
the superstitions and wrongs on which present-day society isbuilt. In short, they forgot that Socialism was to be the Messiah who would drive darkness out of the minds and lives ofmen, lift them from the slough of ignorance and materialism,
and rouse their natural idealism, the striving for justice andbrotherhood, toward liberty and light.
They forgot it. They had to forget in order to be ‘practical,’ to‘accomplish’ something, to become successful politicians. You
cannot dive into a swamp and remain clean. They had to forget it, because their object had become to ‘get results’, to win
elections, to secure power. They knew that they could not havesuccess in politics by telling the people the whole truth about
conditions — for the truth not only antagonizes the government, the church, and the school; it also offends the prejudicesof the masses. These it is necessary to educate, and that is aslow and difficult process. But the political game demands success, quick results. The Socialists had to be careful not to comein too great conflict with the powers that be; they could notafford to lose time in educating the people.

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ests, while in reality they have made common cause with the
exploiters. They have so far forgotten and gone back on their
original Socialism that in the great World War the Socialist parties in even country in Europe helped their governments tolead the workers to slaughter.
The war has clearly demonstrated the bankruptcy of Socialism. The Socialist parties, whose motto was ‘Workers of theworld, unite!’ sent the toilers to murder each other. From having been bitter enemies of militarism and war they became defenders of ‘their’ land, urging the workers to don the soldiers’
uniform and kill their fellow workers in other countries.
Strange indeed! For years they had been telling the proletarians that they have no country that their interests are opposedto those of their masters, that labor has ‘nothing to lose but its
chains’, but at the first sign of war they called upon the toilers
to join the army and voted support and money for the government to do the work of carnage. This happened in every
country in Europe. True, there were Socialist minorities that
protested against the war, but the dominant majority in the Socialist parties condemned and ignored them, and lined up forthe slaughter.
It was a most terrible betrayal not only of Socialism but of
the whole working class, of humanity itself. Socialism, whose
purpose it was to educate the world to the evils of capitalism, tothe murderous character of patriotism, to the brutality and uselessness of war; Socialism, which was the champion of man’s
rights, of liberty and justice, the hope and promise of a better day, miserably turned into a defender of the government
and the masters, became the handmaiden of the militarists andjingo nationalists. The former Social Democrats became ‘social
patriots.’This did not happen because of mere treachery, however.
To take that view would be to miss the main point and misunderstand its warning lesson. Treachery it was indeed, bothin its nature and effect, and the results of that treachery have130

wages and better conditions, which means less profit for theplutocrats. That is why they do everything in their power tostop labor from organizing. When they can’t stop it, they try
their best to weaken the union or to corrupt its leaders, so thatthe union should not be dangerous to the bosses’ interests.
The masters have found a very effective way to paralyze thestrength of organized labor. They have persuaded the workers that they have the same interests as the employers; they
have made them believe that capital and labor have ‘identical interests’, and that what is good for the employer is also
good for his employees. They have given it the fine sounding
name of ‘Harmony between capital and labor’. If your interests
are the same as those of your boss, then why should you fighthim? That is what they tell you. The capitalist press, the government, the school, and the church all preach the same thing:that you live in peace and amity with your employer. It is goodfor the industrial magnates to have their workers believe thatthey are ‘partners’ in a common business: they will then work
hard and faithfully because it is ‘to their own interests’; theworkers will not think of fighting their masters for better conditions, but they will be patient and wait until the employer
can ‘share his prosperity’ with them. They will also consider
the interests and well-being of ‘their’ country and they will
not ‘disturb industry’ and the ‘orderly life of the community’
by strikes and stoppage of work. If you listen to your exploiters
and their mouthpieces you will be ‘good’ and consider only theinterests of your masters, of your city and country — but no one
cares about your interests and those of your family, the interests of your union and of your fellow workers of the laboringclass. ‘Don’t be selfish’, they admonish you, while the boss isgetting rich by your being good and unselfish. And they laughin their sleeves and thank the Lord that you are such an idiot.
But if you have followed me till now, then you know that theinterests of capital and labor are not the same. No greater lie
was ever invented than the so-called ‘identity of interests’. You99know that labor produces all the wealth of the world, and capital itself is only the accumulated products of labor. You knowthat there can be no capital, no wealth of any kind, except as
the result of labor. So that by right all the wealth belongs tolabor, to the men and women who have created it and keepon creating it by their brain and brawn; that is, to the industrial, agrarian, and mental workers of the world; to the wholeworking class, in short.
You know also that the capital owned by the masters is stolen
property, stolen products of labor. Capitalist industry is theprocess of continuing to appropriate the products of labor forthe benefit of the master class. The masters, in other words, exist and grow rich by keeping for themselves the products ofyour toil. Yet you are asked to believe that you, the workers,
have the same interests as your exploiters and robbers! Can
any one but a downright fool be taken in by such a plain fraud?
It is clear that your interests as a worker are different fromthe interests of your capitalistic masters. More than different:
they are entirely opposite; in fact, contrary, antagonistic toeach other. The better wages the boss pays you, the less profit
he makes out of you. It does not require great philosophy tounderstand that. You can’t get away from it, and no twistingand quibbling can change this solid truth.
The very existence of labor unions is itself proof of this,though most of the unions and their members don’t understand it. If the interests of labor and capital are the same, why
the union? If the boss really believes that what is good for
him, as a boss, is also good for you, his employee, then he willcertainly treat you right; he will pay you the highest wages
possible, so what’s the use of having your union? But you
know that you do need the union: you need it to help you
fight for better wages and better conditions of work. To fightwhom? Your boss, of course, your employer, the manufacturer,
the capitalist. But if you have to fight him, then it does notlook as if your interests and his are the same, does it? What100

the legislative bodies, by new laws that are to give them ‘relief’.
For years this process has been going on in all the countries of Europe. The Socialist parties have succeeded in electing
many of their members to various legislative and government
positions. Spending years in that atmosphere, enjoying goodjobs and pay, the elected Socialists have themselves become
part and parcel of the political machinery. They have come tofeel that it is no use waiting for the Socialist revolution to abolish capitalism. It is more practical to work for some ‘betterment’, to try to get a Socialist majority in the government. For
when they have a majority they will need no revolution, they
now say.
Slowly, by degrees, the Socialist change has taken place.
With growing success in elections and securing politicalpower they turn more conservative and content with existing conditions. Removed from the life and suffering of theworking class, living in the atmosphere of the bourgeoisie,of affluence and influence, they have become what they call‘practical.’ Seeing at first hand the political machinery at work,
knowing its debauchery and corruption, they have realizedthat there is no hope for Socialism in that swamp of deceit,
bribery, and corruption. But few, very few Socialists find thecourage to enlighten the workers about the hopelessness ofpolitics to aid the cause of labor. Such a confession would
mean the end of their political career, with its emoluments
and advantages. So the great majority of them are content tokeep their own counsel and let well enough alone. Power andposition have gradually stifled their conscience, and they havenot the strength and honesty to swim against the current.
That is what has become of Socialism, which had once been
the hope of the oppressed of the world. The Socialist parties
have joined hands with the bourgeoisie and the enemies oflabor. They have become the strongest bulwark of capitalism,
pretending to the masses that they are fighting for their inter129

Our Socialist perceives that he is regarded as a laughing
stock. His colleagues are getting tired of his ‘hot air’, and hefinds more and more difficulty in securing the floor. He is often
called to order and told he must speak to the point, but heknows that neither by his talk nor by his vote can he influence
the proceedings in the slightest degree. His speeches don’teven reach the public; they are buried in the Congressional
Record which no one reads, and he is painfully aware of beinga solitary and unheeded voice in the wilderness of politicalmachinations.
He appeals to the voters to elect more comrades to the legislative bodies. A lone Socialist cannot accomplish anything,
he tells them. Years pass, and at last the Socialist Party succeeds in having a number of its members elected. Each of themgoes through the same experience as their first colleague, but
now they quickly come to the conclusion that preaching Socialist doctrines to the politicians is worse than useless. They
decide to participate in the legislation. They must show thatthey are not just ‘spouting revolution’ but that they are practical men, statesmen, that they are doing something for theirconstituency, looking after its interests.
In this manner the situation compels them to take a ‘practical’ part in the proceedings, to ‘talk business,’ to fall in linewith the matters actually dealt with in the legislative body. Full
well they know that these things have no relation to Socialism
or to the abolition of capitalism. On the contrary, all this lawmaking and political mummery only strengthens the hold of
the masters upon the people; worse, it misleads the workers
into believing that the legislatures may do something for themand deludes them with the false hope that they may get resultsby politics. In this way it keeps them looking to the law andgovernment to ‘change things,’ to ‘improve’ their condition.
So the machinery of government carries on its work, themasters remain secure in their position, and the workers areheld off with promises of ‘action’ by their representatives in128

becomes of the precious ‘identity of interests’ then? Or maybe
you are fighting your boss for better wages because he is sofoolish that he does not understand his own interests? Maybe
he does not understand that it is good for him to pay you
more?
Well, you can see to what nonsense the idea of the ‘identityof interests’ leads. And still, the average labor union is built on
this ‘identity of interests’. There are some exceptions, of course,such as the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), the revolutionary syndicalist unions, and other class-conscious labororganizations. They know better. But the ordinary unions, suchas those belonging to the American Federation of Labor in the
United States, or the conservative unions of England, France,
Germany, and other countries, all proclaim the identity of interests between labor and capital. Yet as we have just seen,
their very existence, their strikes and struggles all prove thatthe ‘identity’ is a fake and a lie. How does it happen then thatthe unions pretend to believe in the identity of interests, while
their very existence and activity deny it?
It is because the average worker does not stop to think forhimself. He relies upon his union leaders and the newspapers
to do it for him, and they see to it that he should not do any
straight thinking. For if the workers should begin to think forthemselves, they would soon see through the whole schemeof graft, deceit, and robbery which is called government andcapitalism, and they would not stand for it. They would do as
the people had done before at various times. As soon as they
understood that they were slaves, they destroyed slavery. Lateron, when they realized that they were serfs, they did away withserfdom. And as soon as they will realize that they are wage
slaves, they will also abolish wage slavery.
You see, then, that it is to the interests of capital to keep
the workers from understanding that they are wage slaves. The‘identity of interests’ swindle is one of the means of doing it.

101But it is not only the capitalist who is interested in thus duping the workers. All those who profit by wage slavery are interested in keeping up the system, and all of them naturally try
to prevent the workers from understanding the situation.
We have seen before to whose advantage it is to keep things
as they are: to rulers and governments, to the churches, to the
middle-classes in short, to all who live on the toil of the masses.
But even the labor leaders themselves are interested in keeping
up wage slavery. Most of them are too ignorant to see throughthe fraud, and so they really believe that capitalism is all rightand that we can’t do without it. Yet others, the more intelligent ones, know the truth very well, but as highly paid andinfluential union officials they benefit by the continuation of
the capitalist system. They know that if the workers should
see through the whole thing, they would call their leaders toaccount for having misled and deceived them. They would revolt against their slavery and their misleaders — it might cometo a revolution, as has happened often before in history. But
labor leaders don’t care for revolution; they prefer to let wellenough alone, for things are well enough for them.
Indeed, the labor misleaders don’t favor revolution; they areeven opposed to strikes and try to prevent them whenever theycan.
When a strike does break out they will see to it that the men‘don’t go too far,’ and they will do their best to settle the differences with the employer by ‘arbitration,’ in which the workers
usually get the worst of it. They will hold conferences with thebosses and beg for some minor concessions, and only too often they will compromise the strike to the disadvantage of theunion — but in any and all cases they will exhort the workers to‘preserve law and order,’ to keep quiet, and be patient. They will
sit at the same table with the exploiters, be wined and dined bythem, and appeal to the government to ‘intercede’ and settlethe ‘trouble,’ but they will be mighty careful never to mention

102

best, when the proposed law is not specially designed to grant
new privileges to monopoly, it deals with matters involved incapitalist business, with some commercial treaty or agreement
between one government and another. But he, the Socialist,
was elected on a Socialist ticket, and it is his business to abolish the capitalistic government, to do away with the systemof commerce and profit altogether, so how can he speak ‘practically’ on the submitted bills? Of course he becomes a butt ofridicule to his colleagues, and soon he begins to see how stupid
and useless his presence is in the halls of legislation. That is
why some of the best men of the Socialist Party in Germany
turned against political action, as did John Most, for instance.
But there are few persons of such honesty and courage. As arule the Socialist remains in his position, and every day he iscompelled to realize more and more what a senseless rôle he isplaying. He comes to feel that he must find some way to takea serious part in the work, express sound opinions in the discussions and become a real factor in the proceedings. This isimperative in order to preserve his own dignity, to compel therespect of his colleagues, and also to show to his constituentsthat they did not elect a mere dummy.
So he begins to acquaint himself with the routine. He studies river dredging and coast improvement, reads up on appropriations, examines the hundred and one bills which come up
for consideration, and when he occasionally gets the floor —which is not very often — he tries to explain the proposed legislation from the Socialist standpoint, as he is in duty boundto do. He ‘makes a Socialist speech.’ He dwells on the suffering of the workers and the crimes of wage slavery; he informs
his colleagues that capitalism is an evil, that the rich must beabolished and the whole system done away with. He finishes
his peroration and sits down. The politicians exchange glances,smile and joke, and the assembly goes over to the business in
hand.

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have forsworn their ideals, have duped the masses, and turned
their political elevation to their own profit and glory.
‘These men who rose to power on the backs of labor and thenbetrayed the workers are scoundrels,’ I hear you say in just indignation. True, but that is not all. There is a deeper reason forthis constant and regular betrayal, a greater and more significant cause for this almost universal phenomenon. Socialists
are not essentially different from other men. They are human,
just as you and I. And no man turns scoundrel or traitor overnight.
It is power which corrupts. The consciousness that you possess power is itself the worst poison that corrodes the finest
metal of man. The filth and contamination of politics everywhere sufficiently prove that. Moreover, even with the best intentions Socialists in legislative bodies or in government positions find themselves entirely powerless to accomplish anything of a socialistic nature, anything of benefit to the workers.
For politics is not a means to better the conditions of labor. It
never was and never can be.
The demoralization and vitiation take place little by little, so
gradually that one hardly notices it himself. Just visualize for a
moment the condition of a Socialist elected to Congress, for instance. He is all alone, as against several hundred men of otherpolitical parties. He senses their opposition to his radical ideas,
and he finds himself in a strange and unfriendly atmosphere.
But he is there and he must participate in the business that isbeing transacted. Most of that business — the bills brought in,
the laws proposed — is entirely foreign to him. It has no bearing
whatever on the things the Socialist believes in, no connection
with the interests of the working class voters who elected him.
It is just the routine of legislation. It is only when a bill of somebearing upon labor or on the industrial and economic situation
comes up, that our Socialist can take part in the proceedings.
He does, and he is ignored or laughed at for his impracticalideas on the matter. For they are indeed impractical. Even at126

the source of all the labor troubles, never to touch upon wage
slavery itself.
Have you ever seen a single labor leader, of the American
Federation of Labor, for instance, stand up and declare that thewhole wage system is pure robbery and swindle, and demand
for the workers the full product of his toil? Have you ever heardof any ‘regular’ labor leader in any country do that? I neverdid, nor has any one else. On the contrary, when some decent
man dares do so, it is the labor leaders who are the first to
declare him a disturber, an ‘enemy of the workers’, a socialist
or an anarchist. They are the first to cry ‘Crucify him!’ and theunthinking workers unfortunately echo them.
Such men are crucified, because capital and government feelsafe in doing it as long as the people approve of it.
Do you see the point, my friend? Does it look as if your labor
leaders want you to get next to things, to understand that you
are a wage slave? Do they not really serve the interests of themasters?
The union leaders and politicians — the more intelligent ones
— know full well what great power labor could wield as thesole producer of the wealth of the world. But they don’t want
you to know it. They don’t want you to know that the workers, properly organized and enlightened, could do away with
their slavery and subjection. They tell you instead that yourunion is there only to help you get better wages, though they
are aware that you won’t improve your condition very muchwithin capitalism; and that you must always remain a wage
slave whatever pay the boss may give you. They know very
well that even when you do succeed, by means of a strike, in
getting a raise, you lose it again in the increased cost of living,
not to speak of the wages you lose while you are out on strike.
Statistics show that most of the important strikes are lost.
But let us suppose that you won your strike and that you wereout only a few weeks. In that time you have lost more in wages
than you can gain back working months at the higher pay.
103

Take a simple example. Suppose you were earning 40 dollars
a week when you went on strike. Let us assume the best possible result: we’ll say that the strike lasted only 3 weeks and thatyou gained a five dollar increase. During your 3 weeks’ strike
you lost 120 dollars in wages. Now you get five dollars a week
more, and it will take you 24 weeks to get that lost 120 dollars
back again. So, after six months work at the higher pay you
will just stand even. But how about the increased cost of livingin the meantime? Because you are not only a producer, you arealso a consumer. And when you go to buy things you will findthat they are more expensive than before. Higher wages mean
increased cost of living. Because what the employer loses bypaying you a greater wage he gets back again by raising theprice of his product.
You can see, then, that the whole idea of higher wages is inreality very misleading. It makes the worker think that he isactually better off when he gets more pay, but the fact is — so
far as the whole working class is concerned — that whatever
the worker gains by higher wages he loses as a consumer, andin the long run the situation remains the same. At the end ofa year of ‘higher wages’ the worker has no more than after ayear of ‘lower wages.’ Sometimes he is even worse off, because
the cost of living increases much faster than wages.
That is the general rule. Of course there are particular factorsthat affect wages as well as the cost of living, such as scarcity
of materials or of labor. But we need not go into special situations, into cases of industrial or financial crisis, or times of
unusual prosperity. What concerns us is the regular situation,
the normal condition of the workingman. And the normal condition is that he always remains a workingman, a wage slave,earning just enough to enable him to live and to continue towork for his boss. You will find exceptions now and then, as ofa worker inheriting or otherwise getting hold of some money,
which enables him to go into business, or inventing somethingthat may bring him wealth. But such cases are exceptions and104

toiler to-day with even greater arbitrariness than before. The
Socialist Party of Germany, with many million votes behind it,
has succeeded — in getting into office. The workers slave andsuffer as before.
The same picture you find in the other countries. In France
the Socialist Party is strongly represented in the government.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aristide Briand, who had
also held the post of Prime Minister, was formerly one of
the greatest lights of the Party in France. To-day he is thestrongest champion of capitalism and militarism. Many of hisformer fellow-Socialists are his colleagues in the government,
and many more present-day Socialists are in the French
Parliament and other important offices. What are they doing
for Socialism? What are they doing for the workers?
They are helping to defend and ‘stabilize’ the capitalistic
régime of France; they are busy passing laws increasing thetaxes so that the high government officials may get better
salaries; they are engaged in collecting the war indemnityfrom Germany, whose workers, just as their French brothers,
have to bleed for it. They are working hard to help ‘educate’France, and particularly her school children, to hate theGerman people; they are aiding to build more warships andmilitary airplanes for the next war which they are themselvespreparing by cultivating the spirit of jingoism and vengeanceagainst their neighbor countries. The new law mobilizing
every adult man and woman of France in case of war was
introduced by the prominent Socialist, Paul Boncour, andpassed with the aid of the Socialist members of the Chamberof Deputies.
In Austria and Belgium, in Sweden and Norway, in Holland
and Denmark, in Czecho-Slovakia, and in most other European
lands the Socialists have risen to power. In some countries entirely so, in others partly. And everywhere, without a single exception, they have followed the same course, everywhere they

125

The uprising of the workers in Germany, in 1918, forced
the Kaiser to flee the country, and the reign of the Hohenzollern was at an end. The people put their trust in the Social Democrats and voted them into power. But once securein the government, the Socialists turned against the masses.
They combined with the German bourgeoisie and the militaryclique, and themselves became the bulwark of capitalism andmilitarism. They not only disarmed the people and suppressed
the toilers but they even shot and imprisoned every Socialist
who dared protest against their treachery. Noske, as Socialist chief of the army during the Revolution, ordered his soldiers out against the workers and massacred them wholesale— the very proletarians who had voted him into power, his own
brother Socialists. At his hands perished Karl Liebknecht andRosa Luxemburg, two of the most devoted and loyal revolutionists, cold-bloodedly murdered in Berlin on January 16, 1919,
by army officers, with the secret connivance of the Socialist
government. The Anarchist poet and thinker, Gustav Landauer,and scores of the best friends of labor shared the same fate allover Germany.
Haase, Ebert, Scheidemann, Noske, and their Socialist lieutenants did not permit the Revolution to accomplish anythingvital. The moment they got into power they used it to crush
rebellious labor. The open and stealthy murder of the truly revolutionary elements was but one of the means used by the Socialist government to subdue the Revolution. Far from introducing any changes for the benefit of the workers, the Socialist Party became the most zealous defender of capitalism, preserving all the prerogatives and benefits of the aristocracy andmaster class. That is why the German Revolution accomplishednothing except to drive out the Kaiser. The nobility remainedin possession of all its titles, holdings, special rights, and privileges; the military caste retained the power it had under themonarchy; the bourgeoisie has been strengthened, and the financial kings and industrial magnates lord it over the German
124

they do not alter your condition; that is, the condition of the average toiler, of the millions of workingman all over the world.
So far as those millions are concerned, and so far as you, as
one of them, are concerned, you remain a wage slave, whatever
your work or your pay, and there is no chance for you to be
anything else under the system of capitalism.
Now, then, you might justly ask, ‘What is the use of theunion? What are the union leaders doing about it?’
The truth is that your union leaders do nothing about it. On
the contrary, they do everything they can to keep you a wage
slave. They do it by making you believe that capitalism is allright and by having you support the existing system with its
government and ‘law and order.’ They fool you by telling youthat it can’t be otherwise, just as the boss the school, the church,
and the government do. In fact, your labor leader is doing thesame work for capitalism that your political leader is doing
for the government: both support and get you to support thepresent system of injustice and exploitation.
‘But the union,’ you say, ‘why doesn’t the union change
things?’The union could change things. But what is the union? The
union is just you and the other fellow and more of them — themembership and the officials. You realize now that the officials,
the labor leaders, are not interested in changing things. Then
it is up to the membership to do it, isn’t it?
That’s it. But if the membership — the workers in general —don’t see what it is all about, then the union can’t do anything.
It means, therefore, that it is necessary to get the membershipto understand the real situation.
This should be the true purpose of the labor union. It shouldbe the union’s business to enlighten its members about theircondition, to show them why and how they are robbed andexploited, and find ways and means of doing away with it.
That would be fulfilling the union’s true purpose of protecting the interests of the worker. The abolition of the capitalistic105

order of things with its government and law would be the only
real defense of labor’s interests. And while the union would be
preparing for that, it would also be looking after the immediateneeds of labor, the improvement of present conditions, so far
as that is possible within capitalism.
But the ordinary, conservative union stands, as we have seen,
for capitalism and for everything connected with it. It takes it
for granted that you are a worker and that you are going to stayone, and that things must remain as they are. It asserts that all
the union can do is to help you get a little better wages, cut
down your hours of work, and improve the conditions underwhich you toil. It considers the employer a business partner, as
it were, and it makes contracts with him. But it never questions
why one of the partners — the boss — gets rich from that kind ofcontract, while the other partner, the worker, always remains
poor, labors hard, and dies a wage slave. It doesn’t seem to bean equal partnership, somehow. It looks more like a confidence
game, doesn’t it?
Well, it is. It is a game in which one side does all the pullingof the chestnuts out of the fire, while the other side takes possession of them. A very unequal partnership, and all the striking of the workers is merely to beg or compel the capitalistic
partner to give up a few chestnuts out of his big heap. A skingame, for all that, even when the worker succeeds in getting a
few extra nuts.
Yet they speak to you of your dignity, of the ‘dignity of labor.’
Can you think of any greater insult? You slave for the masters
all your life, you serve them and keep them in comfort andluxury, you let them lord it over you, and in their hearts theylaugh at you and despise you for your stupidity — and thenthey talk to you of your ‘dignity!’
From pulpit and platform, in the school and lecture room,
every labor leader and politician, every exploiter and grafter
extols the ‘dignity of labor’, while himself all the time sitting

106

ardor; it compelled them to soften their criticism of capitalism
and government in order to avoid persecution and secure more
votes. To-day the main stress of Socialist propaganda is not laid
any more on the educational value of politics but on the actual
election of Socialists to office.
The Socialist parties do not speak of revolution any more.
They claim now that when they get a majority in Congress or
Parliament they will legislate Socialism into being: they willlegally and peacefully abolish capitalism. In other words, they
have ceased to be revolutionists; they have become reformers
who want to change things by law.
Let us see, then, how they have been doing it during the past
several decades.
In almost every European country the Socialists have secured great political power. Some countries now have Socialist
governments, in others the Socialist parties have a majority;
in others again Socialists occupy the highest positions in theState, such as cabinet offices, even those of Prime Ministers.
Let us examine what they have accomplished for Socialism
and what they are doing for the workers.
In Germany, the mother of the Socialist movement, theSocial Democratic Party holds numerous government offices;
its members are in the municipal and national legislative
bodies, in the judiciary, and in the Cabinet. Two German
Presidents, Haase and Ebert, were Socialists. The present
Reichskanzler (Chancellor), Dr. Herman Müller, is a Socialist.
Herr Loebe, President of the Reichstag, is also a member of theSocialist Party. Scheidemann, Noske, and scores of others in
the highest positions in the government, in the army and navy,
are all leaders of the powerful German Social Democratic
Party. What have they done for the proletariat whose cause
the Party is supposed to champion? Have they brought about
Socialism? Have they abolished wage slavery? Have they
made the least attempt toward those objects?

123Can you believe that? Do you remember what Jay Gould said
when he was accused of getting his millions illegally and in defiance of the Constitution? ‘To hell with the Constitution!’ hereplied. And so every plutocrat feels, even if he is not as frank
as Gould. Constitution or no constitution, the capitalists would
fight to the death for their wealth and privileges. And that isjust what is meant by revolution. You can judge for yourself
whether capitalism can be abolished by electing Socialists tooffice or whether Socialism can be voted in by the ballot. It is
not hard to guess who’ll win a fight between ballots and bullets.
In former days the Socialists realized this very well. Thenthey claimed that they meant to use politics only for the purpose of propaganda. It was in the days when Socialist agitation was forbidden, particularly in Germany. ‘If you elect us to
the Reichstag’ (the German parliament), the Socialists told theworkers then, ‘we’ll be able to preach Socialism there and educate the people to it.’ There was some reason in that, because
the laws which prohibited Socialist speeches did not apply to
the Reichstag. So the Socialists favored political activity andtook part in elections in order to have an opportunity to advocate Socialism.
It may seem a harmless thing, but it proved the undoing ofSocialism. Because nothing is truer than that the means you
use to attain your object soon themselves become your object.
So money, for example, which is only a means to existence,
has itself become the aim of our lives. Similarly with government. The ‘elder’ chosen by the primitive community to attend
to some village business becomes the master, the ruler. Just so
it happened with the Socialists.
Little by little they changed their attitude. Instead of electioneering being merely an educational method, it graduallybecame their only aim to secure political office, to get elected tolegislative bodies and other government positions. The change
naturally led the Socialists to tone down their revolutionary122

comfortably on your back. Don’t you see how they are playing
you for a sucker?
What is the union doing about it? What are your labor leaders doing for the fat salary they make you pay them? They arebusy ‘organizing’ you, they are busy telling you what a fine fellow you are; how big and strong your union is, and how muchyour officials are doing for you. But what are they doing? Theirtime is taken up with petty matters of procedure, with factionalfights, with questions of jurisdiction, with elections of officers,
with conferences and conventions. You pay for it all, of course,
and that is why your officials are always in favor of a big union
treasury, but what have you got from it? You keep on working
in the factory or mill and paying your dues, and your labor
leader cares blessed little how hard you toil or how you live,
and you have to make a big racket at your union meeting tocompel attention to your needs and your complaints.
When the question of a strike is taken up you will notice,as I have mentioned before, that the leaders generally oppose
it — for they also like the boss and the ruler, want ‘peace andquiet’ instead of the discomforts involved in a fight. Wheneverthey can, the union leaders will dissuade you from striking, andsometimes even directly prevent and forbid it. They will outlaw
your organization if you go on strike without their consent.
But if the pressure is too strong for them to resist they will graciously ‘authorize’ the strike. Just imagine — you work hardand from your scanty earnings you support the union officials,
who should serve you, yet you have to get their permission to
improve your condition! It’s because you have made them thebosses of your organization, just as you have made the government your master instead of your servant — or as you permit
the policeman, whom you pay with your taxes, to order you
about instead of you giving him orders.
Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that when you areout on strike (and at all other times as well) the law and thewhole machinery of government is always on the side of the107boss? Why, the strikers number thousands while the boss isonly one, and they and he are supposed to be citizens of equal
rights — yet, strange to say, it’s the boss who always has thegovernment at his service. He can get the courts to issue an injunction against your ‘interfering’ with ‘his’ business, he canhave the police club you off the picket line, he can have you arrested and jailed. Did you ever hear of a mayor, chief of police,or governor order out the police or militia to protect your interests in a strike? Queer, isn’t it? Again, the boss can get plentyof scabs and blacklegs, under police protection, to help breakyour strike, because you have been working so many hours
that there is always an army of unemployed on hand ready totake your place. Generally you lose your strike because yourlabor leaders did not permit you to organize in the right way.
I have seen, for instance, bricklayers on a New Yorkskyscraper lay down their tools, while the carpenters and ironworkers on the same job remained at work. The strike did
not concern them, their unions said, because they belonged
to another trade; or they could not join the strikers becausethat would be breaking the contract their organizations had
made with the boss. 50 they kept at work on the building
where their brother union men had struck. That is, they
were actually scabbing and helping to break the strike of thebricklayers. Because, forsooth, they belonged to another craft,to a different trade! As if the struggle of labor against capitalwere a matter of craft and not the common cause of the wholeworking class!
Another example: the coal miners of Pennsylvania are on
strike, and the coal miners of Virginia are taxed to help the
strikers with money. The Virginia miners remain at work because they are ‘bound by contract’. They keep on mining coal,so that the coal magnates can supply the market and lose nothing by the strike of the Pennsylvania miners. Sometimes theyeven gain by making the strike an excuse for raising the priceof coal. Can you wonder that the Pennsylvania miners lose the108

What is that contradiction? It is this: Marx taught that ‘revolution is the midwife of capitalism pregnant with a new society’; that is, that capitalism will not be changed to Socialism
except by revolution. But in his Communist Manifesto, on theother hand, Marx insists that the proletariat must get hold of
the political machinery, of the government, in order to conquer
the bourgeoisie. The working class — he teaches — must grasp
the reins of the State, by means of the Socialist parties, and use
the political power to usher in Socialism.
This contradiction has caused the greatest confusion among
Socialists and has split the movement into many factions. The
majority of them, the regular Socialist parties in every country,
now stand for the conquest of political power, for the establishment of a Socialist government whose business it will be toabolish capitalism and bring about Socialism.
Judge for yourself if such a thing is possible. In the first place,Socialists themselves admit that the possessing classes will notgive up their wealth and privileges without a bitter fight andthat it will result in revolution.
Again, is the thing at all practical? Take the United States, forinstance. For over fifty years the Socialists have been trying toelect party members to Congress with the result that after half acentury of political work they have now just one member in theHouse of Representatives in Washington. How many centuries
will it take at that rate (and the rate is declining rather thangrowing) to get a Socialist majority in Congress?
But even suppose that the Socialists could some day securethat majority. Will they then be able to change capitalism to Socialism? It would require amending and altering the Constitution of the United States, as well as in the individual States, forwhich a two-thirds vote would be necessary. Just stop and consider: the American plutocrats, the trusts, the bourgeoisie, andall the other forces that benefit by capitalism; would they justsit quietly and permit the changing of the Constitution in sucha manner as to deprive them of their wealth and privileges?
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The present owners — Socialism further teaches — will notgive up their possessions without a struggle. All history andpast experience prove that. The privileged classes have always
held onto their advantages, always opposed every attempt toweaken their power over the masses. Even to-day they fightruthlessly every effort of labor for betterment. It is therefore
certain that in the future, as in the past, the plutocracy will
resist if you try to deprive them of their monopolies, special
rights, and privileges. That resistance will bring about a bitter
struggle, a revolution.
True socialism is therefore radical and revolutionary. Radical, because it goes to the very root of the social trouble (radix
meaning root in Latin); it does not believe in reforms andmakeshifts; it wants to change things from the very bottom.
Revolutionary, not because it wants bloodshed, but because
it clearly foresees that revolution is inevitable; it knows that
capitalism cannot be changed to Socialism without a violent
struggle between the possessing classes and the dispossessed
masses.
‘But if a revolution’, you ask, ‘then why do the Socialists
want me to vote them into office? Is the revolution to be fought
there?’Your question is to the point. If capitalism is to abolished byrevolution, what do the Socialists seek office for, why do they
try to get into the government?
Here is just where the great contradiction of Marxian Socialism comes in, a fundamental contradiction that has been fatal
to the Socialist movement in every country, and that has madeit ineffectual and powerless to be of any use to the working
class.
It is very necessary to realize that contradiction clearly inorder to understand why Socialism has failed, why the Socialists have gotten into a blind alley and can’t lead the workers to
emancipation.

120

strike, since their own fellow miners scab on them? But if theworkers understood their true interests if they would be organized not by craft or trade but by industries, so that the wholeindustry — and if necessary the whole working class — could
strike as one man, would any strike be lost?
We shall return to this subject. Just now I want to point out toyou that your union, as at present organized, and your union officials are not built for effectively fighting capitalism. Not built
even for successfully conducting strikes. They cannot materially improve your condition.
They serve only to keep the workers divided into different
and often opposing organizations; they train them to believethat capitalism is all right; they paralyze their initiative andability to think and act in a class conscious manner. That is why
the labor leaders and the conservative unions are the strongest
bulwark of existing institutions. They are the backbone of capitalism and of government, the best support of ‘law and order,’and the reason why you remain in wage slavery.
‘But we ourselves choose our union officials,’ you object; ‘ifthe present ones are no good, we can elect others.’
Of course, you can elect new leaders, but does it make any
difference whether this or that man is your leader, whether it isGompers or Green, Jouhaux in France, or Thomas in England,
as long as your union sticks to the same foolish ideas and false
methods, believes in capitalism and supports the ‘harmony ofinterests’, divides the workers and reduces their strength bycraft organization, makes contracts with the boss which bindthe membership and keep them scabbing on their fellows, andin many other ways upholds the régime of your bondage?
‘Then the union is no good?’ you demand.
In union there is strength, but it has to be a real union, a trueorganization of labor, because the workers everywhere havethe same interests no matter what work they do or to what particular craft they belong. Such a union would be based on themutual interests and solidarity of labor throughout the world.
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It would be conscious of its tremendous power as the creatorof all wealth.
‘Power!’ you object. ‘You said we’re slaves! What power canslaves have?’
Let us see about it, then.

to go into allegedly socialistic proposals such as ‘juster distribution of wealth’, ‘equalization of income’, ‘single tax’, or othersimilar plans. These are not Socialism; they are only reforms.
Mere parlor Socialism, such as Fabianism, for example, is alsoof no vital interest to the masses.
Let us therefore examine that school of Socialism which
treats of capitalism and the wage system fundamentally,
which deals with the worker, with the disinherited, and which
is known as the Social Democratic movement.1 It considers
all other forms of Socialism impractical and utopian; it calls
itself the only sound and scientific theory of true Socialism as
formulated by Karl Marx, the author of Capital, which is thegospel and guide of all Social Democrats.
Now, then, what do the Socialist followers of Karl Marx —known as Marxian Socialists, and whom, for the sake of brevity,
we’ll call simply Socialists — propose?
They say that the workers can never become free and secure
well being unless they abolish capitalism. The sources of
production and the means of distribution must be taken out ofprivate hands, they teach. That is to say, the land, machinery,mills, factories, mines, railroads and other public utilities
should not be owned privately, because such ownershipenslaves the workers as well as mankind in general. Private
possession of the things without which humanity cannot exist
must therefore cease. The means of production and distribution should become public property. Opportunity for free use
would do away with monopoly, with interest and profit, with
exploitation and wage slavery. Social inequality and injusticewould be eliminated, the classes would be abolished, and all
men would become free and equal.
These views of Socialism are also in full accord with the ideas
of most Anarchists.
1

Organized under the various names of “Social Democratic Party,” “Social Democratic Labor Party,” or “Socialist Labor Party.”

110

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Chapter 13: Socialism
When you ask this question, the Socialist tells you:
‘Vote the Socialist ticket. Elect our party. We’ll abolish capitalism and establish Socialism.’
What does the Socialist want, and how does he propose to
get it?
There are many varieties of Socialists. There are Social
Democrats, Fabian Socialists, National Socialists, ChristianSocialists, and other labels. Generally speaking, they all believein the abolition of poverty and unjust social conditions. But
they disagree very much as to what would be ‘just’ conditions
and, still more, how to bring them about.
These days even mere attempts to improve capitalism areoften called ‘Socialism,’ while in reality they are only reforms.
But such reforms cannot be considered socialistic because true
Socialism does not mean to ‘improve’ capitalism but to abolishit altogether. Socialism teaches that the conditions of labor cannot be essentially bettered under capitalism; on the contrary, itshows that the lot of the worker must steadily get worse withthe advancing development of industrialism, so that efforts to‘reform’ and ‘improve’ capitalism are directly opposed to Socialism and only delay its realization.
We have seen in preceding chapters that the enslavementof the workers, inequality, injustice, and other social evils are
the result of monopoly and exploitation, and that the system
is upheld by the political machine called government. It would
therefore serve no purpose to discuss those schools of Socialism (improperly so called) that do not stand for the abolition ofcapitalism and wage slavery. Just as useless it would be for us
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Chapter 12: Whose Is The
Power?
People talk about the greatness of their country, about thestrength of the government and the power of the capitalistclass. Let us see what that power really consists of, wherein
it lies, and who actually has it.
What is the government of a country? It is the King with his
ministers, or the President with his cabinet, the Parliament or
the Congress, and the officials of the various State and Federal
departments. Altogether a small number of persons as compared with the entire population.
Now, when is that handful of men, called government,strong and in what does its strength consist?
It is strong when the people are with it. Then they supply
the government with money, with an army and navy, obey it,
and enable it to function. In other words, the strength of a government depends entirely on the support it receives.
But can any government exist if the people are actively opposed to it? Could even the strongest government carry out
any undertaking without the aid of the populace, without thehelp of the masses, the workers of the country?
It is clear, of course, that no government can accomplish anything alone. It can do only what the people approve of or atleast permit to be done.
Take the great World War, for instance. The American financiers wanted the United States to get into it, because theyknew that they would rake in tremendous profits, as they actually did. But labor had nothing to gain from the war, for how
111can the toilers benefit by the slaughter of their fellows in someother land? The masses of America were not in favor of mixing
in the European imbroglio. As previously mentioned, they hadelected Woodrow Wilson President on a ‘keep us out of war’platform. Had the American people persisted in this determination, could the government have gotten us into the carnage?
How was it managed, then, that the people of the UnitedStates were induced to go to war when they had voted against
it by electing Wilson? I have already explained in a previous
chapter. Those interested in entering the war started a great
propaganda in favor of it. It was carried on in the press, inthe schools and pulpit; by preparedness parades, patriotic spellbinders, and shouting for ‘democracy’ and ‘war to end war.’ It
was a heinous way of fooling the people into believing thatthe war was for some ‘ideal’ instead of being just a capitalist
war for profits, as all modern wars are. Millions of dollars werespent on that propaganda, the money of the people, of course,
for in the end the people pay for everything. An artificial enthusiasm was worked up, with all kinds of promises to the workers of the wonderful things that would result for them from thewar. It was the greatest fraud and humbug, but the people of
the United States fell for it, and they went to war, though notvoluntarily, but by conscription.
And the spokesmen of the workers, the labor leaders? As
usual, they proved the best ‘patriots’, calling upon their union
members to go and get themselves killed, for the greater gloryof Mammon. What did the late Samuel Gompers, then President of the American Federation of Labor, do? He became theright-hand man of President Wilson, his chief recruiting lieutenant. He and his union officials turned sergeants of capitalin rounding up labor for the slaughter. The labor leaders of theother countries did the same.
Every one knows that the ‘war to end war’ really ended nothing. On the contrary, it has caused more political complications
than there have ever been before in Europe, and has prepared
112

Does such law and order deserve to live? Should such a social system be permitted to continue? Should it not be changed
for something else, something better, and is not the worker interested more than any one else in seeing to it? Should not his
own organization, built especially for his interests — the union— help him do it?
How?

117

It does not depend on any politics, nor on king, president,
parliament, or congress. It depends neither on the police, noron the army and navy — for these only consume and destroy,
they create nothing. Nor does it depend on laws and rules, on
legislators or courts, on politician or plutocrat. It resides entirely and exclusively in the ability of the workers in factoryand field, in the brain and brawn of the industrial and agricultural proletariat to labor, to create, to produce.
It is the productive power of the workers — of the man withthe plow and with the hammer, of the man of mind and muscle,of the masses, of the entire working class.
It follows, therefore, that the working class, in every country,
is the most important part of the population. In fact, it is the
only vital part. The rest of the people help in the social life,
but if need be we could do without them, while we could notlive even a single day without the man of labor. His is the allimportant economic power.
The strength of government and capital is external, outsideof themselves.
The strength of labor is not external. It lies in itself, in its
ability to work and create. It is the only real power.
Yet labor is held lowest in the social scale.
Is it not a topsy-turvy world, this world of capitalism andgovernment? The workers, who as a class are the most essential
part of society, who alone have real power, are powerless underpresent conditions. They are the poorest class, the least influential and least respected. They are looked down upon, the victims of every kind of oppression and exploitation, the least appreciated and least honored. They live wretchedly in ugly andunhealthy tenements, the death rate is greatest among them,
the prisons are filled with them, the gallows and electric chair
are for them.
This is the reward of labor in our society of government andcapitalism; that is what you get from the ‘law and order’ system.
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the field for a new and more terrible war than the last one. Butthat question does not belong here. I have referred to the matter merely to show you that without Gompers and the otherlabor leaders, without the consent and support of the toiling
masses, the government of the United States would have been
entirely unable to carry out the wishes of the lords of finance,industry, and commerce.
Or consider the case of Sacco and Vanzetti. Could Massachusetts have executed them if the organized workers ofAmerica had been against it, if they had taken action toprevent it? Suppose that Massachusetts labor had refused tosupport the State Government in its murderous intention:
suppose the workers had boycotted the Governor and his
agents, stopped supplying them with food, cut off their meansof communication, and shut off the electric current in Boston
and Charleston prison. The government would have been
powerless to function.
If you look at this matter with clear, unprejudiced eyes, youwill realize that it is not the people who are dependent on thegovernment, as is generally believed, but just the other way
about.
When the people withhold their aid from the government,
when they refuse obedience and pay no taxes, what happens?
The government cannot support its officials, cannot pay its police, cannot feed its army and navy. It remains without funds,
without means to carry out its orders. It is paralyzed. The handful of persons calling themselves the government become helpless — they lose their power and authority. If they can gather
enough men to aid them, they may try to fight the people. Ifthey cannot, or lose the fight, they have to give it up. Their“governing” is at an end.
That is to say, the power of even the strongest government
rests entirely in the people, in their willing support and obedience. It follows that government in itself has no power at113

all. The moment the people refuse to bow to its authority, thegovernment ceases to exist.
Now, what strength has capitalism? Does the power of thecapitalists rest in themselves, or where does it come from?
It is evident that their strength lies in their capital, in theirwealth. They own the industries, the shops, factories, and land.
But those possessions would do them no good but for the willingness of the people to work for them and pay tribute to them.
Suppose the workers should say to the capitalists: ‘We are tiredof making profits for you. We won’t slave for you any more.
You didn’t create the land, you didn’t build the factories, nor
the mills or shops. We built them and from now on we will use
them to work in, and what we produce will not be yours but
will belong to the people. You will get nothing, and we won’t
even give you any food for your money. You’ll be just like ourselves, and you will work like the rest of us.’
What would happen? Why, the capitalists would appeal to
the government for aid. They would demand protection for
their interests and possessions. But if the people refuse to recognize the authority of the government, the latter itself would
be helpless.
You might say that is revolution. Maybe it is. But whatever
you call it, it would amount to this: the government and thecapitalists — the political and financial rulers — would find outthat all their boasted power and strength disappear when thepeople refuse to acknowledge them as masters, refuse to letthem lord it over them.
Can this happen, you wonder. Well, it has happened manytimes before, and not so very long ago again in Russia, in Germany, in Austria. In Germany that mighty war lord, the Kaiser,
had to flee for his life, because the masses had decided they did
not want him any more. In Austria the monarchy was drivenout because the people got tired of its tyranny and corruption.
In Russia the most powerful Tsar was glad to give up his throne
to save his head, and failed even in that. In his own capital he114

could not find a single regiment to protect him, and all his great
authority went up in smoke when the populace refused to bow
to it. Just so the capitalists of Russia were made helpless when
the people stopped working for them and took the land, thefactories, the mines and mills for themselves. All the moneyand ‘power’ of the bourgeoisie in Russia could not get them apound of bread when the masses declined to supply it unlessthey did honest work.
What does it all prove?
It proves that so-called political, industrial, and financial
power, all the authority of government and capitalism is reallyin the hands of the people. It proves that only the people, themasses, have power.
This power, the people’s power, is actual: it cannot be taken
away, as the power of the ruler, of the politician, or of the capitalist can be. It cannot be taken away because it does not consist in possessions but in ability. It is the ability to create, toproduce; the power that feeds and clothes the world, that gives
us life, health and comfort, joy and pleasure.
How great this power is you will realize when you ask yourself:
Would life be possible at all if the workers did not toil?
Would the cities not starve if the farmers failed to supply themfood?
Could the railroads run if the railroad men suspended work?
Could any factory, shop, or mill continue operations but for thecoal miners?
Could trade or commerce go on if the transport workers
went on strike?
Would the theaters and movies, your office and house havelight if the electricians would not supply the current?
Truly has the poet spoken:‘All the wheels stand still
When your strong arms so will.’That is the productive, industrial power of labor.
115

of kings, of slavery and serfdom. There was a time when thewhole world believed those institutions to be right, just, andunchangeable. In the measure that those superstitions and false
beliefs were fought by advanced thinkers, they became discredited and lost their hold upon the people, and finally the institutions that incorporated those ideas were abolished. Highbrowswill tell you that they had “outlived their usefulness” and that
therefore they “died.” But how did they “outlive” their “usefulness”? To whom were they useful, and how did they “die”?
We know already that they were useful only to the masterclass, and that they were done away with by popular uprisingsand revolutions.
Why did not old and effete institutions “disappear” and die
off in a peaceful manner?
For two reasons: first, because some people think faster thanothers. So that it happens that a minority in a given place advance in their views quicker than the rest. The more that minority will become imbued with the new ideas, the more convincedof their truth, and the stronger they will feel themselves, thesooner they will try to realize their ideas; and that is usually
before the majority have come to see the new light. So that theminority have to struggle against the majority who still cling
to the old views and conditions.
Second, the resistance of those who hold power. It makes nodifference whether it is the church, the king, or kaiser, a democratic government or a dictatorship, a republic or an autocracythose in authority will fight desperately to retain it as long as
they can hope for the least chance of success. And the more aid
they get from the slower-thinking majority the better the fightthey can put up. Hence the fury of revolt and revolution.
The desperation of the masses, their hatred of those responsible for their misery, and the determination of the lords of life
to hold on to their privileges and rule combine to produce theviolence of popular uprisings and rebellions.

228

decide and manage their affairs for themselves, through theirown organizations, without orders from any political party.
They wanted real liberty and voluntary coöperation in joint
ownership. The Anarchists therefore called themselves freeCommunists, or Communist Anarchists, while the Bolsheviki
were compulsory, governmental or State Communists. The
Anarchists didn’t want any State to dictate to the people,
because such dictation, they argued, always means tyranny
and oppression. The Bolsheviki, on the other hand, while
repudiating the capitalist State and bourgeois dictatorship,
wanted the State and the dictatorship to be theirs, of their
Party.
You can therefore see that there is all the difference in theworld between the Anarchists and the Bolsheviki. The Anarchists are opposed to all government; the Bolsheviki are strong
for government on condition that it is in their hands. “They are
not against the big stick,” as a clever friend of mine is wont tosay; “they only want to be at the right end of it.”
But the Bolsheviki realized that the views and methods advocated by the Anarchists were sound and practical, and that only
such methods could assure the success of the Revolution. They
decided to make use of Anarchist ideas for their own purposes.
So it happened that although the Anarchists were themselves
too weak in numbers to reach the masses, they succeeded in
influencing the Bolsheviki, who presently began to advocate
Anarchist methods and tactics, pretending of course that they
were their own.
But they were not their own. You might say that it does notmatter who advocates or helps to carry out an idea that will
benefit the people. But if you think it over a bit you will realizethat it matters very much, as all history and particularly the
Russian Revolution proves.
It matters because everything depends on the motives, on
the purpose and spirit in which a thing is carried out. Even thebest idea can be applied in such a manner as to bring much
153

harm. Because the masses, fired by the great idea, may fail tonotice how, in what manner, and by what means it is being
carried out. But if carried out in the wrong spirit or by false
means, even the noblest and finest idea can be turned to theruin of the country and its people.
That is just what happened in Russia. The Bolsheviki advocated and partly carried out Anarchist ideas, but the Bolsheviki
were not Anarchists and they did not at heart believe in thoseideas. They used them for their own purposes — purposes thatwere not Anarchistic, that were really anti-Anarchistic, against
the Anarchist idea. What were those Bolshevik purposes?
The Anarchist idea was to do away with oppression of every
kind, to abolish the rule of one class over another, to substitutethe management of things for the mastery of man over man, tosecure liberty and well-being for all. Anarchist methods were
calculated to bring about such a result.
The Bolsheviki used the Anarchist methods for an entirely
different purpose. They did not want to abolish political domination and government: they only meant to get it into theirown hands. Their object was, as already explained, to gain control of political power by their Party and establish a Bolshevik
dictatorship. It is necessary to get this very clearly in order tounderstand what happened in the Russian Revolution and why“proletarian dictatorship” quickly became a Bolshevik dictatorship over the proletariat.
It was soon after the February Revolution that the Bolsheviki began to proclaim Anarchist principles and tactics. Amongthese were “direct action,” “the general strike,” “expropriation,”and similar modes of action by the masses. As I have said,
the Bolsheviki as Marxists did not believe in such methods.
At least they had not believed in them until the Revolution.
For years previously Socialists everywhere, including the Bolsheviki, had ridiculed the Anarchist advocacy of the generalstrike as the strongest weapon of the workers in their struggle
against capitalist exploitation and government oppression.
154

Take that idea or belief away, and no government could lastanother day.
The same applies to private ownership. The idea that it isright and necessary is the pillar that supports it and gives it
security.
Not a single institution exists to-day but is founded on the
popular belief that it is good and beneficial.
Let us take an illustration; the United States, for instance.
Ask yourself why revolutionary propaganda has been of so little effect in that country in spite of fifty years of Socialist andAnarchist effort. Is the American worker not exploited more
intensely than labor in other countries? Is political corruption
as rampant in any other land? Is the capitalist class in America not the most arbitrary and despotic in the world? True, theworker in the United States is better situated materially thanin Europe, but is he not at the same time treated with the utmost brutality and terrorism the moment he shows the leastdissatisfaction? Yet the American worker remains loyal to thegovernment and is the first to defend it against criticism. He
is still the most devoted champion of the “grand and noble institutions of the greatest country on earth.” Why? Because hebelieves that they are his institutions, that he, as sovereign andfree citizen, is running them and that he could change them
if he so wished. It is his faith in the existing order that constitutes its greatest security against revolution. His faith is stupid
and unjustified, and some day it will break down and with it
American capitalism and despotism. But as long as that faithpersists, American plutocracy is safe against revolution.
As men’s minds broaden and develop, as they advance to
new ideas and lose faith in their former beliefs, institutions begin to change and are ultimately done away with. The people
grow to understand that their former views were false, thatthey were not truth but prejudice and superstition.
In this way many ideas, once held to be true, have come to be
regarded as wrong and evil. Thus the ideas of the divine right227

Chapter 25: The Idea is theThing
Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that governmentand capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?
If you did, then your answer must have been that it is because the people support those institutions, and that they support them because they believe in them.
That is the crux of the whole matter: present-day society
rests on the belief of the people that it is good and useful. It
is founded on the idea of authority and private ownership. It is
ideas that maintain conditions. Government and capitalism are
the forms in which the popular ideas express themselves. Ideas
are the foundation; the institutions are the house built upon it.
A new social structure must have a new foundation, newideas at its base. However you may change the form of an institution, its character and meaning will remain the same as
the foundation on which it is built. Look closely at life and you
will perceive the truth of this. There are all kinds and formsof government in the world, but their real nature is the same
everywhere, as their effects are the same: it always means authority and obedience.
Now, what makes governments exist? The armies andnavies? Yes, but only apparently so. What supports the armies
and navies? It is the belief of the people, of the masses, thatgovernment is necessary; it is the generally accepted idea of
the need of government. That is its real and solid foundation.

226“The general strike is general nonsense,” was the war cry ofSocialists against the Anarchists. Socialists did not want theworkers to resort to direct mass action and the general strike,because it might lead to revolution and the taking of things
into their own hands. The Socialists wanted no independent
revolutionary action by the masses. They advocated politicalactivity. They wanted the workers to put them, the Socialists,
in power, so they could do the revolutionizing.
If you glance over the Socialist writings for the past forty
years, you will be convinced that Socialists were always against
the general strike and direct action, as they were also opposed
to expropriation and revolutionary syndicalism, which is another name for workers’ soviets. Socialist congresses passed
drastic resolutions against, and Socialist agitators fiercely denounced, all such revolutionary tactics.
But the Bolsheviki accepted these Anarchist methods and began advocating them with new-born conviction. Not, of course,
at the outbreak of the Revolution, in February, 1917. They did
it much later, when they saw that the masses were not content
with mere political changes and were demanding bread insteadof a constitution. The swiftly moving events of the Revolution
compelled the Bolsheviki to fall in line with the most radical
popular aspirations in order not to be left behind by the Revolution, as happened to the Mensheviki, to the Right Socialists
Revolutionists, the Constitutional Democrats, and to other reformers.
Very sudden was this Bolshevik acceptance of Anarchist
methods, because only a short time before they had been
insistently calling for the Constituent Assembly. For months
following the February Revolution they were demanding theconvocation of a representative body to determine the formof government that Russia was to have. It was right for the
Bolsheviki to favor the Constituent Assembly, since they
were Marxists and pretended to believe in majority rule. The
Constituent Assembly was to be elected by the entire people,
155

and the majority in the Assembly was to decide matters. But
the real reason why the Bolsheviki agitated for the Assembly
was that they believed the masses were with them and that
they, the Bolshevik Party, would he sure of a majority in the
Assembly. Presently, however, it became clear that they would
prove an insignificant minority in that body. Their hope todominate it vanished. As good governmentalists and believers
in majority rule they should have bowed to the will of thepeople. But that did not suit the plans of Lenin and his friends.
They looked about for other ways of getting control of thegovernment, and their first step was to begin a vehement
agitation against the Constituent Assembly.
To be sure, the Assembly could give nothing of value to thecountry. It was a mere talking machine, lacking all vitality, andunable to accomplish any constructive work. The Revolution
was a fact outside and independent of the Constituent Assembly, independent of any legislative or governmental body. It
began and was developing in spite of government and constitution, in spite of all opposition, in defiance of law. In its entire character it was unlawful, non-governmental, even antigovernmental. The Revolution followed the healthy natural impulses of the people, their needs and aspirations. In the truest
sense it was Anarchistic in spirit and deed. Only the Anarchists,
those governmental heretics who believe in liberty and popular
initiative as the cure for social ills, welcomed the Revolution as
it was and worked for its further growth and deepening, so as
to bring the entire life of the country within the sphere of its
influence.
All the other parties, including the Bolsheviki, had the sole
object of lassoing the revolutionary movement and tying it totheir particular band-wagon. The Bolsheviki needed the support of the masses to wrest political power for their Party andto proclaim the Communist dictatorship. Seeing that there wasno hope of accomplishing this through the Constituent Assembly, they turned against it, joined the Anarchists in condemn156

capital did not interfere: it did not care what political form Russia would have, as long as the government would be bourgeois
and capitalistic. But as soon as the Revolution attempted to doaway with the system of capitalism, the governments and thebourgeoisie of every land combined to crush it. They saw in ita menace to the continuance of their own mastery.
Keep that well in mind, my friend. Because there are revolutions and revolutions. Some revolutions change only the governmental form by putting in a new set of rulers in place ofthe old. These are political revolutions, and as such they often
meet with little resistance. But a revolution that aims to abolish the entire system of wage slavery must also do away withthe power of one class to oppress another. That is, it is not any
more a mere change of rulers, of government, not a politicalrevolution, but one that seeks to alter the whole character ofsociety. That would be a social revolution. As such it would haveto fight not only government and capitalism, but it would also
meet with the opposition of popular ignorance and prejudice,of those who believe in government and capitalism.
How is it then to come about?

225

These means may temporarily blind the proletarian to his true
interests, but do not believe that the worker will forever remain content with his wage slavery even if his cage be slightly
gilded from time to time. Improving material conditions is no
insurance against revolution. On the contrary, the satisfactionof our wants creates new needs, gives birth to new desires
and aspirations. That is human nature, and that’s what makes
improvement and progress possible. Labor’s discontent is not
to be choked down with an extra piece of bread, even if it
be buttered. That is why there is more conscious and active
revolt in the industrial centers of better-situated Europe thanin backward Asia and Africa. The spirit of man forever yearns
for greater comfort and freedom, and it is the masses who are
the truest bearers of this incentive to further advancement.
The hope of modern plutocracy to forestall revolution by
throwing a fatter bone to the toiler now and then is illusory
and baseless. The new policies of capital may seem to appeaselabor for a while, but its onward march cannot be stopped bysuch makeshifts. The abolition of capitalism is inevitable, inspite of all schemes and resistance, and it will be accomplishedonly by revolution.
A revolution is similar to the struggle of man against nature.
Single-handed he is powerless and cannot succeed; by the aidof his fellow-men he triumphs over all obstacles.
Can the individual worker accomplish anything against the
big corporation? Can a small labor union compel the large employer to grant its demands? The capitalist class is organized in
its fight against labor. It stands to reason that a revolution canbe fought successfully only when the workers are united, when
they are organized throughout the land; when the proletariat
of all countries will make a joint effort, for capital is international and the masters always combine against labor in every
big issue. That is why, for instance, the plutocracy of the wholeworld turned against the Russian Revolution. As long as thepeople of Russia meant only to abolish the Tsar, international224

ing it, and later forcibly dispersed it. But you can see that while
the Anarchists could do this honestly, in keeping with their nogovernment ideas, similar action on the part of the Bolsheviki
was rank hypocrisy and political trickery.
Together with their opposition to the Constituent Assembly
the Bolsheviki borrowed from the Anarchist arsenal a numberof other militant tactics. Thus they proclaimed the great war
cry, “All power to the Soviets,” advised the workers to ignore
and even defy the Provisional Government, and to resort to direct mass action to carry out their demands. At the same timethey also adopted the Anarchist methods of the general strikeand energetically agitated for the “expropriation of the expropriators.”
It is important to keep in mind that these tactics of the Bolsheviki were not, as I have already pointed out, the logical outcome of their ideas, but only a means of gaining the confidenceof the masses with the object of achieving political domination.
Indeed, those methods were really opposed to Marxist theories
and were not believed in by the Bolsheviki. It was therefore
not surprising that, once in power, they repudiated all thoseanti-Marxist ideas and tactics.
The Anarchist mottoes proclaimed by the Bolsheviki did not
fail to bring results. The masses rallied to their flag. From a
Party with almost no influence, with its main leaders, Lenin
and Zinoviev, discredited2 and hiding, with Trotsky and others
in prison, they quickly became the most important factor in the
movement of the revolutionary proletariat.
Attentive to the demands of the masses, particularly of thesoldiers and workers, voicing their needs with energy andpersistence, the Bolsheviki constantly gained greater influenceamong the people and in the Soviets, especially in those ofPetrograd and Moscow. The inactivity of the Provisional Gov2

Because of the widely believed but false charge against Lenin of being
in the pay of Germany.

157

ernment and its failure to undertake any important changes
aggravated the general dissatisfaction and resentment, whichwere soon to break into fury. The pusillanimous character ofthe Kerensky régime served to strengthen the hands of the
Bolsheviki in the Soviets. Daily the rupture between the latterand the Government grew, presently developing into open
antagonism and struggle.
The evident helplessness of the government, the decisionof Kerensky to renew an aggressive movement at the front,
together with the reintroduction of the death penalty for
military desertion, the persecution of the revolutionary elements and the arrest of their leaders, all hastened the crisis.
On July 3, 1917,3 thousands of armed workers, soldiers, andsailors demonstrated in the streets of Petrograd in spite ofgovernment prohibition, demanding “All power to the Soviets.”
Kerensky sought to suppress the popular movement. He evenrecalled “trusted” regiments from the front to teach the proletariat of Petrograd a “salutary lesson.” But in vain were all theefforts of the bourgeoisie, represented by Kerensky, by the Social Democratic leaders and Right Socialists Revolutionists, tostem the rising tide. The July demonstrations were suppressed,
but within a short time the revolutionary movement swept
the Provisional Government away. The Petrograd Soviet ofsoldiers and workers declared the government abolished, andKerensky saved his life only by fleeing in disguise.
The masses backed the Petrograd Soviet. The example ofthe capital was soon followed by Moscow, thence spreading
throughout the country.
It was on October 25th4 that the Provisional Government
was declared abolished, its members arrested, and the Winter Palace taken by the military-revolutionary committee of
the Petrograd Soviet. On the same day the Second All-Russian
3
4

158

July 16, new style.
November 7, new style.

That is why it is no prophecy to foresee that some day it
must come to a decisive struggle between the masters of life
and the dispossessed classes.
As a matter of fact, that struggle is going on all the time.
There is a continuous warfare between capital and labor.
That warfare generally proceeds within so-called legal form.
But even these erupt now and then in violence, as during
strikes and lockouts, because the armed fist of governmentis always at the service of the masters, and that fist gets into
action the moment capital feels its profits threatened: then it
drops the mask of “mutual interests” and “partnership” withlabor and resorts to the final argument of every master, tocoercion and force.
It is therefore certain that government and capital will notallow themselves to be quietly abolished if they can help it;
nor will they miraculously “disappear” of themselves, as somepeople pretend to believe. It will require a revolution to get ridof them.
There are those who smile incredulously at the mention ofrevolution. “Impossible!” they say confidently. So did LouisXVI and Marie Antoinette of France think only a few weeks
before they lost their throne together with their heads. So did
the nobility at the court of Tsar Nicholas II believe on the very
eve of the upheaval that swept them away. “It doesn’t look likerevolution,” the superficial observer argues. But revolutions
have a way of breaking out when it “doesn’t look like it.” The
more far-seeing modern capitalists, however, do not seemwilling to take any chances. They know that uprisings andrevolutions are possible at any time. That is why the great
corporations and big employers of labor, particularly in America, are beginning to introduce new methods calculated toserve as lightning rods against popular disaffection and revolt.
They initiate bonuses for their employees, profit sharing, andsimilar methods designed to make the worker more satisfied
and financially interested in the prosperity of his industry.
223to express and assert themselves in spite of all obstacles anddifficulties. The lesson of the entire history of man is that neither hostile natural forces nor human opposition can hold backhis onward march. If I were asked to define civilization in a single phrase I should say that it is the triumph of man over the
powers of darkness, natural and human. The inimical forces ofnature we have conquered, but we still have to fight the dark
powers of men.
History fails to show a single important social improvement
made without meeting the opposition of the dominant powers — the church, government, and capital. Not a step forward
but was achieved by breaking down the resistance of the masters. Every advance has cost a bitter struggle. It took many longfights to destroy slavery; it required revolts and uprisings to secure the most fundamental rights for the people; it necessitatedrebellions and revolutions to abolish feudalism and serfdom. It
needed civil warfare to do away with the absolute power ofkings and establish democracies, to conquer more freedom andwell-being for the masses. There is not a country on earth, notan epoch in history, where any great social evil was eliminatedwithout a bitter struggle with the powers that be. In recent days
it again took revolutions to get rid of Tsardom in Russia, of
the Kaiser in Germany, the Sultan in Turkey, the monarchy in
China, and so on, in various lands.
There is no record of any government or authority, of anygroup or class in power having given up its mastery voluntarily.
In every instance it required the use of force, or at least thethreat of it.
Is it reasonable to assume that authority and wealth will experience a sudden change of heart, and that they will behave
differently in the future than they had in the past?
Your common sense will tell you that it is a vain and foolish
hope. Government and capital will fight to retain power. They
do it even to-day at the least menace to their privileges. They
will fight to the death for their existence.
222

Congress of Soviets opened its sessions. Political government
was practically abolished in Russia. All power was now in thehands of the workers, soldiers, and peasants represented in theCongress. The latter immediately began to consider steps tocarry out the will of the masses: to terminate the war, secureland for the peasants, the industries for the workers, and establish liberty and welfare for all.
This was the status of the Russian Revolution in October,
1917. Beginning with the abolition of the Tsar, it gradually widened and developed into a thorough industrial andeconomic reorganization of the country. The spirit of thepeople and their needs marked out the further progress of the
Revolution toward the rebuilding of life on the foundation ofpolitical freedom, economic equality, and social justice.
This could be accomplished only as the previous greatchanges, from February to October, had been; by the joint
effort and free coöperation of the workers and peasants, thelatter now joined by the bulk of the army.
But such a development did not come within the scheme of
the Bolsheviki. As already explained, their aim was to establish a dictatorship wielded by their Party. But a dictatorshipmeans dictation, the imposing of the ruler’s will upon the country. The Bolsheviki now felt themselves strong enough to carryout their real object. They dropped the revolutionary and Anarchist mottoes. There must be a vigorous political power, they
declared, to carry on the work of the Revolution. Under theguise of protecting the people against the monarchists and thebourgeoisie they began to use repressive measures. As a matterof fact, there were no Tsarist supporters or monarchists in Russia worth mentioning. The people had grown out of Tsarism,
and there was no more chance whatever, for a monarchy in
Russia. As to the bourgeoisie, there had never been any organized capitalist class in Russia, such as we have in highly developed industrial countries — in the United States, England,
France, and Germany. The Russian bourgeoisie was small in
159

numbers and weak. It continued to exist after the February Revolution only by the protection of the Kerensky Government.
The moment the latter was abolished, the bourgeoisie went topieces. It had neither strength nor means to stop the confiscation of its lands and factories by the peasants and workers.
Strange as it may seem, it is a fact that throughout this whole
period of the Revolution the Russian bourgeoisie did not makeany organized and effectual attempt to regain its possessions.5
Consider how different it would have been in America.
There the capitalists, who are strong and well organized,
would have offered the greatest resistance. They would haveformed defense bodies to protect themselves and their interests by force of arms. I have no doubt they will do so whenthings begin to happen there as they did in Russia in 1917.
Not that they will succeed, however. But as I say, the Revolution in Russia did not produce any organized and effective
bourgeois resistance for the simple reason that there was noreal bourgeoisie or capitalist class in that country. Military
attempts there were indeed, such as that of the Tsarist General
Kornilov to attack Petrograd with Cossacks brought from thefront, but so harmless was that adventure that Kornilov’s army
melted away even before he could reach the capital. His men
went over to the revolutionary garrison of Petrograd almost
without firing a gun.6
The point is that when the masses are with the Revolution,
there can be no thought of successful resistance by any enemy,
no chance of suppressing the Revolution. That was the situ-

5
In the South of Russia (the Ukraine) the bourgeoisie did offer someresistance, but only during the rule of the Hetmen Skoropadsky and Petlura,
aided by the Allied armies. As soon as foreign aid was withdrawn, theUkrainian bourgeoisie also became helpless.
6
Real counter-revolution began much later, when Bolshevik terror anddictatorship were in full sway, which alienated the masses and resulted ininsurrections.

160

her forces to his use, in chaining the lightning, bridging oceans,
and mastering even the air.
Similarly the primitive man’s ignorance and fear made life
a continuous struggle of man against man, of family against
family, of tribe against tribe, until men realized that by getting
together, by joint effort and mutual aid, they could accomplish
more than by strife and enmity. Modern science shows thateven animals had learned that much in the struggle for existence. Certain kinds survived because they quit fighting eachother and lived in herds, and in that way were better able to protect themselves against other beasts.1 In proportion as men substituted joint effort and coöperation in place of mutual struggle,
they advanced, grew out of barbarism, and became civilized.
Families which had formerly fought each other to the deathcombined and formed one common group; groups joined andbecame tribes, and tribes federated into nations. The nations
still stupidly keep on fighting each other, but gradually they
are also learning the same lesson, and now they are beginningto look for a way to stop the international slaughter known as
war.
Unfortunately in our social life we are yet in a conditionof barbarism, destructive and fratricidal: group still combats
group, class fights against class. But here also men are beginning to see that it is a senseless and ruinous warfare, that theworld is big and rich enough to be enjoyed by all, like the sunshine, and that a united mankind would accomplish more than
one divided against itself.
What is called progress is just the realization of this, a stepin that direction.
The whole advance of man consists in the striving for greater
safety and peace, for more security and welfare. Man’s natural impulse is toward mutual help and joint effort, his mostinstinctive longing is for liberty and joy. These tendencies seek1

See Mutual Aid, by Peter Kropotkin.

221

Chapter 24: Why Revolution?
Let us return to your question, “How will Anarchy come?
Can we help bring it about?”
This is a most important point, because in every problem
there are two vital things: first, to know clearly just what you
want; second, how to attain it.
We already know what we want. We want social conditions
wherein all will be free and where each shall have the fullest
opportunity to satisfy his needs and aspirations, on the basisof equal liberty for all. In other words, we are striving for thefree coöperative commonwealth of Communist Anarchism.
How will it come about?
We are not prophets, and no one can tell just how a thing
will happen. But the world does not exist since yesterday; andman, as a reasonable being, must benefit by the experience ofthe past.
Now, what is that experience? If you glance over history you
will see that the whole life of man has been a struggle for existence. In his primitive state man fought single-handed the wild
beasts of the forest, and helplessly he faced hunger, cold, darkness, and storm. Because of his ignorance all the forces of nature were his enemies: they worked evil and destruction to him,
and he, alone, was powerless to combat them. But little by little
man learned to come together with others of his kind; together
they sought safety and security. By joint effort they presently
began to turn the energies of nature to their service. Mutual
help and coöperation gradually multiplied man’s strength andability till he has succeeded in conquering nature, in applying

220

ation in Russia in October, 1917, when the Soviets took thepower into their hands.
The Bolshevik plan was to gain entire and exclusive controlof the government for their Party. It did not fit into theirscheme to permit the people themselves to manage things,
through their Soviet organizations. As long as the Soviets had
the whole say the Bolsheviki could not achieve their purpose.
It was therefore necessary either to abolish the Soviets or togain control of them.
To abolish the Soviets was impossible. They represented thetoiling masses; the Soviet idea had been a cherished dream of
the Russian people for centuries. Even in the far past Russia hadsoviets of various kinds, and the entire village life was built on
the soviet principle; that is, on the equal right and representation of all members alike. The ancient Russian mir, the public
assembly to transact the business of the village or town, was
one of the forms of the soviet idea.
The Bolsheviki knew that the revolutionary workers andpeasants, as well as the soldiers (who were workers andpeasants in uniform), would not stand for the abolition of
their soviets. There remained the only alternative of getting
control of them. Holding to the Lenin principle that the“end justifies the means,” the Bolsheviki did not shrink fromany methods whatever to discredit and eliminate the otherrevolutionary elements from the Soviets. They carried on apersistent campaign of venom and detraction for the purposeof deluding the masses and turning them against the otherparties, particularly against the Left Socialists Revolutionists
and the Anarchists. Systematically and by the most Jesuitic
means they sought to become the sole power, so as to be able
to carry out Lenin’s scheme of “proletarian dictatorship.”By such tactics the Bolsheviki finally succeeded in organizing a Soviet of People’s Commissars, which in reality became
the new government. All its members were Bolsheviki, withtwo minor exceptions: the Commissariats of justice and of Agri161

culture were headed by Left Socialists Revolutionists. Before
long these were also eliminated and replaced by Bolsheviki.
The Soviet of People’s Commissars was the political machineof the Bolshevik Party, which was now rechristened into theCommunist Party of Russia.
What this Communist Party stood for, what its objects andpurposes were, we already know. It openly avowed its determination to secure exclusive Bolshevik domination under thelabel of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
This was fatal to the Revolution and its great aim of a deepsocial and economic reconstruction, as the subsequent historyof Russia has proven.
Why?

162

have no very clear plan of the economic life under Anarchy. The Mutualists, on the other hand, propose a definite
new economic system. They believe with their teacher, theFrench philosopher Proudhon, that mutual banking and credit
without interest would be the best economic form of a nongovernment society. According to their theory, free credit,
affording every one opportunity to borrow money without
interest, would tend to equalize incomes and reduce profits
to a minimum, and would thus eliminate riches as well as
poverty. Free credit and competition in the open market, theysay, would result in economic equality, while the abolition of
government would secure equal freedom. The social life of the
Mutualist community, as well as of the Individualist society,would be based on the sanctity of voluntary agreement, of freecontract.
I have given here but the briefest outline of the attitude of
Individualist Anarchists and Mutualists. It is not the purposeof this work to treat in detail those Anarchist ideas which theauthor thinks erroneous and impractical. Being a Communist
Anarchist I am interested in submitting to the reader the views
that I consider best and soundest. I thought it fair, however,not to leave you in ignorance about the existence of other, nonCommunist Anarchist theories. For a closer acquaintance withthem I refer you to the appended list of books on Anarchismin general.

219

First: the manner in which Anarchy will come about. The
Communist Anarchists say that only a social revolution canabolish government and establish Anarchy, while Individualist Anarchists and Mutualists do not believe in revolution. They
think that present society will gradually develop out of government into a non-governmental condition.
Second: Individualist Anarchists and Mutualists believe inindividual ownership, as against the Communist Anarchists
who see in the institution of private property one of the main
sources of injustice and inequality, of poverty and misery. The
Individualists and Mutualists maintain that liberty means “theright of every one to the product of his toil”; which is true, ofcourse. Liberty does mean that. But the question is not whether
one has a right to his product, but whether there is such a thingas an individual product. I have pointed out in preceding chapters that there is no such thing in modern industry: all laborand the products of labor are social. The argument, therefore,
about the right of the individual to his product has no practical
merit.
I have also shown that exchange of products or commodities
cannot be individual or private, unless the profit system is employed. Since the value of a commodity cannot be adequately
determined, no barter is equitable. This fact leads, in my opinion, to social ownership and use; that is, to Communism, as themost practicable and just economic system.
But, as stated, Individualist Anarchists and Mutualists disagree with the Communist Anarchists on this point. They assert that the source of economic inequality is monopoly, andthey argue that monopoly will disappear with the abolition of
government, because it is special privilege — given and protected by government — which makes monopoly possible. Free
competition, they claim, would do away with monopoly and its
evils.
Individualist Anarchists, followers of Stirner and Tucker,
as well as Tolstoyan Anarchists who believe in nonresistance,
218

Chapter 17: Revolution andDictatorship
Because the Revolution and the Bolshevik dictatorship were
things of an entirely different and even opposite nature. And
here is where most people make the greatest mistake in confusing the Russian Revolution with the Communist Party andspeaking of them as if they were one and the same, which emphatically they are not.
This will become clear to us if we compare the aims of the
Revolution with the ends sought by the Bolsheviki.
The Revolution was a mighty uprising against oppression
and misery. It voiced the longing of the masses for liberty andjustice. It attempted to do away with everything that kept man
in subjection, made him a slave and a beast of burden. The Revolution tried to establish new forms of life, conditions of real
equality and brotherhood.
We have already seen that the Revolution was not a superficial change, that it did not stop with the February events. The
Tsar had been abolished and the power of his autocracy broken, but the result was only another form of government. The
economic and social conditions remained the same. Yet it was
just those that the people meant to change. That is why the
October Revolution took place. Its purpose was to rebuild life
altogether, on new social foundations.
How was it to be rebuilt? It is evident that taking Romanovout of the Kremlin palace and putting Lenin in his place would
not do it. Something more was necessary. It was necessary togive the soil to the peasant, to put the factories in the hands of163

the workers and their labor organizations. In short, it was theaim of October to afford the people an opportunity to make useof the political freedom won in February.
That is the way the masses sized up the situation. And they
acted upon it. They began to apply liberty to their needs. They
wanted peace, so they stopped the war, first of all. It wasmonths later that the Bolshevik Government signed the BrestLitovsk treaty and concluded an official peace with Germany.
But so far as the Russian armies were concerned, war was at
an end long before, without diplomatic negotiations. Trotsky
frankly admits this in his work on the Revolution.1
The Russian workers and peasants, temporarily in soldiers’
uniforms, had taken matters into their own hands and terminated the war by leaving the fronts.
Similarly did the peasantry and the proletariat act in solving
the industrial and agrarian problems. While the Provisional
Government was still discussing land reforms, the masses
themselves acted, through their local councils and Soviets.
The peasants took the land they needed and began cultivating
it. With simple common sense and inherent popular justicethey settled the agrarian problem over which politicians andlawgivers had been breaking their heads for many decades
without result. The Bolsheviki, when they came to power, “legalized” what the peasants had already accomplished without
asking anybody’s permission.
In like manner did the workers’ Soviets start to solve theindustrial problem by taking over the factories and mines andmanaging them for the general benefit instead of for the profitof the “owners.” That was actual abolition of capitalism andwage slavery, long before the Bolshevik Government declaredcapitalist ownership “legally” at an end.
All the other problems of every-day life the Revolution
was similarly solving by the practical and direct activity of1164

1917, by Leon Trotsky. Moscow, 1925.

Chapter 23: Non-Communist
Anarchists
Before we proceed let me make a short explanation. I owe itto those Anarchists who are not Communists.
Because you should know that not all Anarchists are Communists: not all of them believe that Communism — social ownership and sharing according to need — would be the best andjustest economic arrangement.
I have first explained to you Communist Anarchism because
it is, in my estimation, the most desirable and practical formof society. The Communist Anarchists hold that only underCommunist conditions could Anarchy prosper, and equal liberty, justice, and well-being be assured to every one without
discrimination.
But there are Anarchists who do not believe in Communism.
They can be generally classed as Individualists and Mutualists.1
All Anarchists agree on this fundamental position: that government means injustice and oppression, that it is invasive, enslaving, and the greatest hindrance to man’s development andgrowth. They all believe that freedom can exist only in a society where there is no compulsion of any kind. All Anarchists
are therefore at one on the basic principle of abolishing government.
They disagree mostly on the following points:
1

The Mutualists, though not calling themselves Anarchists (probably
because the name is so misunderstood), are nevertheless thoroughgoing Anarchists, since they disbelieve in government and political authority of any
kind.

217

taking full responsibility.” That will be a training in human dignity and self-reliance, beginning at home and in school, which
will produce a new race with a new attitude to life.
The man of the coming day will see and feel existence on an
entirely different plane. Living to him will be an art and a joy.
He will cease to consider it as a race where every one must try
to become as good a runner as the fastest. He will regard leisure
as more important than work, and work will fall into its proper,
subordinate place as the means to leisure, to the enjoyment oflife.
Life will mean the striving for finer cultural values, the penetration of nature’s mysteries, the attainment of higher truth.
Free to exercise the limitless possibilities of his mind, to pursue
his love of knowledge, to apply his inventive genius, to create,
and to soar on the wings of imagination, man will reach hisfull stature and become man indeed. He will grow and develop
according to his nature. He will scorn uniformity, and humandiversity will give him increased interest in, and a more satisfying sense of, the richness of being. Life to him will not consist
in functioning but in living, and he will attain the greatest kindof freedom man is capable of, freedom in joy.
“That day lies far in the future,” you say; “how shall we bringit about?”
Far in the future, maybe; yet perhaps not so far — one cannot
tell. At any rate we should always hold our ultimate object inview if we are to remain on the right road. The change I havedescribed will not come over night; nothing ever does. It will bea gradual development, as everything in nature and social life
is. But a logical, necessary, and, I dare say, an inevitable development. Inevitable, because the whole trend of man’s growthhas been in that direction; even if in zigzags, often losing its
way, yet always returning to the right path.
How, then, might it be brought about?

216

the masses themselves. Coöperative organizations broughtcity and village together for the exchange of products; house
Committees looked after the housing question; street anddistrict committees were organized for the safety of the city,and other voluntary bodies were formed for the defense of thepeople’s interests and of the Revolution.
The requirements of the situation directed the efforts of themasses; liberty of action brought initiative into play, and thewants of the people shaped their creative capacities to theneeds of the hour.
These collective activities constituted the Revolution. They
were the Revolution. For “revolution” is not some vague
thing without definite meaning and purpose; nor does it
signify political scene shifting or new legislation. The actual
Revolution took place neither in February nor in October,but between those months. It consisted in the free play andinterplay of the revolutionary energies and efforts of thepeople, in independent popular initiative and creative work,
inspired by common need and mutual interests.
That was the spirit and tendency of the great economic andsocial upheaval in Russia. It solved problems as they arose, on
the basis of liberty and free coöperation.
This process of the Revolution was stopped in its development by the Communist Party seizing political power and constituting itself a new government.
We have just seen what the aim of the Revolution was; weknow what the masses of Russia wanted and what means theyused to achieve it.
The objects of the Bolsheviki as a political party, on the other
hand, were of an entirely different nature. As frankly admitted
by themselves, their immediate goal was a dictatorship; thatis, the formation of a powerful Bolshevik State which should
direct the life and activities of the country according to theviews and theories of the Communist Party.

165

To give due credit to the Bolsheviki let me say right herethat there never was any political party more devoted to its
cause, more wholehearted in its efforts to advance it, more determined and energetic in the achievement of its purposes. But
those purposes were entirely foreign to the Revolution and opposed to its real needs. They were, in fact, so contrary to thespirit and aims of the Revolution that their achievement meant
the destruction of the Revolution itself.
No doubt the Bolsheviki really thought that only by means of
their dictatorship could Russia be converted into a Socialist paradise for the worker and farmer. Indeed, as Marxists they could
not see things in any other way. Believers in an all-powerful
State, they had no confidence in the people; they had no faith in
the initiative and creative ability of the toilers. They distrusted
them as a “multi-colored mob which has to be forced into liberty.” They agreed with the cynical maxim of Rousseau that themasses “can be made free only by compulsion.”“Proletarian compulsion in all its forms,” wrote Bukharin,
the foremost Communist theoretician, “beginning with summary execution and ending with compulsory labor is, howeverparadoxical it may sound, a method of reworking the humanmaterial of the capitalistic epoch into Communist humanity.”That was the Bolshevik gospel; it was the attitude of a party
that believed a revolution could be run by the orders of a Central Committee.
What followed was the logical outcome of the Bolshevik
idea.
Claiming that only the dictatorship of their Party could properly conduct the Revolution, they bent all energies to securethat dictatorship. It meant that they had to take things exclusively into their own hands, to have the designs of the Party
accomplished at any cost.
We need not go into the details of the schemes and politicalmanipulations of those days which finally resulted in the Communist Party gaining the upper hand. The important point is
166“education” of the child is a continuous process of stifling andcrushing this tendency, the eradication of his distinctive characteristics, of his unlikeness to others, of his personality andoriginality. Yet even in spite of year-long repression, suppression, and molding, some originality persists in the child when
it reaches maturity, which shows how deep are the springs ofindividuality. Take any two persons, for example, who havewitnessed some tragedy, a big fire, let us say, at the same timeand place. Each will tell the story in a different manner, eachwill be original in his way of relating it and in the impression hewill produce, because of his naturally different psychology. Buttalk to the same two persons on some fundamental social matter, about life and government, for instance, and immediately
you hear expressed an exactly similar attitude, the accepted
view, the dominant mentality.
Why? Because where man is left free to think and feel for
himself, unhindered by precept and rule, and not restrained by
the fear of being “different” and unorthodox, with the unpleasant consequences it involves, he will be independent and free.
But the moment the conversation touches matters within thesphere of our social imperatives, one is in the clutches of thetaboos and becomes a copy and a parrot.
Life in freedom, in Anarchy, will do more than liberate man
merely from his present political and economic bondage. That
will be only the first step, the preliminary to a truly human existence. Far greater and more significant will be the results ofsuch liberty, its effects upon man’s mind, upon his personality. The abolition of the coercive external will, and with it of
the fear of authority, will loosen the bonds of moral compulsion no less than of economic and physical. Man’s spirit will
breathe freely, and that mental emancipation will be the birthof a new culture, of a new humanity. Imperatives and taboos
will disappear, and man will begin to be himself, to develop
and express his individual tendencies and uniqueness. Insteadof “thou shalt not,” the public conscience will say “thou mayest,
215

More vicious and deadening is compulsory compliance thanthe most virulent poison. Throughout the ages it has been thegreatest impediment to man’s advance, hedging him in witha thousand prohibitions and taboos, weighting his mind andheart down with outlived canons and codes, thwarting his willwith imperatives of thought and feeling, with “thou shalt” and“thou shalt not” of behavior and action. Life, the art of living,has become a dull formula, flat and inert.
Yet so strong is the innate diversity of man’s nature that centuries of this stultification have not succeeded in entirely eradicating his originality and uniqueness. True, the great majority
have fallen into ruts so deepened by countless feet that theycannot get back to the broad spaces. But some do break awayfrom the beaten track and find the open road where new vistasof beauty and inspiration beckon to heart and spirit. These theworld condemns, but little by little it follows their example andlead, and finally it comes up abreast of them. In the meantime
those pathfinders have gone much further or died, and then webuild monuments to them and glorify the men we have vilified
and crucified as we go on crucifying their brothers in spirit, thepioneers of our own day.
Beneath this spirit of intolerance and persecution is the habitof authority: coercion to conform to dominant standards, compulsion — moral and legal — to be and act as others, according
to precedent and rule.
But the general view that conformity is a natural trait is entirely false. On the contrary, given the least chance, unimpededby the mental habits instilled from the very cradle, man evidences uniqueness and originality. Observe children, for instance, and you will see most varied differentiation in manner and attitude, in mental and psychic expression. You will
discover an instinctive tendency to individuality and independence, to non-conformity, manifested in open and secret defiance of the will imposed from the outside, in rebellion against
the authority of parent and teacher. The whole training and214

that the Bolsheviki did contrive to carry out their plans. Withina few months after the October Revolution, by April, 1918, they
were in entire control of the government.
By taking advantage of the excitement of the revolutionary
days and the inevitable confusion, they exploited the situation
for their own objects. They used the political differences
to rouse fierce party passions, resorted to every means todenounce their opponents as enemies of the people, branded
them counter-revolutionists, and finally succeeded in damningthem in the eyes of the workers and soldiers. Declaring that the
Revolution must be protected against those alleged enemies,
they were enabled to proclaim their own dictatorship. In thename of “saving the Revolution” they began eliminating allother revolutionary elements, non-Bolshevik, from positionsof influence, finishing by suppressing them entirely.
It must be left to future historians to determine whether Bolshevik repression of the bourgeoisie, with which they started
their rule, was not merely a means toward the ulterior purposeof suppressing all other non-Bolshevik elements. For the Russian bourgeoisie was not dangerous to the Revolution. As already explained, it was an insignificant minority, unorganizedand powerless. The revolutionary elements, on the contrary,
were a real obstacle to the dictatorship of any political party.
Because dictatorship would meet with the strongest opposition not from the bourgeoisie but from the truly revolutionaryclasses which considered dictatorship inimical to the best interests of the Revolution, the elimination of these would therefore be of prime necessity to any political party seeking dictatorship. Such a policy, however, could not successfully begin
with the suppression of the revolutionists: it would provoke
the disapproval and resistance of the workers and soldiers. It
would have to be begun at the bourgeois end and means foundgradually to spread the net over the other elements. Distrust
and antagonism would have to be wakened, intolerance andpersecution stimulated, popular fear created for the safety of167

the Revolution in order to secure the people’s support for anever-widening campaign of elimination and suppression, for
the introduction of the bloody hand of red terror into the lifeof the Revolution.
But as I have said, it is the place of the future historian todetermine to what extent such motives fashioned the eventsof those days. Here we are more concerned with what actually
happened.
What happened was that before long the Bolsheviki established the exclusive dictatorship of their Party.
“What was that dictatorship,” you ask, “and what did it
achieve?”168

tating to our manhood and development. All of us are its victims, and only the exceptionally strong succeed in breaking its
chains, and that only partly.
The authority of the past and of the present dictates not
only our behavior but dominates our very minds and souls,
and is continuously at work to stifle every symptom of nonconformity, of independent attitude and unorthodox opinion.
The whole weight of social condemnation comes down upon
the head of the man or woman who dares defy conventional
codes. Ruthless vengeance is wreaked upon the protestant who
refuses to follow the beaten track, or upon the heretic who disbelieves in the accepted formulas. In science and art, in literature, poetry, and painting this spirit compels adaptation andadjustment, resulting in imitation of the established and approved, in uniformity and sameness, in stereotyped expression.
But more terribly still is punished non-conformity in actual life,
in our every-day relationships and behavior. The painter andwriter may occasionally be forgiven for defiance of custom andprecedent because, after all, their rebellion is limited to paperor canvas: it affects only a comparatively small circle. They may
be disregarded or labeled cranks who can do little harm, but not
so with the man of action who carries his challenge of accepted
standards into social life. Not harmless he. He is dangerous by
the power of example, by his very presence. His infraction ofsocial canons can be neither ignored nor forgiven. He will bedenounced as an enemy of society.
It is for this reason that revolutionary feeling or thought expressed in exotic poetry or masked in high-brow philosophic
dissertations may be condoned, may pass the official and unofficial censor, because it is neither accessible to nor understoodby the public at large. But give voice to the same dissenting
attitude in a popular manner, and immediately you will face
the frothing denunciation of all the forces that stand for thepreservation of the established.

213

No, my friend, quite the contrary. Because equality does notmean an equal amount but equal opportunity. It does not mean,
for instance, that if Smith needs five meals a day, Johnson also
must have as many. If Johnson wants only three meals while
Smith requires five, the quantity each consumes may be unequal, but both men are perfectly equal in the opportunity eachhas to consume as much as he needs, as much as his particularnature demands.
Do not make the mistake of identifying equality in liberty
with the forced equality of the convict camp. True Anarchist
equality implies freedom, not quantity. It does not mean thatevery one must eat, drink, or wear the same things, do the same
work, or live in the same manner. Far from it; the very reverse,
in fact.
Individual needs and tastes differ, as appetites differ. It isequal opportunity to satisfy them that constitutes true equality.
Far from leveling, such equality opens the door for the greatest possible variety of activity and development. For humancharacter is diverse, and only the repression of this diversity
results in leveling, in uniformity and sameness. Free opportunity of expressing and acting out your individuality means development of natural dissimilarities and variations.
It is said that no two blades of grass are alike. Much less so
are human beings. In the whole wide world no two persons
are exactly similar even in physical appearance; still more dissimilar are they in their physiological, mental, and psychicalmake-up. Yet in spite of this diversity and of a thousand and
one differentiations of character we compel people to be alike
to-day. Our life and habits, our behavior and manners, even
our thoughts and feelings are pressed into a uniform mold andfashioned into sameness. The spirit of authority, law, written
and unwritten, tradition and custom force us into a common
groove and make of man a will-less automaton without independence or individuality. This moral and intellectual bondage
is more compelling than any physical coercion, more devas212

Chapter 18: The Dictatorshipat Work
It achieved the complete mastery of the Bolsheviki over a
country of 140 millions of population. In the name of the “proletarian dictatorship” one political organization, the Communist Party, became the absolute ruler of Russia. The proletarian
dictatorship was not dictatorship by the proletariat. Millions ofpeople cannot all be dictators. Nor can thousands of party members be dictators. By its very nature a dictatorship is limited toa small number of persons. The less of them, the stronger andmore unified the dictatorship. In actual practice dictatorship isalways in the hands of one person, the strong man whose willcompels the consent of his nominal co-dictators. It cannot beotherwise, and so it was with the Bolsheviki.
The real dictator was neither the proletariat nor even theCommunist Party. Theoretically the power was held by theCentral Committee of the Party, but actually it was wieldedby the inner circle of that Committee, called the political bureau or “politbureau.” But even the politbureau was not the realdictator, though its membership was less than a score. For in
the politbureau there were differing views on every importantquestion, as there must be when there are many heads. The
real dictator was the man whose influence secured the supportof the majority of the politbureau. That man was Lenin, andit was he who was the real “proletarian dictatorship,” just as
Mussolini, for instance, and not the Fascist Party, is dictator in
Italy. It was always the views and ideas of Lenin that were carried out, from the very inception of the Bolshevik Party to the169last day of Lenin’s life; carried out when the entire Party was
opposed to his opinion and even when the Central Committee bitterly fought his proposals on their first presentation. It
was Lenin who always won, his will that prevailed. It was so inevery critical period of Bolshevik history. It could not help being so, because dictatorship always means domination by thestrongest personality, the supremacy of a single will.
The whole history of the Communist Party, as that of every
dictatorship, indisputably demonstrates this. Bolshevik writings themselves prove it. Here it is sufficient to mention but
a few of the most vital events to substantiate my contention.
In March, 1917, when Lenin returned home from exile in
Switzerland, the Central Committee of his Party in Russia had
decided to enter the Coalition Government formed after theabolition of the Tsarist régime. Lenin was opposed to coöperation with the bourgeois and Mensheviki who were in the Government. Yet notwithstanding that the Party had already decided the question and that Lenin was almost alone in his opposition, his influence carried. The Central Committee reversed
itself and took up Lenin’s position.
Later, in July, 1917, Lenin advocated an immediate revolution against the Kerensky Government. His proposal was
roundly condemned even by his nearest comrades and friends
as foolhardy and criminal. But again Lenin won, even at thecost of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other influential Bolsheviki
refusing to be parties to the scheme and resigning from theCentral Committee. Incidentally, the Putsch (the attempt toupset Kerensky) proved a failure and cost many workers’ lives.
The red terror instituted by Lenin as soon as he came to
power after the October Revolution was bitterly denounced byhis co-workers as entirely uncalled for and as a direct betrayalof the Revolution. But in spite of the official protests of the170

But it is not difficult to foresee the day when even those shorthours would be still further reduced. For we are constantly improving our technical methods, and new labor saving machinery is being invented all the time. Mechanical progress means
less work and greater comforts, as you can see by comparing
life in the United States with that in China or India. In the lattercountries they toil long hours to secure the barest necessities ofexistence, while in America even the average laborer enjoys amuch higher standard of living with fewer hours of work. The
advance of science and invention signifies more leisure for the
pursuits we love.
I have sketched in large, broad outline the possibilities of i eunder a sensible system where profit is abolished. It is not necessary to go into the minute details of such a social condition:
sufficient has been said to show that Communist Anarchismmeans the greatest material welfare with a life of liberty foreach and all.
We can visualize the time when labor will have become apleasant exercise, a joyous application of physical effort to theneeds of the world. Man will then look back at our present day
and wonder that work could ever have been slavery, and question the sanity of a generation that suffered less than one fifthof its population to earn the bread for the rest by the sweatof their brow while those others idled and wasted their time,
their health, and the people’s wealth. They will wonder thatthe freest satisfaction of man’s needs could have ever been
considered as anything but self-evident, or that people naturally seeking the same objects insisted on making life hard andmiserable by mutual strife. They will refuse to believe that thewhole existence of man was a continuous struggle for food in aworld rich with luxuries, a struggle that left the great majority
neither time nor strength for the higher quest of the heart andmind.
“But will not life under Anarchy, in economic and social
equality mean general leveling?” you ask.
211

productive effort once war is abolished, as would of course be
the case under Anarchy.
In every country to-day labor supports the millions who contribute nothing to the welfare of the country, who create nothing, and perform no useful work whatever. Those millions are
only consumers, without being producers. In the United States,
for instance, out of a population of 120 millions there are lessthan 30 million workers, farmers included.1 A similar situationis the rule in every land.
Is it any wonder that labor has to toil long hours, since there
are only 30 workers to every 120 persons? The large businessclasses with their clerks, assistants, agents, and commercial
travelers; the courts with their judges, record keepers, bailiffs,
etc.; the legion of attorneys with their staffs; the militia and police forces; the churches and monasteries; the charity institutions and poorhouses; the prisons with their wardens, officers,
keepers, and the non-productive convict population; the armyof advertisers and their helpers, whose business it is to persuade you to buy what you don’t want or need, not to speak of
the numerous elements that live luxuriously in entire idleness.
All these mount into the millions in every country.
Now, if all those millions would apply themselves to usefullabor, would the worker have to drudge eight hours a day? If 30
men have to put in eight hours to perform a certain task, howmuch less time would it ‘take 120 men to accomplish the samething? I don’t want to burden you with statistics, but there areenough data to prove that less than 3 hours of daily physicaleffort would be sufficient to do the world’s work.
Can you doubt that even the hardest toil would become apleasure instead of the cursed slavery it is at present, if only
three hours a day were required, and that under the most sanitary and hygienic conditions, in an atmosphere of brotherhoodand respect for labor?
1

210

N. Y. World Almanac, 1927.

most active and influential members of the Party, Lenin had
his way.1
During the Brest-Litovsk negotiations it was again Lenin
who insisted that “peace on any terms” he made with Germany,
while Trotsky, Radek, and other important Bolshevik leaders
opposed the Kaiser’s conditions as humiliating and destructive.
Once more Lenin scored.
The “new economic policy” (the “nep”) submitted by Lenin
to his Party during the Kronstadt events2 was fought by theCentral Committee as nullifying all the revolutionary achievements and as a death blow to Communism. It was indeed acomplete reversal of everything the Revolution stood for and a
return to the very conditions that the great October change hadabolished. But Lenin’s will again prevailed and his resolution
was carried at the IX Communist Congress held in Moscow, inMarch, 1921.
As you see, the alleged dictatorship of the proletariat was
only the dictatorship of Lenin. He dictated to the politbureau,
the politbureau to the Central Committee, the Central Committee to the Party, the Party to the proletariat and the rest of thepeople. Russia counted a population of over a hundred millions;the Communist Party had less than fifty thousand members;
the Central Committee consisted of several score; the politbureau numbered about a dozen; and Lenin was one. But that one
was the proletarian dictatorship.
Russia is a country of vast extent, spread over half of Europe
and a goodly part of Asia. It is peopled by numerous races andnationalities speaking different languages, with diversified psychology, varied interests and outlook upon life. We know what
the dictatorship of the Tsars did to the country. Let us now see
what the “proletarian” dictatorship accomplished.
1

See the official protests by Bolsheviki of long standing, such as
Lodovsky and others, quoted by Trotsky in his work 1917.
2
The revolt of the Kronstadt sailors in March, 1921. See The Kronstadt
Rebellion, by the author.

171

To-day, after over a decade of Bolshevik rule in Russia, we
can form a fair estimate of its effects and examine the results
it achieved. Let us sum them up.
Politically the aim of the Revolution was to abolish governmental tyranny and oppression and make the people free. The
Bolshevik Government is admittedly the worst despotism inEurope, with the sole exception of Fascist rule in Italy. The citizen has no rights which the government feels bound to respect.
The Communist Party is a political monopoly, with all the otherparties and movements outlawed. Security of person and domicile is unknown. Freedom of speech and press does not exist.
Even within the Party the least difference of opinion is suppressed and punished by imprisonment and exile, as witness
the fate of Trotsky and his followers of the Opposition. Independent opinion is not tolerated. The G.P.U., the secret service
formerly called Tcheka, is a super-government with unlimited
arbitrary powers over the liberty and lives of the people. Only
those who are entirely on the side of the dominant Party clique
enjoy freedom and privileges. But such “liberty” is to be had
under the worst despotism: if you have nothing to say you are
perfectly free to say it even in the land of Mussolini. As a prominent member of a recent Communist Congress put it, “There isroom for all political parties in Russia: the Communist Party isin the Government, the others are in prison.”Economically it was the fundamental aim of the Revolution
to abolish capitalism and establish Communism and equality.
The Bolshevik dictatorship began by instituting a system ofunequal compensation and discriminating rewards, and ended
by reintroducing capitalistic ownership after it had been abolished by the direct action of the industrial and agrarian proletariat. To-day Russia is a country partly State capitalistic andpartly privately capitalistic.
The dictatorship and the red terror by which it was maintained proved the main factors in paralyzing the economic lifeof the country. High-handed Bolshevik rule antagonized the172

intelligent employers are beginning to see that it pays to improve their factories, make them more sanitary and hygienic,
and generally better the conditions of labor. They realize it isa good investment: it results in the increased contentment andconsequent greater efficiency of their workers. The principle
is sound. To-day, of course, it is being exploited for the sole
purpose of bigger profits. But under Anarchism it would be applied not for the sake of personal gain, but in the interest of theworkers’ health, for the lightening of labor. Our progress in mechanics is so great and continually advancing that most of thehard toil could be eliminated by the use of modern machineryand labor saving devices. In many industries, as in coal mining,for instance, new safety and sanitary appliances are not introduced because of the masters’ indifference to the welfare of
their employees and on account of the expenditure involved.
But in a non-profit system technical science would work exclusively with the aim of making labor safer, healthier, lighter,and more pleasant.
“But however light you’ll make work, eight hours a day of it
is no pleasure,” objects your friend.
You are perfectly right. But did you ever stop to consider
why we have to work eight hours a day? Do you know thatnot so long ago people used to slave twelve and fourteen hours,
and that it is still the case in backward countries like China andIndia?
It can be statistically proven that three hours’ work a day,at most, is sufficient to feed, shelter, and clothe the world andsupply it not only with necessities but also with all modern
comforts of life. The point is that not one man in five is to-day
doing any productive work. The entire world is supported by asmall minority of toilers.
First of all, consider the amount of work done in presentday society that would become unnecessary under Anarchist
conditions. Take the armies and navies of the world, and think
how many millions of men would be released for useful and209In our perverse civilization things are valued according tomoney standards. Persons doing the most useful work arelowest in the social scale when their employment is ill paid.
Should something happen, however, that would cause thestreet cleaner to get 100 dollars a day, while the physician
earns so, the “dirty” street cleaner would immediately rise inestimation and social station, and from the “filthy laborer” hewould become the much-sought man of good income.
You see that it is pay, remuneration, the wage scale, not worth
or merit, that to-day-under our system of profit determines thevalue of work as well as the “worth” of a man.
A sensible society — under Anarchist conditions — would
have entirely different standards of judging such matters. People will then be appreciated according to their willingness to besocially useful.
Can you perceive what great changes such a new attitude
would produce? Every one yearns for the respect and admiration of his fellow men; it is a tonic we cannot live without. Evenin prison I have seen how the clever pickpocket or safe blower
longs for the appreciation of his friends and how hard he tries
to earn their good estimate of him. The opinions of our circle
rule our behavior. The social atmosphere to a profound degree
determines our values and our attitude. Your personal experience will tell you how true this is, and therefore you will not
be surprised when I say that in an Anarchist society it will be
the most useful and difficult toil that men will seek rather thanthe lighter job. If you consider this, you will have no more fearof laziness or shirking.
But the hardest and most onerous task could be made easierand cleaner than is the case today. The capitalist employer does
not care to spend money, if he can help it, to make the toil of
his employees pleasanter and brighter. He will introduce improvements only when he hopes to gain larger profits thereby,
but he will not go to extra expense out of purely humanitarian reasons. Though here I must remind you that the more
208

people, its despotism embittered the masses. The repression of
every independent effort alienated the best elements from the
Revolution and made them feel that it had become the private
concern of the political Party in power. Facing a new tyrannyinstead of the longed-for liberty, the workers became discouraged. They felt their revolutionary achievements taken fromthem and used as a weapon against themselves and their aspirations. The proletarian saw his factory committee subjectedto the dictates of the Communist Party and made helpless toprotect his interests as a toiler. His labor union became themouthpiece and transmitter of Bolshevik orders, and he foundhimself deprived of all voice, not only in the management of industry but even in his own factory where he was kept at work
long hours at the poorest pay. The toilers soon realized that the
Revolution had been taken out of their hands, that their soviets
had been emasculated of all power, and that the country was
being ruled by some people far away in the Kremlin, just as
it was in the days of the Tsars. Eliminated from revolutionary
and creative activity, living only to obey the new masters, constantly harassed by Bolsheviki and Tchekists, and ever in fearof prison or execution for the least expression of protest, theworker became embittered against the Revolution. He deserted
the factory and sought the village where he might be furthest
removed from the dreaded rulers and at least secure of his dailybread. Thus broke down the industries of the country.
The peasant saw leather-clad and armed Communists descend upon his quiet village, despoil it of the fruit of his hardlabor, and treat him with the brutality and insolence of the oldTsarist officials. He saw his Soviet dominated by some lazy,
good-for-nothing village loafer calling himself Bolshevik andholding power from Moscow. He had willingly, even generously, given his wheat and corn to feed the workers and thesoldiers, but he saw his provisions lie rotting at the railroad stations and in the warehouses, because the Bolsheviki could notthemselves manage things and would let no one else do it. He
173knew that his brothers in the factory and in the army suffered
for lack of food because of Communist inefficiency, bureaucracy, and corruption. He understood why more was always
demanded of him. He saw his few possessions, his own family
provisions, confiscated by Tchekists who often took even hislast horse without which the peasant could neither work nor
live. He saw his neighbor villages, that rebelled against theseoutrages, leveled to the ground and the peasants whipped andshot, just as in the old days. He turned against the Revolution
and in his desperation he determined to plant and sow no morethan he needed for himself and family and to hide even that in
the forest.
Such were the results of the dictatorship, of Lenin’s militarycommunism and Bolshevik methods. Industry stood still, andfamine overwhelmed the country. The general suffering, thebitterness of the workers, and the peasant uprisings began tothreaten the existence of the Bolshevik régime. To save the dictatorship Lenin decided to introduce a new economic policy,
known as the “nep.”
The purpose of the “nep” was to revive the economic lifeof the country. It was to encourage greater production by
the peasantry by allowing them to sell their surplus insteadof having it forcibly confiscated by the government. It wasalso to enable exchange of products by legalizing trade andreviving the coöperatives formerly suppressed as counterrevolutionary. But the determination of the Communist Party
to hold on to its dictatorship made all these economic reforms
ineffectual, because industry cannot develop under a despotic
régime. Economic growth, as well as trade and commerce,
requires security of person and property, a certain amountof freedom and non-interference in order to function. But
dictatorship does not permit that freedom; its “guarantees”
cannot inspire confidence. Hence the new economic policy
has not produced the results desired, and Russia remains in

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is, he enjoys the hardest labor for his own benefit, done fromfree choice.
Under Anarchism each will have the opportunity of following whatever occupation will appeal to his natural inclinations
and aptitude. Work will become a pleasure instead of the deadening drudgery it is to-day. Laziness will be unknown, and thethings created by interest and love will be objects of beauty andjoy.
“But can labor ever become a pleasure?” you demand.
Labor is toil to-day, unpleasant, exhausting, and wearisome.
But usually it is not the work itself that is so hard: it is theconditions under which you are compelled to labor that makeit so. Particularly the long hours, unsanitary workshops, badtreatment, insufficient pay, and so on. Yet the most unpleasant work could be made lighter by improving the environment.
Take gutter cleaning, for instance. It is dirty work and poorly
paid for. But suppose, for example, that you should get 20 dollars a day instead of 5 dollars for such work. You will immediately find your job much lighter and pleasanter. The number ofapplicants for the work would increase at once. Which meansthat men are not lazy, not afraid of hard and unpleasant labor
if it is properly rewarded. But such work is considered menial
and is looked down upon. Why is it considered menial? Is it notmost useful and absolutely necessary? Would not epidemics
sweep our city but for the street and gutter cleaners? Surely,
the men who keep our town clean and sanitary are real benefactors, more vital to our health and welfare than the family
physician. From the viewpoint of social usefulness the street
cleaner is the professional colleague of the doctor: the latter
treats us when we are ill, but the former helps us keep well.
Yet the physician is looked up to and respected, while the street
cleaner is slighted. Why? Is it because the street cleaner’s work
is dirty? But the surgeon often has much “dirtier” jobs to perform. Then why is the street cleaner scorned? Because he earns
little.
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counts. The middle classes send their children to colleges which
turn them into doctors, lawyers, or engineers. But if your parents were workers who could not afford to let you study, thechances are that you will take any job which is offered you,or enter some trade that happens to afford you an apprenticeship. Your particular situation will decide your work or profession, not your natural preferences, inclinations, or abilities. Is
it any wonder, then, that most people, the overwhelming majority, in fact, are misplaced? Ask the first hundred men you
meet whether they would have selected the work they are doing, or whether they would continue in it, if they were free tochoose, and ninety-nine of them will admit that they would prefer some other occupation. Necessity and material advantages,
or the hope of them, keep most people in the wrong place.
It stands to reason that a person can give the best of himself
only when his interest is in his work, when he feels a natural attraction to it, when he likes it. Then he will be industrious andefficient. The things the craftsman produced in the days before
modern capitalism were objects of joy and beauty, because theartisan loved his work. Can you expect the modern drudge inthe ugly huge factory to make beautiful things? He is part ofthe machine, a cog in the soulless industry, his labor mechanical, forced. Add to this his feeling that he is not working for
himself but for the benefit of some one else, and that he hates
his job or at best has no interest in it except that it secures his
weekly wage. The result is shirking, inefficiency, laziness.
The need of activity is one of the most fundamental urges
of man. Watch the child and see how strong is his instinct foraction, for movement, for doing something. Strong and continuous. It is the same with the healthy man. His energy and vitality demand expression. Permit him to do the work of his choice,the thing he loves, and his application will know neither weariness nor shirking. You can observe this in the factory worker
when he is lucky enough to own a garden or a patch of groundto raise some flowers or vegetables on. Tired from his toil as he206

the throes of poverty, constantly on the brink of economic
disaster.
Industrially the dictatorship has emasculated the Revolutionof its basic purpose of placing production in the hands of theproletariat and making the worker independent of economic
masters. The dictatorship merely changed masters: the government has become the boss instead of the individual capitalist,
though the latter is now also developing as a new class in Russia. The toiler has remained dependent as before. In fact, moreso. His labor organizations have been deprived of all power,
and he has lost even the right to strike against his governmental employer. “Since the workers, as a class, wield the dictatorship,” the Communists argue, “they cannot strike against themselves.” Accordingly the proletarians in Russia pay themselves
wages that are not sufficient for bare existence, live crowded inunhygienic quarters, work under most unsanitary conditions,endanger their health and lives because of lack of industrial
precaution and safety, and arrest and imprison themselves foran expression of discontent.
Culturally the Bolshevik régime is a training school in Communism and party fanaticism, with no access to ideas differing from the views of the dominant clique. It is the rearing ofan entire people in the dogmas of a political church, with noopportunity to broaden and cultivate the mind outside the circle of opinions permitted by the ruling class. No press exists
in Russia except the official Communist publications and suchothers as are approved of by the Bolshevik censor. No public
sentiment can find expression there, since the government has
a monopoly of speech, press, and assembly.
It is no exaggeration to say that there is less freedom of opinion and opportunity to voice it under the Bolshevik dictatorship than there had been under the Tsars. When Russia wasruled by the Romanovs you could at least secretly issue pamphlets and books, since the government then had no monopolyof the paper supply and printing presses. These were in private
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hands, and the revolutionists could always find ways to usethem for their propaganda.
To-day in Russia all the means of publication and distribution are in the exclusive possession of the Government, and no
person can express his views to the public unless he first secures Bolshevik permission. Thousands of illegal publications
had been issued by the revolutionary parties during the autocratic Romanov régime. Under Communist rule such a happening is most exceptional, as witness the indignant amazementof the Bolsheviki when it was discovered that Trotsky had succeeded in publishing the platform of the Opposition elementin the Party.
Socially Bolshevik Russia, ten years after the Revolution,
is a country where no man can enjoy political security or
economic independence, where the hidden hand of the G.P.U.
is always at work, terrorizing the people by sudden night
searches, arrests for no known cause, secret denunciation for
alleged counter-revolution out of personal revenge, imprisonment without hearing or trial, and year-long exile to thefrozen North of Siberia or the and wastes of Western Asia. A
huge prison, where equality means the fear of all alike, and“freedom” signifies unquestioning submission to the powersthat be.
Morally Russia represents the struggle of the finer qualities
of man against the degrading and corrupting effects of a system
built on coercion and intimidation. The Revolution brought thebest instincts of man to the fore: his manhood, his consciousness of human value, his love of liberty and justice. The revolutionary atmosphere inspired and cultivated these tendencies
lying dormant in the people, particularly the feeling against oppression, the hunger for freedom, the spirit of mutual helpfulness and coöperation. But the dictatorship has had the effect ofcounteracting these traits and arousing instead fear and hatred,
the spirit of intolerance and persecution. Bolshevik methods
have systematically weakened the people’s morale, have en176

if you are forced to do work you are not interested in, you will
be lazy at it.
Every one who has managed affairs in which large numbersof men were employed can substantiate this. Life in prison isa particularly convincing proof of the truth of it — and, after
all, present-day existence for most people is but that of a larger
jail. Every prison warden will tell you that inmates put to tasks
for which they have no ability or interest are always lazy andsubject to continuous punishment. But as soon as these “refractory convicts” are assigned to work that appeals to theirleanings, they become “model men,” as the jailers term them.
Russia has also signally demonstrated the verity of it. It has
shown how little we know of human potentialities and of the effect of environment upon them — how we mistake wrong conditions for bad conduct. Russian refugees, leading a miserable
and insignificant life in foreign lands, on returning home andfinding in the Revolution a proper field for their activities, haveaccomplished most wonderful work in their right sphere, havedeveloped into brilliant organizers, builders of railroads andcreators of industry. Among the Russian names best known
abroad to-day are those of men considered shiftless and inefficient under conditions where their ability and energies could
not find proper application.
That is human nature: efficiency in a certain direction means
inclination and capability for it; industry and application signify interest. That is why there is so much inefficiency andlaziness in the world to-day. For who indeed is nowadays in
his right place? Who works at what he really likes and is interested in?
Under present conditions there is little choice given the average man to devote himself to the tasks that appeal to his
leanings and preferences. The accident of your birth and social
station generally predetermines your trade or profession. The
son of the financier does not, as a rule, become a woodchopper, though he may be more fit to handle logs than bank ac205

“But is it just that all should share alike?” you demand. “Theman of brains and the dullard, the efficient and the inefficient,
all the same? Should there be no distinction, no special recognition for those of ability?”
Let me in turn ask you, my friend, shall we punish the man
whom nature has not endowed as generously as his stronger
or more talented neighbor? Shall we add injustice to the handicap nature has put upon him? All we can reasonably expectfrom any man is that he do his best — can any one do more?
And if John’s best is not as good as his brother Jim’s, it is his
misfortune, but in no case a fault to be punished.
There is nothing more dangerous than discrimination. The
moment you begin discriminating against the less capable, youestablish conditions that breed dissatisfaction and resentment:
you invite envy, discord, and strife. You would think it brutal
to withhold from the less capable the air or water they need.
Should not the same principle apply to the other wants of man?
After all, the matter of food, clothing, and shelter is the smallest
item in the world’s economy.
The surest way to get one to do his best is not by discriminating against him, but by treating him on an equal footing withothers. That is the most effective encouragement and stimulus.
It is just and human.
“But what will you do with the lazy man, the man who does
not want to work?” inquires your friend.
That is an interesting question, and you will probably be verymuch surprised when I say that there is really no such thing as
laziness. What we call a lazy man is generally a square man ina round hole. That is, the right man in the wrong place. And
you will always find that when a fellow is in the wrong place,
he will be inefficient or shiftless. For so-called laziness and agood deal of inefficiency are merely unfitness, misplacement.
If you are compelled to do the thing you are unfitted for byyour inclinations or temperament, you will be inefficient at it;

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couraged servility and hypocrisy, created disillusionment anddistrust, and have developed an atmosphere of time-serving
now dominant in Russia.
Such is the situation to-day in that unhappy land, such theeffects of the Bolshevik idea that you can make a people freeby compulsion, the dogma that dictatorship can lead to liberty.
“So you think that the Revolution failed because of dictatorship?” you ask. “Was not Russia too backward to make a success of it?”
It failed because of Bolshevik ideas and methods. The Russian masses were not too “backward“ to abolish the Tsar, todefeat the Provisional Government, to destroy capitalism andthe wage system, to turn the land over to the peasantry andthe industries to the workers. So far the Revolution was thegreatest success, and the people were beginning to build their
new life upon the foundation of equal liberty, opportunity, andjustice. But the moment a political party usurped the reins ofgovernment and proclaimed its dictatorship, disastrous results
were inevitable.
Revolution, when it comes, must deal with conditions as it
finds them. It is the means and methods used, and the purpose
for which they are used, that are vital. Upon them depends thecourse and fate of the revolution.
Whatever the social, political, or economic situation of agiven country — be it ‘backward’ Russia or ‘advanced’ America— the most important problem is what you want to accomplish
and what means will best secure your object.
But if the purpose of the Russian Revolution was to abolishoppression and servitude, then the Bolsheviki and their policies
are proving the greatest failure.
It all depends, as you see, on what your purpose is, what
you want to accomplish. Your aims must determine the means.
Means and aims are in reality the same: you cannot separate
them. It is the means that shape your ends. The means are theseeds which but into flower and come to fruition. The fruit will177

always be of the nature of the seed you planted. You can’t growa rose from a cactus seed. No more can you harvest liberty fromcompulsion, justice and manhood from dictatorship.
Let us learn this lesson well because the fate of revolution
depends on it. “You shall reap what you sow” is the acme of all
human wisdom and experience.
You cannot make a sick man well by drawing out his blood.
The free activity of the masses is the life-blood of revolution.
Eliminate or repress it, and revolution becomes anæmic anddies.
It means that the aims of the revolution must fashion its
methods. Not coercion and dictatorship, but only liberty andthe free expression of the masses can serve the objects of revolution. In revolution, as in ordinary life, there is no middle road:
it is either compulsion or liberty.
Dictatorship and terror have been tried in Russia. The lesson of that experiment is clear and convincing: those methods
imply the destruction of revolution. A new way must be found.
“Is there any other way?” you ask.
There is only the way of liberty, and that has never been
tried, yet.
I don’t know whether you are willing to try it: most people
are afraid of freedom. But I do know that unless that way is
tried, the way of liberty, justice, and reason, revolution must
lead to dictatorship, to failure and death.
Dictatorship, whether white or red, always means the samething: it means compulsion, oppression, and misery. That is its
character and essence. It cannot be anything else. Dictatorshipis a government that governments most. But as Thomas Jefferson wisely said, “That government is best which governs least.”
That is what the Anarchists claim, and so let us turn fromSocialism and Bolshevism, from Marx and Lenin, to consider
what Anarchism has to offer us.

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if you should count in the years of study and practice the surgeon needed to make him capable of performing the operation,
how are you going to decide what “an hour of operating” isworth? The carpenter and mason also had to be trained before
they could do their work properly, but you don’t figure in those
years of apprenticeship when you contract for some work withthem. Besides, there is also to be considered the particular ability and aptitude that every worker, writer, artist or physician
must exercise in his labors. That is a purely individual, personal
factor. How are you going to estimate its value?
That is why value cannot be determined. The same thing may
be worth a lot to one person while it is worth nothing or very
little to another. It may be worth much or little even to thesame person, at different times. A diamond, a painting, or abook may be worth a great deal to one man and very little toanother. A loaf of bread will be worth a great deal to you when
you are hungry, and much less when you are not. Therefore thereal value of a thing cannot be ascertained; it is an unknown
quantity.
But the price is easily found out. If there are five loaves ofbread to be had and ten persons want to get a loaf each, theprice of bread will rise. If there are ten loaves and only fivebuyers, then it will fall. Price depends on supply and demand.
The exchange of commodities by means of prices leads toprofit making, to taking advantage and exploitation; in short,
to some form of capitalism. If you do away with profits, you
cannot have any price system, nor any system of wages or payment. That means that exchange must be according to value.
But as value is uncertain or not ascertainable, exchange must
consequently be free, without “equal” value, since such does
not exist. In other words, labor and its products must be exchanged without price, without profit, freely, according to necessity. This logically leads to ownership in common and to
joint use. Which is a sensible, just, and equitable system, andis known as Communism.
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Economically he will permit no exclusive possession of thesources of life in order to preserve his opportunity of free access.
Monopoly of land, private ownership of the machinery of
production, distribution, and communication can therefore not
be tolerated under Anarchy. Opportunity to use what every
one needs in order to live must be free to all.
In a nutshell, then, the meaning of Communist Anarchism is
this: the abolition of government, of coercive authority and all
its agencies, and joint ownership-which means free and equal
participation in the general work and welfare.
“You said that Anarchy will secure economic equality,” remarks your friend. “Does that mean equal pay for all?”It does. Or, what amounts to the same, equal participationin the public welfare. Because, as we already know, labor issocial. No man can create anything all by himself, by his own
efforts. Now, then, if labor is social, it stands to reason that theresults of it, the wealth produced, must also be social, belong
to the collectivity. No person can therefore justly lay claim to
the exclusive ownership of the social wealth. It is to be enjoyedby all alike.
“But why not give each according to the value of his work?”
you ask.
Because there is no way by which value can be measured.
That is the difference between value and price. Value is whata thing is worth, while price is what it can be sold or bought
for in the market. What a thing is worth no one really can tell.
Political economists generally claim that the value of a commodity is the amount of labor required to produce it, of “socially necessary labor,” as Marx says. But evidently it is not ajust standard of measurement. Suppose the carpenter worked
three hours to make a kitchen chair, while the surgeon took
only half an hour to perform an operation that saved your life.
If the amount of labor used determines value, then the chair isworth more than your life. Obvious nonsense, of course. Even
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Chapter 19: Is Anarchism
Violence?
You have heard that Anarchists throw bombs, that they believe in violence, and that Anarchy means disorder and chaos.
It is not surprising that you should think so. The press, thepulpit, and every one in authority constantly din it into yourears. But most of them know better, even if they have a reason
for not telling you the truth. It is time you should hear it.
I mean to speak to you honestly and frankly, and you cantake my word for it, because it happens that I am just one ofthose Anarchists who are pointed out as men of violence anddestruction. I ought to know, and I have nothing to hide.
“Now, does Anarchism really mean disorder and violence?”
you wonder.
No, my friend, it is capitalism and government which standfor disorder and violence. Anarchism is the very reverse of it; itmeans order without government and peace without violence.
“But is that possible?” you ask.
That is just what we are going to talk over now. But firstyour friend demands to know whether Anarchists have neverthrown bombs or ever used any violence.
Yes, Anarchists have thrown bombs and have sometimes resorted to violence.
“There you are!” your friend exclaims. “I thought so.”But do not let us be hasty. If Anarchists have sometimes
employed violence, does it necessarily mean that Anarchismmeans violence?
Ask yourself this question and try to answer it honestly.
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When a citizen puts on a soldier’s uniform, he may have tothrow bombs and use violence. Will you say, then, that citizenship stands for bombs and violence?
You will indignantly resent the imputation. It simply means,
you will reply, that under certain conditions a man may have toresort to violence. The man may happen to he a Democrat, aMonarchist, a Socialist, Bolshevik, or Anarchist.
You will find that this applies to all men and to all times.
Brutus killed Caesar because he feared his friend meant tobetray the republic and become king. Not that Brutus “loved
Caesar less but that he loved Rome more.” Brutus was not an
Anarchist. He was a loyal republican.
William Tell, as folklore tells us, shot to death the tyrant inorder to rid his country of oppression. Tell had never heard of
Anarchism.
I mention these instances to illustrate the fact that from time
immemorial despots met their fate at the hands of outraged
lovers of liberty. Such men were rebels against tyranny. They
were generally patriots, Democrats or Republicans, occasionally Socialists or Anarchists. Their acts were cases of individual
rebellion against wrong and injustice. Anarchism had nothing
to do with it.
There was a time in ancient Greece when killing a despot
was considered the highest virtue. Modern law condemns suchacts, but human feeling seems to have remained the same inthis matter as in the old days. The conscience of the world does
not feel outraged by tyrannicide. Even if publicly not approved,
the heart of mankind condones and often even secretly rejoices
at such acts. Were there not thousands of patriotic youths in
America willing to assassinate the German Kaiser whom theyheld responsible for starting the World War? Did not a French
court recently acquit the man who killed Petlura to avenge
the thousands of men, women and children murdered in the
Petlura pogroms against the Jews of South Russia?

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Chapter 22: Will Communist
Anarchism Work?
As we have seen in the preceding chapter, no life can be freeand secure, harmonious and satisfactory unless it is built on
principles of justice and fair play. The first requirement of justice is equal liberty and opportunity.
Under government and exploitation there can be neither
equal liberty nor equal opportunity — hence all the evils andtroubles of present-day society.
Communist Anarchism is based on the understanding of thisincontrovertible truth. It is founded on the principle of noninvasiveness and non-coercion; in other words, on liberty andopportunity.
Life on such a basis fully satisfies the demands of justice. You
are to be entirely free, and everybody else is to enjoy equal liberty, which means that no one has a right to compel or force
another, for coercion of any kind is interference with your liberty.
Similarly equal opportunity is the heritage of all. Monopoly
and the private ownership of the means of existence are therefore eliminated as an abridgement of the equal opportunity ofall.
If we keep in mind this simple principle of equal liberty andopportunity, we shall be able to solve the questions involved inbuilding a society of Communist Anarchism.
Politically, then, man will recognize no authority which canforce or coerce him. Government will be abolished.

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archy. Every one whose heart is not dead to kindness, compassion, and fellow-sympathy must be interested in furthering
it. Every one who has to endure poverty and misery, tyranny
and oppression should welcome the coming of Anarchy. Everyliberty and justice-loving man and woman should help realizeit.
And foremost and most vitally of all the subjected and submerged of the world must be interested in it. Those who build
palaces and live in hovels; who set the table of life but are notpermitted to partake of the repast; who create the wealth of theworld and are disinherited; who fill life with joy and sunshine,
and themselves remain scorned in the depths of darkness; theSamson of life shorn of his strength by the hand of fear andignorance; the helpless Giant of Labor, the proletariat of brain
and brawn, the industrial and agrarian masses — these should
most gladly embrace Anarchy.
It is to them that Anarchism makes the strongest appeal; it isthey who, first and foremost, must work for the new day thatis to give them back their inheritance and bring liberty andwell-being, joy and sunshine to the whole of mankind.
“A splendid thing,” you remark; “but will it work? And how
shall we attain it?”In every land, in all ages, there have been tyrannicides; thatis, men and women who loved their country well enough tosacrifice even their own lives for it. Usually they were personsof no political party or idea, but simply haters of tyranny.
Occasionally they were religious fanatics, like the devout
Catholic Kullmann, who tried to assassinate Bismarck1 or
the misguided enthusiast Charlotte Corday who killed Marat
during the French Revolution.
In the United States three Presidents were killed by individual acts. Lincoln was shot in 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, who
was a Southern Democrat; Garfield, in 1881, by Charles Jules
Guiteau, a Republican; and McKinley, in 1901, by Leon Czolgosz. Out of the three only one was an Anarchist.
The country that has the worst oppressors produces also thegreatest number of tyrannicides, which is natural. Take Russia,
for instance. With complete suppression of speech and press
under the Tsars, there was no way of mitigating the despotic
régime than by “putting the fear of God” into the tyrant’s heart.
Those avengers were mostly sons and daughters of the highest nobility, idealistic youths who loved liberty and the people.
With all other avenues closed, they felt themselves compelled
to resort to the pistol and dynamite in the hope of alleviating
the miserable conditions of their country. They were known as
nihilists and terrorists. They were not Anarchists.
In modern times individual acts of political violence havebeen even more frequent than in the past. The women suffragettes in England, for example, frequently resorted to it topropagate and carry out their demands for equal rights. In Germany, since the war, men of the most conservative politicalviews have used such methods in the hope of reestablishing
the kingdom. It was a monarchist who killed Karl Erzberger,
the Prussian Minister of Finance; and Walter Rathenau, Minis-

1

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July 13, 1874.

181

ter of Foreign Affairs, was also laid low by a man of the same
political party.
Why, the original cause of, or at least excuse for, the GreatWar itself was the killing of the Austrian heir to the throne
by a Serbian patriot who had never heard of Anarchism. In
Germany, Hungary, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and in every
other European country men of the most varied political views
have resorted to acts of violence, not to speak of the wholesale political terror, practiced by organized bodies such as theFascists in Italy, the Ku Klux Klan in America, or the Catholic
Church in Mexico.
You see, then, that Anarchists have no monopoly of politicalviolence. The number of such acts by Anarchists is infinitesimalas compared with those committed by persons of other politicalpersuasions.
The truth is that in every country, in every social movement,
violence has been a part of the struggle from time immemorial.
Even the Nazarene, who came to preach the gospel of peace,resorted to violence to drive the money changers out of thetemple.
As I have said, Anarchists have no monopoly on violence.
On the contrary, the teachings of Anarchism are those of peaceand harmony, of non-invasion, of the sacredness of life and liberty. But Anarchists are human, like the rest of mankind, andperhaps more so. They are more sensitive to wrong and injustice, quicker to resent oppression, and therefore not exempt
from occasionally voicing their protest by an act of violence.
But such acts are an expression of individual temperament, notof any particular theory.
You might ask whether the holding of revolutionary ideas
would not naturally influence a person toward deeds of violence. I do not think so, because we have seen that violent
methods are also employed by people of the most conservative
opinions. If persons of directly opposite political views commit

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deeds of self-sacrifice and devotion, and raised him far above
the mean drabness of his every-day existence. It is tragic, ofcourse, that this idealism expressed itself in acts of persecution,
violence, and slaughter. It was the viciousness and self-seekingof king, priest, and master, ignorance and fanaticism which determined those forms. But the spirit that filled them was thatof right and justice. All past experience proves that this spirit
is ever alive and that it is a powerful and dominant factor in
the whole scale of human life.
The conditions of our present-day existence weaken and vitiate this noblest trait of man, pervert its manifestation, andturn it into channels of intolerance, persecution, hatred, andstrife. But once man is freed from the corrupting influences ofmaterial interests, lifted out of ignorance and class antagonism,
his innate spirit of right and justice would find new forms ofexpression, forms that would tend toward greater brotherhoodand good will, toward individual peace and social harmony.
Only under Anarchy could this spirit come into its full development. Liberated from the degrading and brutalizing struggle
for our daily bread, all sharing in labor and well-being, the best
qualities of man’s heart and mind would have opportunity for
growth and beneficial application. Man would indeed become
the noble work of nature that he has till now visioned himself
only in his dreams.
It is for these reasons that Anarchy is the ideal not only ofsome particular element or class, but of all humanity, because
it would benefit, in the largest sense, all of us. For Anarchism isthe formulation of a universal and perennial desire of mankind.
Every man and woman, therefore, should be vitally interested in helping to bring Anarchy about. They would surely
do so if they but understood the beauty and justice of such a
new life. Every human being who is not devoid of feeling andcommon sense is inclined to Anarchism. Every one who suffers from wrong and injustice, from the evil, corruption, andfilth of our present-day life, is instinctively sympathetic to An199

Historically the same holds true. More rebellions and wars
have been fought for ideas of right and wrong than because ofmaterial reasons. Marxists may object that our views of rightand wrong are themselves formed by economic conditions, butthat in no way alters the fact that the sense of justice and right
has at all times inspired people to heroism and self-sacrifice inbehalf of ideals.
The Christs and the Buddhas of all ages were not promptedby material considerations but by their devotion to justice andright. The pioneers in every human endeavor have sufferedcalumny, persecution, even death, not for motives of personal
aggrandizement but because of their faith in the justice of theircause. The John Husses, the Luthers, Brunos, Savonarolas,
Gallileos and numerous other religious and social idealists
fought and died championing the cause of right as they saw
it. Similarly in paths of science, philosophy, art, poetry, andeducation men from the time of Socrates to modern days
have devoted their lives to the service of truth and justice.
In the field of political and social advancement, beginningwith Moses and Spartacus, the noblest of humanity haveconsecrated themselves to ideals of liberty and equality. Nor isthis compelling power of idealism limited only to exceptional
individuals. The masses have always been inspired by it. The
American War of Independence, for instance, began withpopular resentment in the Colonies against the injustice oftaxation without representation. The Crusades continued fortwo hundred years in an effort to secure the Holy Land for the
Christians. This religious ideal inspired six millions of men,even armies of children, to face untold hardships, pestilence,and death in the name of right and justice. Even the late World
War, capitalistic as it was in cause and result, was fought by
millions of men in the fond belief that it was being waged fora just cause, for democracy and the termination of all wars.
So all through history, past and modern, the sense of rightand justice has inspired man, individually and collectively, to198

similar acts, it is hardly reasonable to say that their ideas are
responsible for such acts.
Like results have a like cause, but that cause is not to befound in political convictions; rather in individual temperament and the general feeling about violence.
“You may be right about temperament,” you say. “I can seethat revolutionary ideas are not the cause of political acts ofviolence, else every revolutionist would be committing suchacts. But do not such views to some extent justify those who
commit such acts?”
It may seem so at first sight. But if you think it over you
will find that it is an entirely wrong idea. The best proof of
it is that Anarchists who hold exactly the same views about
government and the necessity of abolishing it, often disagree
entirely on the question of violence. Thus Tolstoyan Anarchists
and most Individualist Anarchists condemn political violence,
while other Anarchists approve of or at least justify it.
Is it reasonable, then, to say that Anarchist views are responsible for violence or in any way influence such acts?
Moreover, many Anarchists who at one time believed inviolence as a means of propaganda have changed their opinion
about it and do not favor such methods any more. There wasa time, for instance, when Anarchists advocated individual
acts of violence, known as “propaganda by deed.” They did not
expect to change government and capitalism into Anarchismby such acts, nor did they think that the taking off of a despot
would abolish despotism. No, terrorism was considered ameans of avenging a popular wrong, inspiring fear in theenemy, and also calling attention to the evil against which theact of terror was directed. But most Anarchists to-day do notbelieve any more in “propaganda by deed” and do not favor
acts of that nature.
Experience has taught them that though such methods may
have been justified and useful in the past, modern conditions oflife make them unnecessary and even harmful to the spread of183

their ideas. But their ideas remain the same, which means that
it was not Anarchism which shaped their attitude to violence. It
proves that it is not certain ideas or “isms” that lead to violence,but that some other causes bring it about.
We must therefore look somewhere else to find the right explanation.
As we have seen, acts of political violence have been committed not only by Anarchists, Socialists, and revolutionists of all
kinds, but also by patriots and nationalists, by Democrats andRepublicans, by suffragettes, by conservatives and reactionaries, by monarchists and royalists, and even by religionists anddevout Christians.
We know now that it could not have been any particularidea or “ism” that influenced their acts, because the most varied
ideas and “isms” produced similar deeds. I have given as thereason individual temperament and the general feeling about
violence.
Here is the crux of the matter. What is this general feelingabout violence? If we can answer this question correctly, thewhole matter will be clear to us.
If we speak honestly, we must admit that every one believesin violence and practices it, however he may condemn it inothers. In fact, all of the institutions we support and the entire
life of present society are based on violence.
What is the thing we call government? Is it anything else but
organized violence? The law orders you to do this or not to dothat, and if you fail to obey, it will compel you by force. We are
not discussing just now whether it is right or wrong, whether
it should or should not be so, just now we are interested in thefact that it is so — that all government, all law and authority
finally rest on force and violence, on punishment or the fear ofpunishment.
Why, even spiritual authority, the authority of the church
and of God rests on force and violence, because it is the fear of

184

Only then would justice and right come into their own. Do
not underestimate the rôle of these sentiments in the life of
man or nation. We do not live by bread alone. True, existence is
not possible without opportunity to satisfy our physical needs.
But the gratification of these by no means constitutes all oflife. Our present system of civilization has, by disinheriting millions, made the belly the center of the universe, so to speak.
But in a sensible society, with plenty for all, the matter of mere
existence, the security of a livelihood would be considered selfevident and free as the air is for all. The feelings of human sympathy, of justice and right would have a chance to develop, tobe satisfied, to broaden and grow. Even to-day the sense of justice and fair play is still alive in the heart of man, in spite ofcenturies of repression and perversion. It has not been exterminated, it cannot be exterminated because it is inborn, innate
in man, an instinct as strong as that of self-preservation, andjust as vital to our happiness. For not all the misery we have inthe world today comes from the lack of material welfare. Man
can better stand starvation than the consciousness of injustice.
The consciousness that you are treated unjustly will rouse you
to protest and rebellion just as quickly as hunger, perhaps evenquicker. Hunger may be the immediate cause of every rebellion
or uprising, but beneath it is the slumbering antagonism andhatred of the masses against those at whose hands they are suffering injustice and wrong. The truth is that right and justiceplay a far more important rôle in our lives than most people
are aware of. Those who would deny this know as little of human nature as of history. In every-day life you constantly see
people grow indignant at what they consider to be an injustice.
“That isn’t right,” is the instinctive protest of man when he feels
wrong done. Of course, every one’s conception of wrong andright depends on his traditions, environment and bringing up.
But whatever his conception, his natural impulse is to resent
what he thinks wrong and unjust.

197this example shows how much more sensible and simpler life
would be under Anarchism than now.
The truth is, present life is impractical, complex and confused, and not satisfactory from any point of view. That is why
there is so much misery and discontent. The worker is not satisfied; nor is the master happy in his constant anxiety over “badtimes” involving loss of property and power. The specter of fear
for to-morrow dogs the steps of poor and rich alike.
Certainly the worker has nothing to lose by a change fromgovernment and capitalism to a condition of no government,of Anarchy.
The middle classes are almost as uncertain of their existence
as the workers. They are dependent upon the good will of the
manufacturer and wholesaler, of the large combines of industry
and capital, and they are always in danger of bankruptcy andruin.
Even the big capitalist has little to lose by the changing of
the present-day system to one of Anarchy, for under the latter
every one would be assured of living and comfort; the fear ofcompetition would be eliminated with the abolition of private
ownership. Every one would have full and unhindered opportunity to live and enjoy his life to the utmost of his capacity.
Add to this the consciousness of peace and harmony; thefeeling that comes with freedom from financial or material worries; the realization that you are in a friendly world with noenvy or business rivalry to disturb your mind; in a world of
brothers, in an atmosphere of liberty and general welfare.
It is almost impossible to conceive of the wonderful opportunities which would open up to man in a society of Communist Anarchism. The scientist could fully devote himself to his
beloved pursuits, without being harassed about his daily bread.
The inventor would find every facility at his disposal to benefit humanity by his discoveries and inventions. The writer, thepoet, the artist — all would rise on the wings of liberty andsocial harmony to greater heights of attainment.
196

divine wrath and vengeance that wields power over you, compels you to obey, and even to believe against your own reason.
Wherever you turn you will find that our entire life is built
on violence or the fear of it. From earliest childhood you aresubjected to the violence of parents or elders. At home, inschool, in the office, factory, field, or shop, it is always someone’s authority which keeps you obedient and compels you to
do his will.
The right to compel you is called authority. Fear of punishment has been made into duty and is called obedience.
In this atmosphere of force and violence, of authority andobedience, of duty, fear and punishment we all grow up; webreathe it throughout our lives. We are so steeped in the spiritof violence that we never stop to ask whether violence is rightor wrong. We only ask if it is legal, whether the law permits it.
You don’t question the right of the government to kill, toconfiscate and imprison. If a private person should be guilty ofthe things the government is doing all the time, you’d brandhim a murderer, thief, and scoundrel. But as long as the violence committed is “lawful,” you approve of it and submit to
it. So it is not really violence that you object to, but to peopleusing violence “unlawfully.”
This lawful violence and the fear of it dominate our whole existence, individual and collective. Authority controls our lives
from the cradle to the grave — authority parental, priestly anddivine, political, economic, social, and moral. But whatever thecharacter of that authority, it is always the same executioner
wielding power over you through your fear of punishment in
one form or another. You are afraid of God and the devil, ofthe priest and the neighbor, of your employer and boss, of thepolitician and policeman, of the judge and the jailer, of the law
and the government. All your life is a long chain of fears —fears which bruise your body and lacerate your soul. On thosefears is based the authority of God, of the church, of parents,of capitalist and ruler.
185

Look into your heart and see if what I say is not true.
Why, even among children the ten-year-old Johnny bosses
his younger brother or sister by the authority of his greater
physical strength, just as Johnny’s father bosses him by his
superior strength, and by Johnny’s dependence on his support.
You stand for the authority of priest and preacher because you
think they can “call down the wrath of God upon your head.”
You submit to the domination of boss, judge, and government
because of their power to deprive you of work, to ruin yourbusiness, to put you in prison — a power, by the way, that you
yourself have given into their hands.
So authority rules your whole life, the authority of the pastand the present, of the dead and the living, and your existence
is a continuous invasion and violation of yourself, a constantsubjection to the thoughts and the will of some one else.
And as you are invaded and violated, so you subconsciously
revenge yourself by invading and violating others over whom
you have authority or can exercise compulsion, physical or
moral. In this way all life has become a crazy quilt of authority,of domination and submission, of command and obedience, of
coercion and subjection, of rulers and ruled, of violence andforce in a thousand and one forms.
Can you wonder that even idealists are still held in themeshes of this spirit of authority and violence, and are often
impelled by their feelings and environment to invasive acts
entirely at variance with their ideas?
We are all still barbarians who resort to force and violence
to settle our doubts, difficulties, and troubles. Violence is themethod of ignorance, the weapon of the weak. The strong ofheart and brain need no violence, for they are irresistible intheir consciousness of being right. The further we get awayfrom primitive man and the hatchet age, the less recourse weshall have to force and violence. The more enlightened man will
become, the less he will employ compulsion and coercion. The
really civilized man will divest himself of all fear and authority.
186

Rather ask yourself whether government really protects us
against them. Does not government itself create and upholdconditions which make for crime? Does not the invasion andviolence upon which all governments rest cultivate the spiritof intolerance and persecution, of hatred and more violence?
Does not crime increase with the growth of poverty and injustice fostered by government? Is not government itself thegreatest injustice and crime?
Crime is the result of economic conditions, of social
inequality, of wrongs and evils of which government andmonopoly are the parents. Government and law can only
punish the criminal. They neither cure nor prevent crime. The
only real cure for crime is to abolish its causes, and this thegovernment can never do because it is there to preserve thosevery causes. Crime can be eliminated only by doing away withthe conditions that create it. Government cannot do it.
Anarchism means to do away with those conditions. Crimes
resulting from government, from its oppression and injustice,from inequality and poverty, will disappear under Anarchy.
These constitute by far the greatest percentage of crime.
Certain other crimes will persist for some time, such as thoseresulting from jealousy, passion, and from the spirit of coercion
and violence which dominates the world to-day. But these, theoffspring of authority and possession, will also gradually disappear under wholesome conditions with the passing away of
the atmosphere that cultivated them.
Anarchy will therefore neither breed crime nor offer any soil
for its thriving. Occasional anti-social acts will be looked uponas survivals of former diseased conditions and attitudes, andwill be treated as an unhealthy state of mind rather than as
crime.
Anarchy would begin by feeding the “criminal” and securing him work instead of first watching him, arresting, trying,and imprisoning him, and finally ending by feeding him andthe many others who have to watch and feed him. Surely even195tion with it whatever, no need of it, and is only interfered with
where law and government step in?
“But security and public order,” you object, “could we havethat without law and government? Who will protect us against
the criminal?”
The truth is that what is called “law and order” is really theworst disorder, as we have seen in previous chapters. What little order and peace we do have is due to the good common
sense and joint efforts of the people, mostly in spite of the government. Do you need government to tell you not to step infront of a moving automobile? Do you need it to order you not
to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge or from the Eiffel Tower?
Man is a social being: he cannot exist alone; he lives in communities or societies. Mutual need and common interests result in certain arrangements to afford us security and comfort.
Such co-working is free, voluntary; it needs no compulsion by
any government. You join a sporting club or a singing society
because your inclinations lie that way, and you coöerate withthe other members without any one coercing you. The manof science, the writer, the artist, and the inventor seek theirown kind for inspiration and mutual work. Their impulses andneeds are their best urge: the interference of any government
or authority can only hinder their efforts.
All through life you will find that the needs and inclinationsof people make for association, for mutual protection and help.
That is the difference between managing things and governing men; between doing something from free choice and being compelled. It is the difference between liberty and constraint, between Anarchism and government, because Anarchism means voluntary coöperation instead of forced participation. It means harmony and order in place of interference
and disorder.
“But who will protect us against crime and criminals?” youdemand.

194

He will rise from the dust and stand erect: he will bow to notsar either in heaven or on earth. He will become fully humanwhen he will scorn to rule and refuse to be ruled. He will be
truly free only when there shall be no more masters.
Anarchism is the ideal of such a condition; of a society without force and compulsion, where all men shall be equals, andlive in freedom, peace, and harmony.
The word Anarchy comes from the Greek, meaning without
force, without violence or government, because government isthe very fountainhead of violence, constraint, and coercion.
Anarchy2 therefore does not mean disorder and chaos, as
you thought before. On the contrary, it is the very reverse ofit; it means no government, which is freedom and liberty. Disorder is the child of authority and compulsion. Liberty is themother of order.
“A beautiful ideal,” you say; “but only angels are fit for it.”
Let us see, then, if we can grow the wings we need for that
ideal state of society.

2

Anarchy refers to the condition. Anarchism is the theory or teaching
about it.

187

Chapter 20: What is
Anarchism?
“Can you tell us briefly,” your friend asks, “what Anarchism
really is?”I shall try. In the fewest words, Anarchism teaches that we
can live in a society where there is no compulsion of any kind.
A life without compulsion naturally means liberty; it means
freedom from being forced or coerced, a chance to lead the lifethat suits you best.
You cannot lead such a life unless you do away with the institutions that curtail your liberty and interfere with your life,
the conditions that compel you to act differently from the way
you really would like to.
What are those institutions and conditions? Let us see what
we have to do away with in order to secure a free and harmonious life. Once we know what has to be abolished and whatmust take its place, we shall also find the way to do it.
What must be abolished, then, to secure liberty?
First of all, of course, the thing that invades you most, thathandicaps or prevents your free activity; the thing that interferes with your liberty and compels you to live differently fromwhat would be your own choice.
That thing is government.
Take a good look at it and you will see that government is
the greatest invader; more than that, the worst criminal man
has ever known of. It fills the world with violence, with fraud
and deceit, with oppression and misery. As a great thinker once
said, “its breath is poison.” It corrupts everything it touches.
188

We shall consider later the details of life under Anarchy andsee what conditions and institutions will exist in that form ofsociety, how they will function, and what effect they are likely
to have upon man.
For the present we want to make sure first that such a condition is possible, that Anarchy is practicable.
What is the existence of the average man to-day? Almost all
your time is given to earning your livelihood. You are so busy
making a living that you hardly have time left to live, to enjoy
life. Neither the time nor the money. You are lucky if you havesome source of support, some job. Now and then comes slacktime: there is unemployment and thousands are thrown out ofwork, every year, in every country.
That time means no income, no wages. It results in worry
and privation, in disease, desperation, and suicide. It spells
poverty and crime. To alleviate that poverty we build homesof charity, poorhouses, free hospitals, all of which you support
with your taxes. To prevent crime and to punish the criminals
it is again you who have to support police, detectives, State
forces, judges, lawyers, prisons, keepers. Can you imagine
anything more senseless and impractical? The legislatures passlaws, the judges interpret them, the various officials execute
them, the police track and arrest the criminal, and finally theprison warden gets him into custody. Numerous persons andinstitutions are busy keeping the jobless man from stealing
and punish him if he tries to. Then he is provided with themeans of existence, the lack of which had made him breakthe law in the first place. After a shorter or longer term he isturned loose. If he fails to get work he begins the same roundof theft, arrest, trial, and imprisonment all over again.
This is a rough but typical illustration of the stupid character of our system; stupid and inefficient. Law and government
support that system.
Is it not peculiar that most people imagine we could not do
without government, when in fact our real life has no connec193

Chapter 21: Is Anarchy
Possible?
“It might be possible,” you say, “if we could do without government. But can we?”
Perhaps we can best answer your question by examining
your own life.
What rôle does the government play in your existence? Does
it help you live? Does it feed, clothe, and shelter you? Do you
need it to help you work or play? If you are ill, do you callthe physician or the policeman? Can the government give you
greater ability than nature endowed you with? Can it save youfrom sickness, old age, or death?
Consider your daily life and you will find that in reality thegovernment is no factor in it at all except when it begins tointerfere in your affairs, when it compels you to do certain
things or prohibits you from doing others. It forces you, forinstance, to pay taxes and support it, whether you want to ornot. It makes you don a uniform and join the army. It invades
your personal life, orders you about, coerces you, prescribes
your behavior, and generally treats you as it pleases. It tells
you even what you must believe and punishes you for thinking and acting otherwise. It directs you what to eat and drink,
and imprisons or shoots you for disobeying. It commands you
and dominates every step of your life. It treats you as a badboy or as an irresponsible child who needs the strong hand of aguardian, but if you disobey it holds you responsible, nevertheless.

192“Yes, government means violence and it is evil,” you admit;“but can we do without it?”That is just what we want to talk over. Now, if I should ask
you whether you need government, I’m sure you would answer
that you don’t, but that it is for the others that it is needed.
But if you should ask any one of those “others,” he would
reply as you do: he would say that he does not need it, but that
it is necessary “for the others.”
Why does every one think that he can be decent enoughwithout the policeman, but that the club is needed for “the others”?
“People would rob and murder each other if there were nogovernment and no law,” you say.
If they really would, why would they? Would they do it justfor the pleasure of it or because of certain reasons? Maybe if
we examine their reasons, we’d discover the cure for them.
Suppose you and I and a score of others had suffered shipwreck and found ourselves on an island rich with fruit of every kind. Of course, we’d get to work to gather the food. But
suppose one of our number should declare that it all belongs
to him, and that no one shall have a single morsel unless hefirst pays him tribute for it. We would be indignant, wouldn’t
we? We’d laugh at his pretensions. If he’d try to make trouble
about it, we might throw him into the sea, and it would serve
him right, would it not?
Suppose further that we ourselves and our forefathers had
cultivated the island and stocked it with everything needed forlife and comfort, and that some one should arrive and claim it
all as his. What would we say? We’d ignore him, wouldn’t we?
We might tell him that he could share with us and join us in ourwork. But suppose that he insists on his ownership and that heproduces a slip of paper and says that it proves that everything
belongs to him? We’d tell him he’s crazy and we’d go about
our business. But if he should have a government back of him,
he would appeal to it for the protection of “his rights,” and the189government would send police and soldiers who would evict
us and put the “lawful owner in possession.”
That is the function of government; that is what government
exists for and what it is doing all the time.
Now, do you still think that without this thing called government we should rob and murder each other?
Is it not rather true that with government we rob and murder? Because government does not secure us in our rightful
possessions, but on the contrary takes them away for the benefit of those who have no right to them, as we have seen inprevious chapters.
If you should wake up to-morrow morning and learn that
there is no government any more, would your first thought be
to rush out into the street and kill someone? No, you know thatis nonsense. We speak of sane, normal men. The insane man
who wants to kill does not first ask whether there is or isn’t
any government. Such men belong to the care of physicians
and alienists; they should be placed in hospitals to be treated
for their malady.
The chances are that if you or Johnson should awaken tofind that there is no government, you would get busy arranging
your life under the new conditions.
It is very likely, of course, that if you should then see people
gorge themselves while you go hungry, you would demand achance to eat, and you would be perfectly right in that. And
so would every one else, which means that people would notstand for any one hogging all the good things of life: theywould want to share in them. It means further that the poor
would refuse to stay poor while others wallow in luxury. Itmeans that the worker will decline to give up his productto the boss who claims to “own” the factory and everythingthat is made there. It means that the farmer will not permit
thousands of acres to lie idle while he has not enough soil
to support himself and family. It means that no one will
be permitted to monopolize the land or the machinery of
190

production. It means that private ownership of the sources oflife will not be tolerated any more. It will be considered thegreatest crime for some to own more than they can use in adozen lifetimes, while their neighbors have not enough breadfor their children. It means that all men will share in the social
wealth, and that all will help to produce that wealth.
It means, in short, that for the first time in history right justice, and equality would triumph instead of law.
You see therefore that doing away with government also signifies the abolition of monopoly and of personal ownership ofthe means of production and distribution.
It follows that when government is abolished, wage slavery
and capitalism must also go with it, because they cannot exist
without the support and protection of government. Just as theman who would claim a monopoly of the island, of which I
spoke before, could not put through his crazy claim without
the help of government.
Such a condition of things where there would be liberty instead of government would be Anarchy. And where equalityof use would take the place of private ownership, would be
Communism.
It would be Communist Anarchism.
“Oh, Communism,” your friend exclaims, “but you said you
were not a Bolshevik!”
No, I am not a Bolshevik, because the Bolsheviki want a powerful government or State, while Anarchism means doing awaywith the State or government altogether.
“But are not the Bolsheviki Communists?” you demand.
Yes, the Bolsheviki are Communists, but they want their dictatorship, their government, to compel people to live in Communism. Anarchist Communism, on the contrary, means voluntary Communism, Communism from free choice.
“I see the difference. It would be fine, of course,” your friend
admits. “But do you really think it possible?”

191

The Anarchist Library
Anti-CopyrightAlexander Berkman
What Is Communist Anarchism?
1929
From Alexander Berkman, Now and After: The ABC ofCommunist Anarchism, New York, Vanguard Press, 1929.
Retrieved on March 12th , 2009 from dwardmac.pitzer.edu.
This book has other editions which have been publishedunder different titles such as Now and After: The ABC ofCommunist Anarchism, What Is Communist Anarchism?, andWhat Is Anarchism?
This book also available in Turkish: Anarşizm Nedir? Alexander Berkman
theanarchistlibrary.org

But blind rebellion without definite object and purpose is
not revolution. Revolution is rebellion become conscious of its
aims. Revolution is social when it strives for a fundamental
change. As the foundation of life is economics, the social revolution means the reorganization of the industrial, economic lifeof the country and consequently also of the entire structure ofsociety.
But we have seen that the social structure rests on the basisof ideas, which implies that changing the structure presupposeschanged ideas. In other words, social ideas must change first
before a new social structure can be built.
The social revolution, therefore, is not an accident, not asudden happening. There is nothing sudden about it, for ideas
don’t change suddenly. They grow slowly, gradually, like theplant or flower. Hence the social revolution is a result, a development, which means that it is revolutionary. It develops to thepoint when considerable numbers of people have embraced the
new ideas and are determined to put them into practice. Whenthey attempt to do so and meet with opposition, then the slow,
quiet, and peaceful social evolution becomes quick, militant,and violent. Evolution becomes revolution.
Bear in mind, then, that evolution and revolution are not two
separate and different things. Still less are they opposites, assome people wrongly believe. Revolution is merely the boilingpoint of evolution.
Because revolution is evolution at its boiling point you cannot “make” a real revolution any more than you can hasten theboiling of a tea kettle. It is the fire underneath that makes it
boil: how quickly it will come to the boiling point will dependon how strong the fire is.
The economic and political conditions of a country are thefire under the evolutionary pot. The worse the oppression, thegreater the dissatisfaction of the people, the stronger the flame.
This explains why the fires of social revolution swept Russia,
the most tyrannous and backward country, instead of America229

where industrial development has almost reached its highest
point — and that in spite of all the learned demonstrations ofKarl Marx to the contrary.
We see, then, that revolutions, though they cannot be made,can be hastened by certain factors; namely, by pressure fromabove: by more intense political and economical oppression;and by pressure from below: by greater enlightenment andagitation. These spread the ideas; they further evolution andthereby also the coming of revolution.
But pressure from above, though hastening revolution, mayalso cause its failure, because such revolution is apt to break out
before the evolutionary process has been sufficiently advanced.
Coming prematurely, as it were, it will fizzle out in mere rebellion; that is, without clear, conscious aim and purpose. At best,
rebellion can secure only some temporary alleviation; the realcauses of the strife, however, remain intact and continue to operate to the same effect, to cause further dissatisfaction andrebellion.
Summing up what I have said about revolution, we mustcome to the conclusion that:
1. a social revolution is one that entirely changes the foundation of society, its political, economic, and social character;2. such a change must first take place in the ideas and opinions of the people, in the minds of men;
3. oppression and misery may hasten revolution, but may
thereby also turn it into failure, because lack of evolutionary preparation will make real accomplishment impossible;
4. only that revolution can be fundamental, social, and successful which will be the expression of a basic change ofideas and opinions.
230

From this it obviously follows that the social revolution
must be prepared. Prepared in the sense of furthering the evolutionary process, of enlightening the people about the evils
of present-day society and convincing them of the desirability
and possibility, of the justice and practicability of a social life
based on liberty; prepared, moreover, by making the masses
realize very clearly just what they need and how to bring it
about.
Such preparation is not only an absolutely necessary preliminary step. Therein lies also the safety of the revolution, theonly guarantee of its accomplishing its objects.
It has been the fate of most revolutions — as a result of lackof preparation — to be sidetracked from their main purpose, tobe misused and led into blind alleys. Russia is the best recent
illustration of it. The February Revolution, which sought to doaway with the autocracy, was entirely successful. The people
knew exactly what they wanted; namely the abolition of Tsardom. All the machinations of politicians, all the oratory andschemes of the Lvovs and Miliukovs — the “liberal” leaders of
those days could not save the Romanov régime in the face of
the intelligent and conscious will of the people. It was this clear
understanding of its aims which made the February Revolution
a complete success, with, mind you, almost no bloodshed.
Furthermore, neither appeals nor threats by the Provisional
Government could avail against the determination of the people to end the war. The armies left the fronts and thus terminated the matter by their own direct action. The will of a people
conscious of their objects always conquers.
It was the will of the people again, their resolute aim to gethold of the soil, which secured for the peasant the land heneeded. Similarly the city workers, as repeatedly mentioned
before, possessed themselves of the factories and the machinery of production.
So far the Russian Revolution was a complete success. But
at the point where the masses lacked the consciousness of def231

inite purpose, defeat began. That is always the moment whenpoliticians and political parties step in to exploit the revolution
for their own uses or to experiment their theories upon it. This
happened in Russia, as in many previous revolutions. The people fought the good fight — the political parties fought over the
spoils to the detriment of the revolution and to the ruin of thepeople.
This is, then, what took place in Russia. The peasant, having secured the land, did not have the tools and machinery heneeded. The worker, having taken possession of the machineryand factories, did not know how to handle them to accomplish
his aims. In other words, he did not have the experience necessary to organize production and he could not manage the
distribution of the things he was producing.
His own efforts — the worker’s, the peasant’s, the soldier’s— had done away with Tsardom, paralyzed the Government,
stopped the war, and abolished private ownership of land andmachinery. For that he was prepared by years of revolutionary education and agitation. But for no more than that. And
because he was prepared for no more, where his knowledge
ceased and definite purpose was lacking, there stepped in thepolitical party and took affairs out of the hands of the masses
who had made the revolution. Politics replaced economic reconstruction and thereby sounded the death knell of the social
revolution; for people live by bread, by economics, not by politics.
Food and supplies are not created by decree of party or government. Legislative edicts don’t till the soil; laws can’t turnthe wheels of industry. Dissatisfaction, strife, and famine cameupon the heels of government coercion and dictatorship. Again,as always, politics and authority proved the swamp in which
the revolutionary fires became extinguished.
Let us learn this most vital lesson: thorough understandingby the masses of the true aims of revolution means success. Carrying out their conscious will by their own efforts guarantees
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the world at large will thereby be the more irresistible and universal. In its justice and humanity lies the invincible strengthof the social revolution.
No revolution has yet tried the true way of liberty. None has
had sufficient faith in it. Force and suppression, persecution,
revenge, and terror have characterized all revolutions in thepast and have thereby defeated their original aims. The time
has come to try new methods, new ways. The social revolution
is to achieve the emancipation of man through liberty, but if
we have no faith in the latter, revolution becomes a denial andbetrayal of itself. Let us then have the courage of freedom: let
it replace suppression and terror. Let liberty become our faithand our deed and we shall grow strong therein.
Only liberty can make the social revolution effective andwholesome. It alone can pave the way to greater heights andprepare a society where well-being and joy shall be the heritageof all. The day will dawn when man shall for the first time havefull opportunity to grow and expand in the free and generous
sunshine of Anarchy.

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would have to join some community, secure lodgings, andso forth, in order to enjoy the hospitality of the distributing
center. In other words, the counter-revolutionary “prisoners
in freedom” would depend on the community and the good
will of its members for their means of existence. They would
live in its atmosphere and be influenced by its revolutionary
environment. Surely they will be safer and more contented
than in prison, and presently they would cease to be a danger
to the revolution. We have repeatedly seen such examples in
Russia, in cases where counter-revolutionists had escaped the
Tcheka and settled down in some village or city, where as aresult of considerate and decent treatment they became usefulmembers of the community, often more zealous in behalf ofthe public welfare than the average citizen, while hundredsof their fellow-conspirators, who had not been lucky enoughto avoid arrest, were busy in prison with thoughts of revenge
and new plots.
Various plans of treating such “prisoners in freedom” will no
doubt be tried by the revolutionary people. But whatever the
methods, they will be more satisfactory than the present system of revenge and punishment, the complete failure of which
has been demonstrated throughout human experience. Amongthe new ways might also be tried that of free colonization. The
revolution will offer its enemies an opportunity to settle insome part of the country and there establish the form of social
life that will suit them best. It is no vain speculation to foresee that it would not be long before most of them would prefer
the brotherhood and liberty of the revolutionary community to
the reactionary régime of their colony. But even if they did not,nothing would be lost. On the contrary, the revolution would itself be the greatest gainer, spiritually, by forsaking methods ofrevenge and persecution and practicing humanity and magnanimity. Revolutionary self-defense, inspired by such methods,
will be the more effective because of the very freedom it will
guarantee even to its enemies. Its appeal to the masses and to300

the right development of the new life. On the other hand, lackof this understanding and of preparation means certain defeat,either at the hands of reaction or by the experimental theories
of would-be political party friends.
Let us prepare, then.
What and how?

233

Chapter 26: Preparation“Prepare for revolution!” exclaims your friend; “is that possible?
Yes. Not only is it possible but absolutely necessary.
“Do you refer to secret preparations, armed bands, and men
to lead the fight?” you ask.
No, my friend, not that at all.
If the social revolution meant only street battles and barricades, then the preparations you have in mind would be thething. But revolution does not signify that; at least the fighting
phase of it is the smallest and least important part.
The truth is, in modern times revolution does not mean barricades any more. These belong to the past. The social revolution
is a far different and more essential matter: it involves the reorganization of the entire life of society. You will agree that thisis certainly not to be accomplished by mere fighting.
Of course, the obstacles in the path of the social reconstruction have to be removed. That is to say the means of that reconstruction must be secured by the masses. Those means are atpresent in the hands of government and capitalism, and thesewill resist every effort to deprive them of their power and possessions. That resistance will involve a fight. But rememberthat the fight is not the main thing, is not the object, not therevolution. It is only the preface, the preliminary to it.
It is very necessary that you get this straight. Most people
have very confused notions about revolution. To them it means
just fighting, smashing things, destroying. It is the same as if
rolling up your sleeves for work should be considered as thework itself that you have to do. The fighting part of revolution
234

they need enlightenment rather than punishment, and thatthe former will accomplish more than the latter. Even to-day
this perception is gaining ground. The Bolsheviki defeated
the Allied armies in Russia more effectively by revolutionary
propaganda among the enemy soldiers than by the strengthof their artillery. These new methods have been recognizedas practical even by the United States Government which
is making use of them now in its Nicaraguan campaign.
American aëroplanes scatter proclamations and appeals to the
Nicaraguan people to persuade them to desert Sandino and hiscause, and the American army chiefs expect the best resultsfrom these tactics. But the Sandino patriots are fighting forhome and country against a foreign invader, while counterrevolutionists wage war against their own people. The workof their enlightenment is much simpler and promises better
results.
“Do you think that would really be the best way to deal withcounter-revolution?”
By all means. Humane treatment and kindness are more
effective than cruelty and vengeance. The new attitude in thisregard would suggest also a number of other methods of similar character. Various modes of dealing with conspirators andactive enemies of the revolution would develop as soon as you
begin to practice the new policy. The plan might be adopted,
for instance, of scattering them, individually or in small groups,
over districts removed from their counter-revolutionary influences, among communities of revolutionary spirit andconsciousness. Consider also that counter-revolutionists
must eat; which means that they would find themselves in asituation that would claim their thoughts and time for otherthings than the hatching of conspiracies. The defeated counterrevolutionist, left at liberty instead of being imprisoned, would
have to seek means of existence. He would not be denied his
livelihood, of course, since the revolution would be generous
enough to feed even its enemies. But the man in question
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Certainly we will. But not against mere talk, not against an
expression of opinion. The revolution must be big enough towelcome even the severest criticism, and profit by it if it isjustified. The revolution will defend itself most determinedly
against real counter-revolution, against all active enemies,
against any attempt to defeat or sabotage it by forcible invasion or violence. That is the right of the revolution and its
duty. But it will not persecute the conquered foe, nor wreak
vengeance upon an entire social class because of the fault ofindividual members of it. The sins of the fathers shall not be
visited upon their children.
”What will you do with counter-revolutionists?”
Actual combat and armed resistance involve human sacrifices, and the counter-revolutionists who lose their lives under such circumstances suffer the unavoidable consequencesof their deeds. But the revolutionary people are not savages.
The wounded are not slaughtered nor those taken prisoners executed. Neither is practiced the barbarous system of shooting
hostages, as the Bolsheviki did.
“How will you treat counter-revolutionists taken prisoners
during an engagement?”
The revolution must find new ways, some sensible methodof dealing with them. The old method is to imprison them,
support them in idleness, and employ numerous men to guard
and punish them. And while the culprit remains in prison,incarceration and brutal treatment still further embitter him
against the revolution, strengthen his opposition, and nurse
thoughts of vengeance and new conspiracies. The revolution
will regard such methods as stupid and detrimental to its
best interests. It will try instead by humane treatment toconvince the defeated enemy of the error and uselessness of
his resistance. It will apply liberty instead of revenge. It willtake into consideration that most of the counter-revolutionists
are dupes rather than enemies, deluded victims of someindividuals seeking power and authority. It will know that298

is merely the rolling up of your sleeves. The real, actual task isahead.
What is that task?
“The destruction of the existing conditions,” you reply.
True. But conditions are not destroyed by breaking andsmashing things. You can’t destroy wage slavery by wrecking
the machinery in mills and factories, can you? You won’t
destroy government by setting fire to the White House.
To think of revolution in terms of violence and destruction
is to misinterpret and falsify the whole idea of it. In practicalapplication such a conception is bound to lead to disastrous
results.
When a great thinker, like the famous Anarchist Bakunin,speaks of revolution as destruction, he has in mind the ideas ofauthority and obedience which are to be destroyed. It is for thisreason that he said that destruction means construction, for todestroy a false belief is indeed most constructive work.
But the average man, and too often even the revolutionist,
thoughtlessly talks of revolution as being exclusively destructive in the physical sense of the word. That is a wrong anddangerous view. The sooner we get rid of it the better.
Revolution, and particularly the social revolution, is not destruction but construction. This cannot be sufficiently emphasized, and unless we clearly realize it, revolution will remain
only destructive and thereby always a failure. Naturally revolution is accompanied by violence, but you might as well saythat building a new house in place of an old one is destructive
because you have first to tear down the old one. Revolution isthe culminating point of a certain evolutionary process: it begins with a violent upheaval. It is the rolling up of your sleevespreparatory to starting the actual work.
Indeed, consider what the social revolution is to do, what
it is to accomplish, and you will perceive that it comes not todestroy but to build.
What, really, is there to destroy?
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The wealth of the rich? Nay, that is something we want thewhole of society to enjoy.
The land, the fields, the coal mines, the railroads, factories,
mills, and shops? These we want not to destroy but to makeuseful to the entire people.
The telegraphs, telephones, the means of communicationand distribution — do we want to destroy them? No, we wantthem to serve the needs of all.
What, then, is the social revolution to destroy? It is to takeover things for the general benefit, not to destroy them. It is toreorganize conditions for the public welfare.
Not to destroy is the aim of the revolution, but to reconstruct
and rebuild.
It is for this that preparation is needed, because the social
revolution is not the Biblical Messiah who is to accomplish his
mission by simple edict or order. Revolution works with thehands and brains of men. And these have to understand theobjects of the revolution so as to be able to carry them out.
They will have to know what they want and how to achieve
it. The way to achieve it will be pointed by the objects to beattained. For the end determines the means, just as you haveto sow a particular seed to grow the thing you need.
What, then, must the preparation for the social revolutionbe?
If your object is to secure liberty, you must learn to do without authority and compulsion. If you intend to live in peace andharmony with your fellow-men, you and they should cultivate
brotherhood and respect for each other. If you want to work
together with them for your mutual benefit, you must practicecoöperation. The social revolution means much more than the
reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishmentof new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal;
it means a different spirit in individual and collective life, andthat spirit cannot be born overnight. It is a spirit to be culti236

itary measures lies its might, but industry, in its ability to reconstruct life, to establish liberty and justice. Let the people
feel that it is indeed their own cause which is at stake, and thelast man of them will fight like a lion in its behalf.
The same applies to internal as to external defense. Whatchance would any White general or counter-revolutionist
have if he could not exploit oppression and injustice toincite the people against the revolution? Counter-revolution
can feed only on popular discontent. Where the masses areconscious that the revolution and all its activities are in theirown hands, that they themselves are managing things and arefree to change their methods when they consider it necessary,counter-revolution can find no support and is harmless.
“But would you let counter-revolutionists incite the people
if they tried to?”By all means. Lee them talk all they like. To restrain themwould serve only to create a persecuted class and thereby enlist popular sympathy for them and their cause. To suppress
speech and press is not only a theoretic offense against liberty:
it is a direct blow at the very foundations of the revolution. It
would, first of all, raise problems where none had existed before. It would introduce methods which must lead to discontent
and opposition, to bitterness and strife, to prison, Tcheka, andcivil war. It would generate fear and distrust, would hatch conspiracies, and culminate in a reign of terror which has always
killed revolutions in the past.
The social revolution must from the very start be based on
entirely different principles, on a new conception and attitude.
Full freedom is the very breath of its existence; and be it neverforgotten that the cure for evil and disorder is more liberty, notsuppression. Suppression leads only to violence and destruction.
“Will you not defend the revolution then?” your friend demands.

297

in the barracks the soldiers’ committees — these are thefountain-head of all revolutionary strength and activity.
It was the volunteer Red Guard, made up of toilers, thatsuccessfully defended the Russian Revolution in its mostcritical initial stages. Later on it was again volunteer peasantregiments who defeated the White armies. The regular Red
army, organized later, was powerless without the volunteer
workers’ and peasants’ divisions. Siberia was freed from
Kolchak and his hordes by such peasant volunteers. In thenorth of Russia it was also workers’ and peasants detachmentsthat drove out the foreign armies which came to impose
the yoke of native reactionaries upon the people.1 In the
Ukraine the volunteer peasant armies — known as povstantsi— saved the Revolution from numerous counter-revolutionary
generals and particularly from Denikin when the latter was
already at the very gates of Moscow. It was the revolutionary
povstantsi who freed southern Russia from the invading armiesof Germany, France, Italy, and Greece and subsequently alsorouted the White forces of General Wrangel.
The military defense of the revolution may demand asupreme command, coordination of activities, discipline, andobedience to orders. But these must proceed from the devotionof the workers and peasants, and must be based on their voluntary coöperation through their own local, regional, and federal
organizations. In the matter of defense against foreign attack,as in all other problems of the social revolution, the active
interest of the masses, their autonomy and self-determination
are the best guarantee of success.
Understand well that the only really effective defense of therevolution lies in the attitude of the people. Popular discontent
is the worst enemy of the revolution and its greatest danger.
We must always bear in mind that the strength of the social
revolution is organic, not mechanistic: not in mechanical, mil1296

vated, to be nurtured and reared, as the most delicate flower is,
for indeed it is the flower of a new and beautiful existence.
Do not dupe yourself with the silly notion that “things will
arrange themselves.” Nothing ever arranges itself, least of allin human relations. It is men who do the arranging, and they
do it according to their attitude and understanding of things.
New situations and changed conditions make us feel, think,
and act in a different manner. But the new conditions themselves come about only as a result of new feelings and ideas.
The social revolution is such a new condition. We must learn
to think differently before the revolution can come. That alone
can bring the revolution.
We must learn to think differently about government and authority, for as long as we think and act as we do to-day, there
will be intolerance, persecution, and oppression, even when organized government is abolished. We must learn to respect thehumanity of our fellow-man, not to invade him or coerce him,
to consider his liberty as sacred as our own; to respect his freedom and his personality, to foreswear compulsion in any form:
to understand that the cure for the evils of liberty is more liberty, that liberty is the mother of order.
And furthermore we must learn that equality means equal
opportunity, that monopoly is the denial of it, and that only
brotherhood secures equality. We can learn this only by freeing
ourselves from the false ideas of capitalism and of property, ofmine and thine, of the narrow conception of ownership.
By learning this we shall grow into the spirit of true liberty
and solidarity, and know that free association is the soul of every achievement. We shall then realize that the social revolution is the work of coöperation, of solidaric purpose, of mutual
effort.
Maybe you think this too slow a process, a work that willtake too long. Yes, I must admit that it is a difficult task. But
ask yourself if it is better to build your new house quickly and

The Tchaikovsky-Miller Government.

237

badly and have it break down over your head, rather than to
do it efficiently, even if it requires longer and harder work.
Remember that the social revolution represents the liberty
and welfare of the whole of mankind, that the complete andfinal emancipation of labor depends upon it. Consider also that
if the work is badly done, all the effort and suffering involved in
it will be for nothing and perhaps even worse than for nothing,because making a botch job of revolution means putting a newtyranny in place of the old, and new tyrannies, because they
are new, have a new lease on life. It means forging new chains
which are stronger than the old.
Consider also that the social revolution we have in mind isto accomplish the work that many generations of men havebeen laboring to achieve, for the whole history of man has
been a struggle of liberty against servitude, of social well-being
against poverty and wretchedness, of justice against iniquity.
What we call progress has been a painful but continuous marchin the direction of limiting authority and the power of government and increasing the rights and liberties of the individual,of the masses. It has been a struggle that has taken thousandsof years. The reason that it took such a long time — and is not
ended yet — is because people did not know what the real trouble was: they fought against this and for that, they changed
kings and formed new governments, they put out one ruler
only to set up another, they drove away a “foreign” oppressor
only to suffer the yoke of a native one, they abolished one formof tyranny, such as the Tsars, and submitted to that of a party
dictatorship, and always and ever they shed their blood andheroically sacrificed their lives in the hope of securing liberty
and welfare.
But they secured only new masters, because however desperately and nobly they fought, they never touched the real sourceof trouble, the principle of authority and government. They did
not know that that was the fountainhead of enslavement and238

work you want to accomplish. That is to say, the social revolution must be Anarchistic in method as in aim.
Revolutionary defense must be in consonance with thisspirit. Self-defense excludes all acts of coercion, of persecution
or revenge. It is concerned only with repelling attack anddepriving the enemy of opportunity to invade you.
“How would you repel foreign invasion?”
By the strength of the revolution. In what does that strength
consist? First and foremost, in the support of the people, inthe devotion of the industrial and agricultural masses. If they
feel that they themselves are making the revolution, that they
have become the masters of their lives, that they have gained
freedom and are building up their welfare, then in that very
sentiment you have the greatest strength of the revolution. The
masses fight to-day for king, capitalist, or president because
they believe them worth fighting for. Let them believe in therevolution, and they will defend it to the death.
They will fight for the revolution with heart and soul, as thehalf-starved working men, women, and even children of Petrograd defended their city, almost with bare hands, against theWhite army of General Yudenitch. Take that faith away, deprive the people of power by setting up some authority overthem, be it a political party or military organization, and you
have dealt a fatal blow to the revolution. You will have robbed
it of its main source of strength, the masses. You will have madeit defenseless.
The armed workers and peasants are the only effective
defense of the revolution. By means of their unions andsyndicates they must always be on guard against counterrevolutionary attack. The worker in factory and mill, in mineand field, is the soldier of the revolution. He is at his bench andplow or on the battlefield, according to need. But in his factory
as in his regiment he is the soul of the revolution, and it is
his will that decides its fate. In industry the shop committees,295

Chapter 31: Defense of the
Revolution“Suppose your system is tried, would you have any meansof defending the revolution?” you ask.
Certainly.
“Even by armed force?”
Yes, if necessary.
“But armed force is organized violence. Didn’t you say Anarchism was against it?”
Anarchism is opposed to any interference with your liberty,
be it by force and violence or by any other means. It is against
all invasion and compulsion. But if any one attacks you, thenit is he who is invading you, he who is employing violenceagainst you. You have a right to defend yourself. More thanthat, it is your duty, as an Anarchist, to protect your liberty, toresist coercion and compulsion. Otherwise you are a slave, nota free man. In other words, the social revolution will attack noone, but it will defend itself against invasion from any quarter.
Besides, you must not confuse the social revolution with Anarchy. Revolution, in some of its stages, is a violent upheaval;
Anarchy is a social condition of freedom and peace. The revolution is the means of bringing Anarchy about but it is not
Anarchy itself. It is to pave the road for Anarchy, to establish
conditions which will make a life of liberty possible.
But to achieve its purpose the revolution must be imbued
with and directed by the Anarchist spirit and ideas. The end
shapes the means, just as the tool you use must be fit to do the294

oppression, and therefore they never succeeded in gaining liberty.
But now we understand that true liberty is not a matterof changing kings or rulers. We know that the whole system
of master and slave must go, that the entire social scheme iswrong, that government and compulsion must be abolished,that the very foundations of authority and monopoly must be
uprooted. Do you still think any kind of preparation for sucha great task can be too difficult?
Let us, then, fully realize how important it is to prepare forthe social revolution, and to prepare for it in the right way.
“But what is the right way?” you demand. “And who is toprepare?”Who is to prepare? First of all, you and I — those who areinterested in the success of the revolution, those who want
to help bring it about. And you and I means every man andwoman; at least every decent man and woman, every one who
hates oppression and loves liberty, every one who cannot endure the misery and injustice which fill the world to-day.
And above all it is those who suffer most from existing conditions, from wage slavery, subjection, and indignity.
“The workers, of course,” you say.
Yes, the workers. As the worst victims of present institutions,
it is to their own interest to abolish them. It has been truly said
that “the emancipation of the workers must be accomplishedby the workers themselves,” for no other social class will doit for them. Yet labor’s emancipation means at the same time
the redemption of the whole of society, and that is why somepeople speak of labor’s “historic mission” to bring about thebetter day.
But “mission” is the wrong word. It suggests a duty or task
imposed on one from the outside, by some external power. It isa false and misleading conception, essentially a religious, metaphysical sentiment. Indeed, if the emancipation of labor is a“historic mission,” then history will see to it that it is carried
239

out no matter what we may think, feel, or do about it. This attitude makes human effort unnecessary, superfluous; because“what must be will be.” Such a fatalistic notion is destructive toall initiative and the exercise of one’s mind and will.
It is a dangerous and harmful idea. There is no power outsideof man which can free him, none which can charge him withany “mission.” Neither heaven nor history can do it. Historyis the story of what has happened. It can teach a lesson but
not impose a task. It is not the “mission” but the interest of theproletariat to emancipate itself from bondage. If labor does notconsciously and actively strive for it, it will never “happen.” Itis necessary to free ourselves from the stupid and false notionof “historic missions.” It is only by growing to a true realization of their present position, by visualizing their possibilities
and powers, by learning unity and coöperation, and practicing them, that the masses can attain freedom. In achieving thatthey will also have liberated the rest of mankind.
Because of this the proletarian struggle is the concern of every one, and all sincere men and women should therefore beat the service of labor in its great task. Indeed, though only
the toilers can accomplish the work of emancipation they need
the aid of other social groups. For you must remember thatthe revolution faces the difficult problem of reorganizing theworld and building a new civilization — a work that will require the greatest revolutionary integrity and the intelligent
coöperation of all well-meaning and liberty-loving elements.
We already know that the social revolution is not a matter ofabolishing capitalism only. We might turn out capitalism, as
feudalism was got rid of, and still remain slaves as before. Instead of being, as now, the bondmen of private monopoly wemight become the servants of State capitalism, as has happened
to the people in Russia, for instance, and as conditions are developing in Italy and other lands.

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I am sure of this: if that will not work, nothing else will. The
plan I have outlined is a free communism, a life of voluntary
coöperation and equal sharing. There is no other way of securing economic equality which alone is liberty. Any other system
must lead back to capitalism.
It is likely, of course, that a country in social revolution may
try various economic experiments. A limited capitalism might
be introduced in one part of the land or collectivism in another.
But collectivism is only another form of the wage system andit would speedily tend to become the capitalism of the presentday. For collectivism begins by abolishing private ownershipof the means of production and immediately reverses itself byreturning to the system of remuneration according to work performed; which means the reintroduction of inequality.
Man learns by doing. The social revolution in different countries and regions will probably try out various methods, and bypractical experience learn the best way. The revolution is at thesame time the opportunity and justification for it. I am not attempting to prophesy what this or that country is going to do,what particular course it will follow. Nor do I presume to dictate to the future, to prescribe its mode of conduct. My purpose
is to suggest, in broad outline, the principles which must animate the revolution, the general lines of action it should follow
if it is to accomplish its aim — the reconstruction of society on
a foundation of freedom and equality.
We know that previous revolutions for the most part failedof their objects; they degenerated into dictatorship and despotism, and thus reëstablished the old institutions of oppression
and exploitation. We know it from past and recent history. We
therefore draw the conclusion that the old way will not do. A
new way must be cried in the coming social revolution. What
new way? The only one so far known to man: the way of liberty
and equality, the way of free communism, of Anarchy.

293home industries which become the vital nerve of economic life:
they alone can feed and save the revolution.
Moreover, such home industries are not only a potent economic factor; they are also of the greatest social value. They
serve to cultivate friendly intercourse between the farm andthe city, bringing the two into closer and more solidaric contact. In fact, the home industries are themselves an expressionof a most wholesome social spirit which from earliest times has
manifested itself in village gatherings, in communal efforts, infolk dance and song. This normal and healthy tendency, in its
various aspects, should be encouraged and stimulated by therevolution for the greater weal of the community.
The rôle of industrial decentralization in the revolution is
unfortunately too little appreciated. Even in progressive laborranks there is a dangerous tendency to ignore or minimize its
importance. Most people are still in the thraldom of the Marxian dogma that centralization is “more efficient and economical.” They close their eyes to the fact that the alleged “economy” is achieved at the cost of the worker’s limb and life, thatthe “efficiency” degrades him to a mere industrial cog, deadens
his soul, and kills his body. Furthermore, in a system of centralization the administration of industry becomes constantly
merged in fewer hands, producing a powerful bureaucracy ofindustrial overlords. It would indeed be the sheerest irony if
the revolution were to aim at such a result. It would mean thecreation of a new master class.
The revolution can accomplish the emancipation of labor
only by gradual decentralization, by developing the individual
worker into a more conscious and determining factor in theprocesses of industry, by making him the impulse whence proceeds all industrial and social activity. The deep significance ofthe social revolution lies in the abolition of the mastery of man
over man, putting in its place the management of things. Onlythus can be achieved industrial and social freedom.
“Are you sure it would work?” you demand.
292

The social revolution, it must never be forgotten, is not toalter one form of subjection for another, but is to do away witheverything that can enslave and oppress you.
A political revolution may be carried to a successful issue by
a conspirative minority, putting one ruling faction in place ofanother. But the social revolution is not a mere political change:
it is a fundamental economic, ethical, and cultural transformation. A conspirative minority or political party undertaking
such a work must meet with the active and passive oppositionof the great majority and therefore degenerate into a system ofdictatorship and terror.
In the face of a hostile majority the social revolution isdoomed to failure from its very beginning. It means, then,that the first preparatory work of the revolution consists inwinning over the masses at large in favor of the revolution
and its objects, winning them over, at least, to the extent of
neutralizing them, of turning them from active enemies topassive sympathizers, so that they may not fight against therevolution even if they do not fight for it.
The actual, positive work of the social revolution must, ofcourse, be carried on by the toilers themselves, by the laboring people. And here let us bear in mind that it is not only
the factory hand who belongs to labor but the farm worker
as well. Some radicals are inclined to lay too much stress on
the industrial proletariat, almost ignoring the existence of the
agricultural toiler. Yet what could the factory worker accomplish without the farmer? Agriculture is the primal source oflife, and the city would starve but for the country. It is idle tocompare the industrial worker with the farm laborer or discuss
their relative value. Neither can do without the other; both areequally important in the scheme of life and equally so in therevolution and the building of a new society.
It is true that revolution first breaks out in industrial localities rather than in agricultural. This is natural, since these are
greater centers of laboring population and therefore also of241popular dissatisfaction. But if the industrial proletariat is theadvance-guard of revolution, then the farm laborer is its backbone. If the latter is weak or broken, the advance-guard, therevolution itself, is lost.
Therefore, the work of the social revolution lies in the handsof both the industrial worker and the farm laborer. Unfortunately it must be admitted that there is too little understanding and almost no friendship or direct coöperation between
the two. Worse than that — and no doubt the result of it-there
is a certain dislike and antagonism between the proletarians offield and factory. The city man has too little appreciation of thehard and exhausting toil of the farmer. The latter instinctively
resents it; moreover, unfamiliar with the strenuous and often
dangerous labor of the factory, the farmer is apt to look upon
the city worker as an idler. A closer approach and better understanding between the two is absolutely vital. Capitalism thrives
not so much on division of work as on the division of the workers. It seeks to incite race against race, the factory hand against
the farmer, the laborer against the skilled man, the workers of
one country against those of another. The strength of the exploiting class lies in disunited, divided labor. But the social revolution requires the unity of the toiling masses, and first of all
the coöperation of the factory-proletarian with his brother inthe field.
A nearer approach between the two is an important step in
preparation for the social revolution. Actual contact between
them is of prime necessity. Joint councils, exchange of delegates, a system of coöperatives, and other similar methods,
would tend to form a closer bond and better understanding
between the worker and farmer.
But it is not only the coöperation of the factory proletarianwith the farm laborer which is necessary for the revolution.
There is another element absolutely needed in its constructive
work. It is the trained mind of the professional man.

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and intensive cultivation London and New York could subsist
upon the products raised in their own immediate vicinity. It isa fact that “our means of obtaining from the soil whatever wewant, under any climate and upon any soil, have lately been
improved at such a rate that we cannot foresee yet what is thelimit of productivity of a few acres of land. The limit vanishes
in proportion to our better study of the subject, and every year
makes it vanish further and further from our sight.”
When the social revolution begins in any land, its foreigncommerce stops: the importation of raw materials and finishedproducts is suspended. The country may even be blockaded by
the bourgeois governments, as was the case with Russia. Thus
the revolution is compelled to become self-supporting and provide for its own wants. Even various parts of the same country may have to face such an eventuality. They would have to
produce what they need within their own area, by their own efforts. Only decentralization could solve this problem. The country would have to reorganize its activities in such a manner as
to be able to feed itself. It would have to revert to production
on a small scale, to home industry, and to intensive agriculture
and horticulture. Man’s initiative freed by the revolution andhis wits sharpened by necessity will rise to the situation.
It must therefore be clearly understood that it would be disastrous to the interests of the revolution to suppress or interferewith the small-scale industries which are even now practiced
to such a great extent in various European countries. Numerous articles of every-day use are produced by the peasants ofContinental Europe during their leisure winter hours. Those
home manufactures total up tremendous figures and fill a greatneed. It would be most harmful to the revolution to destroy
them, as Russia so foolishly did in her mad Bolshevik passion
for centralization. When a country in revolution is attacked byforeign governments, when it is blockaded and deprived of imports, when its large-scale industries threaten to break downor the railroads actually do break down, then it is just the small
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may combine in a general strike, which is to be the prelude to
the social revolution. That is emphatically a consummation to
be striven for with the greatest earnestness. But at the sametime the probability is not to be discounted that the revolution
may break out in one country sooner than in another — let us
say in France earlier than in Germany — and in such a case it
would become imperative for France not to wait for possible
aid from outside but immediately to exert all her energies tohelp herself, to supply the most essential needs of her people
by her own efforts.
Every country in revolution must seek to achieve agricultural independence no less than political, industrial self-help
no less than agricultural. This process is going on to a certain
extent even under capitalism. It should be one of the main
objects of the social revolution. Modern methods make itpossible. The manufacture of watches and clocks, for example,
which was formerly a monopoly of Switzerland, is now carriedon in every country. Production of silk, previously limited
to France, is among the great industries of various countries
to-day. Italy, without sources of coal or iron, constructs
steel-clad ships. Switzerland, no richer, also makes them.
Decentralization will cure society of many evils of the centralized principle. Politically decentralization means freedom;
industrially, material independence; socially it implies security
and well-being for the small communities; individually it results in manhood and liberty.
Equally important to the social revolution as independence
from foreign lands is decentralization within the country itself.
Internal decentralization means making the larger regions,even every community, so far as possible, self-supporting. In
his very illuminating and suggestive work, Fields, Factories,
and Workshops, Peter Kropotkin has convincingly shown how
a city like Paris even, now almost exclusively commercial,
could raise enough food in its own environs to support its population abundantly. By using modern agricultural machinery290

Do not make the mistake of thinking that the world has been
built with hands only. It has also required brains. Similarly does
the revolution need both the man of brawn and the man ofbrain. Many people imagine that the manual worker alone cando the entire work of society. It is a false idea, a very grave error that can bring no end of harm. In fact, this conception has
worked great evil on previous occasions, and there is good reason to fear that it may defeat the best efforts of the revolution.
The working class consists of the industrial wage earners
and the agricultural toilers. But the workers require the services of the professional elements, of the industrial organizer,
the electrical and mechanical engineer, the technical specialist, the scientist, inventor, chemist, the educator, doctor, andsurgeon. In short, the proletariat absolutely needs the aid ofcertain professional elements without whose coöperation no
productive labor is possible.
Most of those professional men in reality also belong to theproletariat. They are the intellectual proletariat, the proletariatof brain. It is clear that it makes no difference whether one
earns his living with his hands or with his head. As a matterof fact, no work is done only with the hands or only with thebrain. The application of both is required in every kind of effort. The carpenter, for instance, must estimate, measure, andfigure in the course of his task: he must use both hand andbrain. Similarly the architect must think out his plan before it
can be drawn on paper and put to practical use.
“But only labor can produce,” your friend objects; “brain
work is not productive.”
Wrong, my friend. Neither manual labor nor brain work can
produce anything alone. It requires both, working together, tocreate something. The bricklayer and mason can’t build the factory without the architect’s plans, nor can the architect erect a
bridge without the iron and steel worker. Neither can produce
alone. But both together can accomplish wonders.

243

Furthermore, do not fall into the error of believing that only
productive labor counts. There is much work that is not directly
productive, but which is useful and even absolutely necessary
to our existence and comfort, and therefore just as importantas productive labor.
Take the railroad engineer and contractor, for instance. They
are not producers, but they are essential factors in the system of
production. Without the railroads and other means of transportand communication we could manage neither production nor
distribution.
Production and distribution are the two points of the same
life pole. The labor required for the one is as important as thatneeded for the other.
What I said above applies to numerous phases of human effort which, though themselves not directly productive, play avital part in the manifold processes of our economic and social life. The man of science, the educator, the physician andsurgeon are not productive in the industrial sense of the word.
But their work is absolutely necessary to our life and welfare.
Civilized society could not exist without them.
It is therefore evident that useful work is equally importantwhether it be that of brain or of brawn, manual or mental. Nordoes it matter whether it is a salary or wages which one receives, whether he is paid much or little, or what his politicalor other opinions might be.
All the elements that can contribute useful work to the general welfare are needed in the revolution for the building of
the new life. No revolution can succeed without their solidariccoöperation, and the sooner we understand this the better. The
reconstruction of society involves the reorganization of industry, the proper functioning of production, the management of
distribution, and numerous other social, educational, and cultural efforts to transform present-day wage slavery and servitude into a life of liberty and well-being. Only by working hand244

In short, capitalism seeks centralization. But a free country
needs decentralization, independence not only political but
also industrial, economic.
Russia strikingly illustrates how imperative economic independence is, particularly to the social revolution. For years following the October upheaval the Bolshevik Government concentrated its efforts on currying favor with bourgeois governments for “recognition” and inviting foreign capitalists to help
exploit the resources of Russia. But capital, afraid to make large
investments under the insecure conditions of the dictatorship,
failed to respond with any degree of enthusiasm. Meanwhile
Russia was approaching economic breakdown. The situation
finally compelled the Bolsheviki to understand that the country must depend on her own efforts for maintenance. Russia
began to look around for means to help herself; and thereby
she acquired greater confidence in her own abilities, learned toexercise self-reliance and initiative, and started to develop her
own industries; a slow and painful process, but a wholesome
necessity which will ultimately make Russia economically selfsupporting and independent.
The social revolution in any given country must from thevery first determine to make itself self-supporting. It must help
itself. This principle of self-help is not to be understood as alack of solidarity with other lands. On the contrary, mutual aid
and coöperation between countries, as among individuals, canexist only on the basis of equality, among equals. Dependence
is the very reverse of it.
Should the social revolution take place in several countries
at the same time — in France and Germany, for instance — thenjoint effort would be a matter of course and would make thetask of revolutionary reorganization much easier.
Fortunately the workers are learning to understand that
their cause is international: the organization of labor is now
developing beyond national boundaries. It is to be hoped thatthe time is not far away when the entire proletariat of Europe
289

Intense application to this purpose must be the continuous
effort of the revolution: not something to be postponed fora distant day but of immediate practice. The revolution muststrive to enable every community to sustain itself, to becomematerially independent. No country should have to rely on outside help or exploit colonies for its support. That is the way ofcapitalism. The aim of Anarchism, on the contrary, is material
independence, not only for the individual, but for every community.
This means gradual decentralization instead of centralization. Even under capitalism we see the decentralization tendency manifest itself in spite of the essentially centralistic character of the present-day industrial system. Countries whichwere before entirely dependent on foreign manufactures, asGermany in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, later
Italy and Japan, and now Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc., aregradually emancipating themselves industrially, working theirown natural resources, building their own factories and mills,
and attaining economic independence from other lands. International finance does not welcome this development and tries
its utmost to retard its progress, because it is more profitable for
the Morgans and Rockefellers to keep such countries as Mexico, China, India, Ireland, or Egypt industrially backward, inorder to exploit their natural resources and at the same time
be assured of foreign markets for “overproduction” at home.
The governments of the great financiers and lords of industry
help them secure those foreign natural resources and markets,
even at the point of the bayonet. Thus Great Britain by force
of arms compels China to permit English opium to poison the
Chinese, at a good profit, and exploits every means to disposein that country of the greater part of its textile products. For thesame reason Egypt, India, Ireland, and other dependencies andcolonies are not permitted to develop their home industries.

288

in hand will the proletariat of brain and brawn be able to solve
those problems.
It is most regrettable that there exists a spirit of unfriendliness, even of enmity, between the manual and intellectual
workers. That feeling is rooted in lack of understanding, inprejudice and narrow-mindedness on both sides. It is sad toadmit that there is a tendency in certain labor circles, evenamong some Socialists and Anarchists, to antagonize the workers against the members of the intellectual proletariat. Suchan attitude is stupid and criminal, because it can only work
evil to the growth and development of the social revolution. It
was one of the fatal mistakes of the Bolshevik; during the firstphases of the Russian Revolution that they deliberately set thewage earners against the professional classes, to such an extent
indeed that friendly coöperation became impossible. A direct
result of that policy was the breaking down of industry for lackof intelligent direction, as well as the almost total suspensionof railroad communication because that was no trained management. Seeing Russia facing economic shipwreck, Lenin decided that the factory worker and farmer alone could not carryon the industrial and agricultural life of the country, and thatthe aid of the professional elements was necessary. He introduced a new system to induce the technical men to help in thework of reconstruction. But almost too late came the change,
for the years of mutual hating and hounding had created sucha gulf between the manual worker and his intellectual brotherthat common understanding and coöperation were made exceptionally difficult. It has taken Russia years of heroic effort
to undo, to some extent, the effects of that fratricidal war.
Let us learn this valuable lesson from the Russian experiment.
“But professional men belong to the middle classes,” you object, “and they are bourgeois-minded.”True, men of the professions generally have a bourgeois
attitude toward things; but are not most workingmen also245bourgeois-minded? It merely means that both are steeped inauthoritarian and capitalistic prejudices. It is just these thatmust be eradicated by enlightening and educating the people,
be they manual or brain workers. That is the first step in
preparation for the social revolution.
But it is not true that professional men, as such, necessarily
belong to the middle classes.
The real interests of the so-called intellectuals are with theworkers rather than with the masters. To be sure, most of them
do not realize that. But no more does the comparatively highlypaid railroad conductor or locomotive engineer feel himself amember of the working class. By his income and attitude healso belongs to the bourgeoisie. But it is not income or feeling that determines to what social class a person belongs. If
the street beggar should fancy himself a millionaire, would hethereby be one? What one imagines himself to be does not alter his actual situation. And the actual situation is that whoever has to sell his labor is an employee, a salaried dependent,
a wage earner, and as such his true interests are those of employees and he belongs to the working class.
As a matter of fact, the intellectual proletarian is even more
subject to his capitalistic master than the man with pick andshovel. The latter can easily change his place of employment.
If he does not care to work for a certain boss he can look for another. The intellectual proletarian, on the other hand, is much
more dependent on his particular job. His sphere of exertion ismore limited. Not skilled in any trade and physically incapableof serving as a day laborer, he is (as a rule) confined to thecomparatively narrow field of architecture, engineering, journalism, or similar work. This puts him more at the mercy of his
employer and therefore also inclines him to side with the latteras against his more independent fellow-worker at the bench.
But whatever the attitude of the salaried and dependent
intellectual, he belongs to the proletarian class. Yet it isentirely false to maintain that the intellectuals always side246

direction is the ascertaining of the available supply of provisions and other commodities. The labor associations in every
city and community take this work in hand for the purposeof equitable distribution. Workers’ committees in every street
and district assume charge, coöperating with similar committees in the city and State, and federating their efforts throughout the country by means of general councils of producers andconsumers.
Great events and upheavals bring to the fore the most active
and energetic elements. The social revolution will crystallize
the class-conscious labor ranks. By whatever name they will beknown-as industrial unions, revolutionary syndicalist bodies,
coöperative associations, leagues of producers and consumers— they will represent the most enlightened and advanced partof labor, the organized workers aware of their aims and how
to attain them. It is they who will be the moving spirit of therevolution.
With the aid of industrial machinery and by scientific cultivation of the land freed from monopoly the revolution mustfirst of all supply the elemental wanes of society. In farming
and gardening intensive cultivation and modern methods havemade us practically independent of natural soil quality and climate. To a very considerable extent man now makes his own
soil and his own climate, thanks to the achievements of chemistry. Exotic fruits can be raised in the north to be supplied
to the warm south, as is being done in France. Science is the
wizard who enables man to master all difficulties and overcome all obstacles. The future, liberated from the incubus of
the profit system and enriched by the work of the millions of
non-producers of to-day, holds the greatest welfare for society.
That future must be the objective point of the social revolution;
its motto: bread and well-being for all. First bread, then wellbeing and luxury. Even luxury, for luxury is a deep-felt needof man, a need of his physical as of his spiritual being.

287

In passing it may be mentioned that all the other phases oflife would also be very much simplified as a result of the indicated changes: various present-day habits, customs, compulsory and unwholesome modes of living will naturally fall into
disuse.
Furthermore it must be considered that the task of increased
production would be enormously facilitated by the addition to
the ranks of labor of vast numbers whom the altered economic
conditions will liberate for work.
Recent statistics show that in 1920 there were in the UnitedStates over 41 million persons of both sexes engaged in gainful
occupations out of a total population of over 105 millions.1 Outof those 41 millions only 26 millions were actually employedin the industries, including transportation and agriculture, thebalance of 15 millions consisting mostly of persons engaged in
trade, of commercial travelers, advertisers, and various othermiddlemen of the present system In other words, 15 million2
persons would be released for useful work by a revolution in
the United Seates. A similar situation, proportionate to population, would develop in other countries.
The greater production necessitated by the social revolution
would therefore have an additional army of many million persons at its disposal. The systematic incorporation of those millions into industry and agriculture, aided by modern scientificmethods of organization and production, will go a long way
toward helping to solve the problems of supply.
Capitalist production is for profit; more labor is used today
to sell things than to produce them. The social revolution reorganizes the industries on the basis of the needs of the populace.
Essential needs come first, naturally. Food, clothing, shelter —these are the primal requirements of man. The first step in this1

N. Y. World Almanac, 1927.
Exclusive of the army, militia, and navy, and the great numbers employed in unnecessary and harmful occupations, such as the building of warships, the manufacture of ammunition and other military equipment, etc.
2286with the masters as against the workers. “Generally they do,”I hear some radical fanatic interject. And the workers? Do
they not, generally, support the masters and the system ofcapitalism? Could that system continue but for their support?
It would be wrong to argue from that, however, that theworkers consciously join hands with their exploiters. No
more is it true of the intellectuals. If the majority of the latterstand by the ruling class it is because of social ignorance,
because they do not understand their own best interests, forall their “intellectuality.” Just so the great masses of labor,similarly unaware of their true interests, aid the masters
against their fellow-workers, sometimes even in the same
trade and factory, not to speak of their lack of national andinternational solidarity. It merely proves that the one as theother, the manual worker no less than the brain proletarian,needs enlightenment.
In justice to the intellectuals let us not forget that their best
representatives have always sided with the oppressed. They
have advocated liberty and emancipation, and often they were
the first to voice the deepest aspirations of the toiling masses.
In the struggle for freedom they have frequently fought on
the barricades shoulder to shoulder with the workers and diedchampioning their cause.
We need not look far for proof of this. It is a familiar factthat every progressive, radical, and revolutionary movement
within the past hundred years has been inspired, mentally andspiritually, by the efforts of the finest element of the intellectual classes. The initiators and organizers of the revolutionary
movement in Russia, for instance, dating back a century, wereintellectuals, men and women of non-proletarian origin andstation. Nor was their love of freedom merely theoretical. Literally thousands of them consecrated their knowledge and experience, and dedicated their lives, to the service of the masses.
Not a land exists but where such noble men and women havetestified to their solidarity with the disinherited by exposing
247

themselves to the wrath and persecution of their own class andjoining hands with the downtrodden. Recent history, as well as
the past, is full of such examples. Who were the Garibaldis, theKossuths, the Liebknechts, Rosa Luxemburgs, the Landauers,
the Lenins, and Trotskys but intellectuals of the middle classes
who gave themselves to the proletariat? The history of every
country and of every revolution shines with their unselfish devotion to liberty and labor.
Let us bear these facts in mind and not be blinded by fanatical prejudice and baseless antagonism. The intellectual has
done labor great service in the past. It will depend on the attitude of the workers toward him as to what share he will be able
and willing to contribute to the preparation and realization of
the social revolution.

248

ulated by it must be given full freedom and scope to find creative channels. Revolution always wakens a high degree of responsibility. Together with the new atmosphere of liberty andbrotherhood it creates the realization that hard work and severe self-discipline are necessary to bring production up to therequirements of consumption.
On the other hand, the new situation will greatly simplify
the present very complex problems of industry. For you must
consider that capitalism, because of its competitive characterand contradictory financial and commercial interests, involves
many intricate and perplexing issues which would be entirely
eliminated by the abolition of the conditions of to-day. Questions of wage scales and selling prices; the requirements of theexisting markets and the hunt for new ones; the scarcity of capital for large operations and the heavy interest to be paid on
it; new investments, the effects of speculation and monopoly,
and a score of related problems which worry the capitalist andmake industry such a difficult and cumbersome network today would all disappear. At present these require divers departments of study and highly trained men to keep unraveling thetangled skein of plutocratic cross purposes, many specialists tocalculate the actualities and possibilities of profit and loss, anda large force of aids to help steer the industrial ship between
the perilous rocks which beset the chaotic course of capitalist
competition, national and international.
All this would be automatically done away with by the socialization of industry and the termination of the competitive
system; and thereby the problems of production will be immensely lightened. The knotted complexity of capitalist industry need therefore inspire no undue fear for the future. Those
who talk of labor not being equal to manage “modern” industry fail to take into account the factors referred to above. The
industrial labyrinth will turn out to be far less formidable on
the day of the social reconstruction.

285

Chapter 30: Production“What about production,” you ask; “how is it to be managed?”
We have already seen what principles must underlie the activities of the revolution if it is to be social and accomplish its
aims. The same principles of freedom and voluntary coöperation must also direct the reorganization of the industries.
The first effect of the revolution is reduced production. The
general strike, which I have forecast as the starting point of
the social revolution, itself constitutes a suspension of industry.
The workers lay down their tools, demonstrate in the streets,
and thus temporarily stop production.
But life goes on. The essential needs of the people must be
satisfied. In that stage the revolution lives on the supplies, already on hand. But to exhaust those supplies would be disastrous. The situation rests in the hands of labor: the immediate resumption of industry is imperative. The organized agricultural and industrial proletariat takes possession of the land,factories, shops, mines and mills. Most energetic application is
now the order of the day.
It should be clearly understood that the social revolution necessitates more intensive production than under capitalism inorder to supply the needs of the large masses who till thenhad lived in penury. This greater production can be achieved
only by the workers having previously prepared themselves forthe new situation. Familiarity with the processes of industry,knowledge of the sources of supply, and determination to succeed will accomplish the task. The enthusiasm generated by therevolution, the energies liberated, and the inventiveness stim284

Chapter 27: Organization ofLabor for the Social
Revolution
Proper preparation, as suggested in the preceding pages, will
greatly lighten the task of the social revolution and assure its
healthy development and functioning.
Now, what will be the main functions of the revolution?
Every country has its specific conditions, its own psychology, habits, and traditions, and the process of revolution will
naturally reflect the peculiarities of every land and its people.
But fundamentally all countries are alike in their social (rather
anti-social) character: whatever the political forms or economic conditions, they are all built on invasive authority, onmonopoly, on the exploitation of labor. The main task of thesocial revolution is therefore essentially the same everywhere:
the abolition of government and of economic inequality, andthe socialization of the means of production and distribution.
Production, distribution, and communication are the basic
sources of existence; upon them rests the power of coercive
authority and capital. Deprived of that power, governors andrulers become just ordinary men, like you and me, common
citizens among millions of others. To accomplish that is consequently the primal and most vital function of the social revolution.
We know that revolution begins with street disturbancesand outbreaks: it is the initial phase which involves force andviolence. But that is merely the spectacular prologue of the249

real revolution. The age long misery and indignity suffered by
the masses burst into disorder and tumult, the humiliation andinjustice meekly borne for decades find vent in acts of furyand destruction. That is inevitable, and it is solely the master class which is responsible for this preliminary characterof revolution. For it is even more true socially than individually that “whoever sows the wind will reap the whirlwind”: thegreater the oppression and wretchedness to which the masses
had been made to submit, the fiercer will rage the social storm.
All history proves it, but the lords of life have never harkened
to its warning voice.
This phase of the revolution is of short duration. It is usually followed by the more conscious, yet still spontaneous, destruction of the citadels of authority, the visible symbols of organized violence and brutality: jails, police stations, and othergovernment buildings are attacked, the prisoners liberated, legal documents destroyed. It is the manifestation of instinctive
popular justice. Thus one of the first gestures of the French Revolution was the demolition of the Bastille. Similarly in Russia
prisons were stormed and the prisoners released at the very
outset of the Revolution.1 The wholesome intuition of the people justly sees in prisoners social unfortunates, victims of conditions, and sympathizes with them as such. The masses regard
the courts and their records as instruments of class injustice,and these are destroyed at the beginning of the revolution, andquite properly so.
But this stage passes quickly: the people’s ire is soon spent.
Simultaneously the revolution begins its constructive work.
“Do you really think that reconstruction could start sosoon?” you ask.

aware of the peril of such an undertaking. Human sympathy
and the compelling impulse to help those in distress overcome
all considerations of personal safety, and Amundsen sacrifices
his life in an attempt to rescue the Nobile party.
Deep in all of us lives the spirit of Amundsen. How manymen of science have given up their lives in seeking knowledge
by which to benefit their fellow-men — how many physicians
and nurses have perished in the work of ministering to people
stricken with contagious disease — how many men and women
have voluntarily faced certain death in the effort to check an
epidemic which was decimating their country or even someforeign land — how many men, common workingmen, miners,
sailors, railroad employees — unknown to fame and unsung —have given themselves in the spirit of Amundsen? Their nameis legion.
It is this human nature, this idealism, which must be rousedby the social revolution. Without it the revolution cannot be,without it, it cannot live. Without it man is forever doomed toremain a slave and a weakling.
It is the work of the Anarchist, of the revolutionist, of theintelligent, class-conscious proletarian to exemplify and cultivate this spirit and instill it in others. It alone can conquer the
powers of evil and darkness, and build a new world of humanity, liberty, and justice.

1
The official liberation of political prisoners in Russia took place subsequently, after the revolutionary masses had wrecked prisons in Petrograd,
Moscow, and other cities.

250

283

Taking care of the sanitary and kindred needs of street anddistrict by voluntary committees of house and locality affords
the best results, since such bodies, themselves tenants of thegiven district, are personally interested in the health and safetyof their families and friends. This system worked much better in Russia than the subsequently established regular police
force. The latter consisting mostly of the worst city elements,
proved corrupt, brutal, and oppressive.
The hope of material betterment is, as already mentioned,
a powerful factor in the forward movement of humanity. Butthat incentive alone is not sufficient to inspire the masses togive them the vision of a new and better world, and cause them
to face danger and privation for its sake. For that an ideal isneeded, an ideal which appeals not only to the stomach but
even more to the heart and imagination, which rouses our dormant longing for what is fine and beautiful, for the spiritualand cultural values of life. An ideal, in short, which wakens
the inherent social instincts of man, feeds his sympathies andfellow-feeling, fires his love of liberty and justice, and imbues
even the lowest with nobility of thought and deed, as we frequently witness in the catastrophic events of life. Let a great
tragedy happen anywhere — an earthquake, flood, or railroad
accident — and the compassion of the whole world goes out tothe sufferers. Acts of heroic self-sacrifice, of brave rescue, andof unstinted aid demonstrate the real nature of man and his
deep-felt brotherhood and unity.
This is true of mankind in all times, climes, and social strata.
The story of Amundsen is a striking illustration of it. After
decades of arduous and dangerous work the famous Norwegian explorer resolves to enjoy his remaining years in peaceful
literary pursuits. He is announcing his decision at a banquet
given in his honor, and almost at the same moment comes thenews that the Nobile expedition to the North Pole had met withdisaster. On the instant Amundsen renounces all his plans of aquiet life and prepares to fly to the aid of the lost aviators, fully282

My friend, it must begin immediately. In fact, the more enlightened the masses have become, the clearer the workers realize their aims, and the better they are prepared to carry themout, the less destructive the revolution will be, and the quicker
and more effectively will begin the work of reconstruction.
“Are you not too hopeful?”
No, I don’t think so. I am convinced that the social revolution
will not “just happen.” It will have to be prepared, organized.
Yes, indeed, organized — just as a strike is organized. In truth,
it will be a strike, the strike of the united workers of an entire
country — a general strike.
Let us pause and consider this.
How do you imagine a revolution could be fought in thesedays of armored tanks, poison gas, and military planes? Do
you believe that the unarmed masses and their barricades could
withstand high-power artillery and bombs thrown upon themfrom flying machines? Could labor fight the military forces ofgovernment and capital?
It’s ridiculous on the face of it, isn’t it? And no less ridiculous
is the suggestion that the workers should form their own regiments, “shock troops,” or a “red front,” as the Communist parties advise you to do. Will such proletarian bodies ever be able
to stand up against the trained armies of the government andthe private troops of capital? Will they have the least chance?
Such a proposition needs only to be stated to be seen in all
its impossible folly. It would simply mean sending thousandsof workers to certain death.
It is time to have done with this obsolete idea of revolution.
Nowadays government and capital are too well organized in a
military way for the workers ever to be able to cope with them.
It would be criminal to attempt it, insanity even to think of it.
The strength of labor is not on the field of battle. It is in theshop, in the mine and factory. There lies its power that no armyin the world can defeat, no human agency conquer.

251

In other words, the social revolution can take place only bymeans of the General Strike. The General Strike, rightly understood and thoroughly carried out, is the social revolution. Of
this the British Government became aware much quicker than
the workers when the General Strike was declared in Englandin May, 1926. “It means revolution,” the Government said, in effect, to the strike leaders. With all their armies and navies theauthorities were powerless in the face of the situation. You canshoot people to death but you can’t shoot them to work. The
labor leaders themselves were frightened at the thought that
the General Strike actually implied revolution.
British capital and government won the strike — not by thestrength of arms, but because of the lack of intelligence andcourage on the part of the labor leaders and because the English workers were not prepared for the consequences of theGeneral Strike. As a matter of fact, the idea was quite new tothem. They had never before been interested in it, never studied
its significance and potentialities. It is safe to say that a similar
situation in France would have developed quite differently, because in that country the toilers have for years been familiar
with the General Strike as a revolutionary proletarian weapon.
It is most important that we realize that the General Strikeis the only possibility of social revolution. In the past the General Strike has been propagated in various countries without
sufficient emphasis that its real meaning is revolution, that itis the only practical way to it. It is time for us to learn this, andwhen we do so the social revolution will cease to be a vague, unknown quantity. It will become an actuality, a definite method
and aim, a program whose first step is the taking over of theindustries by organized labor.
I understand now why you said that the social revolutionmeans construction rather than destruction,” your friend remarks.
I am glad you do. And if you have followed me so far, youwill agree that the matter of taking over the industries is not252

committees, take the problem in hand. They gather statisticsof the facilities of a given district and of the number of applicants requiring quarters. The latter are assigned according topersonal or family need on the basis of equal rights.
Similar house and district committees have charge of theprovisioning of the city. Individual application for rations at
the distributing centers is a stupendous waste of time and energy. Equally false is the system, practiced in Russia in the firstyears of the Revolution, of issuing rations in the institutions of
one’s employment, in shops, factories, and offices. The betterand more efficient way, which at the same time insures more
equitable distribution and closes the door to favoritism and misuse, is rationing by houses or streets. The authorized house orstreet committee procures at the local distributing center theprovisions, clothing, etc., apportioned to the number of tenants
represented by the committee. Equal rationing has the added
advantage of eradicating food speculation, the vicious practicewhich grew to enormous proportions in Russia because of thesystem of inequality and privilege. Party members or persons
with a political pull could freely bring to the cities carloads offlour while some old peasant woman was severely punished for
selling a loaf of bread. No wonder speculation flourished, andto such an extent, indeed, that the Bolsheviki had to form special regiments to cope with the evil.2 The prisons were filledwith offenders; capital punishment was resorted to; but eventhe most drastic measures of the government failed to stop
speculation, for the latter was the direct consequence of the system of discrimination and favoritism. Only equality and freedom of exchange can obviate such evils or at least reduce them
to a minimum.
2

Those special police and military bodies, known as zagriaditelniye
otriadi, were most bitterly hated and popularly known as “robber regiments,”
because of their irresponsible thievery, incredible deprâvity and cruelty.
They were abolished by the introduction of the “new economic policy.”281

A rational community will find it more practical and beneficial to treat all alike, whether one happens to work at the timeor not, rather than create more non-workers to watch thosealready on hand, or to build prisons for their punishment andsupport. For if you refuse to feed a man, for whatever cause,
you drive him to theft and other crimes — and thus you yourself create the necessity for courts, lawyers, judge, jails, andwarders, the upkeep of whom is far more burdensome than tofeed the offenders. And these you have to feed, anyhow, even
if you put them in prison.
The revolutionary community will depend more on awakening the social consciousness and solidarity of its delinquents
than on punishment. It will rely on the example set by its working members, and it will be right in doing so. For the natural
attitude of the industrious man to the shirker is such that thelatter will find the social atmosphere so unpleasant that he will
prefer to work and enjoy the respect and good will of his fellows rather than to be despised in idleness.
Bear in mind that it is more important, and in the end morepractical and useful, to do the square thing rather than to gain
a seeming immediate advantage. That is, to do justice is morevital than to punish. For punishment is never just and always
harmful to both sides, the punished and the punisher; harmfuleven more spiritually than physically, and there is no greater
harm than that, for it hardens and corrupts you. This is unqualifiedly true of your individual life and with the same force itapplies to the collective social existence.
On the foundations of liberty, justice, and equality, as also on
understanding and sympathy, must be built every phase of lifein the social revolution. Only so it can endure. This applies tothe problems of shelter, food, and the security of your districtor city, as well as to the defense of the revolution.
As regards housing and local safety Russia has shown theway in the first months of the October Revolution. House committees, chosen by the tenants, and city federations of such280

something that can be left to chance, nor can it be carried out
in a haphazard manner. It can be accomplished only in a wellplanned, systematic, and organized way. You alone can’t do it,
nor I, nor any other man, be he worker, Ford, or the Pope ofRome. There is no man nor any body of men that can manage it
except the workers themselves, for it takes the workers to operate the industries. But even the workers can’t do it unless they
are organized and organized just for such an undertaking.
“But I thought you were an Anarchist,” interrupts yourfriend.
I am.
“I’ve heard that Anarchists don’t believe in organization.”
I imagine you have, but that’s an old argument. Any one
who tells you that Anarchists don’t believe in organization istalking nonsense. Organization is everything, and everythingis organization. The whole of life is organization, conscious or
unconscious. Every nation, every family, why, even every individual is an organization or organism. Every part of every living thing is organized in such a manner that the whole works
in harmony. Otherwise the different organs could not function
properly and life could not exist.
But there is organization and organization. Capitalist society is so badly organized that its various members suffer: justas when you have pain in some part of you, your whole bodyaches and you are ill.
There is organization that is painful because it is ill, and organization that is joyous because it means health and strength.
An organization is ill or evil when it neglects or suppresses anyof its organs or members. In the healthy organism all parts areequally valuable and none is discriminated against. The organization built on compulsion, which coerces and forces, is badand unhealthy. The libertarian organization, formed voluntarily and in which every member is free and equal, is a soundbody and can work well. Such an organization is a free union253

of equal parts. It is the kind of organization the Anarchists believe in.
Such must be the organization of the workers if labor is tohave a healthy body, one that can operate effectively.
It means, first of all, that not a single member of the organization or union may with impunity be discriminated against,
suppressed or ignored. To do so would be the same as to ignore
an aching tooth: you would be sick all over.
In other words, the labor union must be built on the principleof the equal liberty of all its members.
Only when each is a free and independent unit, coöperatingwith the others from his own choice because of mutual interests, can the whole work successfully and become powerful.
This equality means that it makes no difference what or who
the particular worker is: whether he is skilled or unskilled,
whether he is mason, carpenter, engineer or day laborer,whether he earn much or little. The interests of all are thesame; all belong together, and only by standing together canthey accomplish their purpose.
It means that the workers in the factory, mill, or mine must
be organized as one body; for it is not a question of what particular jobs they hold, what craft or trade they follow, but what
their interests are. And their interests are identical, as against
the employer and the system of exploitation.
Consider yourself how foolish and inefficient is the present
form of labor organization in which one trade or craft may be
on strike while the other branches of the same industry continue at work. Is it not ridiculous that when the street car workers of New York, for instance, quit work, the employees of the
subway, the cab and omnibus drivers remain on the job? The
main purpose of a strike is to bring about a situation that willcompel the employer to give in to the demands of labor. Sucha situation can be created only by a complete tie-up of the industry in question, so that a partial strike is merely a waste

254

not represent any definite and measurable value as a meansof exchange. What would, for instance, an hour’s work of thecoal miner be worth? Or fifteen minutes’ consultation with thephysician? Even if all effort should be considered equal in value
and an hour’s labor be made the unit, could the house painter’shour of work or the surgeon’s operation be equitably measured
in terms of wheat?
Common sense will solve this problem on the basis of humanequality and the right of every one to life.
“Such a system might work among decent people,” yourfriend objects; “but how about shirkers? Were not the Bolsheviki right in establishing the principle that ‘whoever doesn’t
work, doesn’t eat’?”No, my friend, you are mistaken. At first sight it may appear
as if that was a just and sensible idea. But in reality it proved
impractical, not to speak of the injustice and harm it worked
all around.
“How so?”
It was impractical because it required an army of officials tokeep tab on the people who worked or didn’t work. It led toincrimination and recrimination and endless disputes about official decisions. So that within a short time the number of those
who didn’t work was doubled and even trebled by the effort toforce people to work and to guard against their dodging or doing bad work. It was the system of compulsory labor whichsoon proved such a failure that the Bolsheviki were compelled
to give it up.
Moreover, the system caused even greater evils in other directions. Its injustice lay in the fact that you cannot break into
a person’s heart or mind and decide what peculiar physical ormental condition makes it temporarily impossible for him towork. Consider further the precedent you establish by introducing a false principle and thereby rousing the opposition of
those who feel it wrong and oppressive and therefore refuse
coöperation.
279

one will be interested in raising the price of coal or limiting
its supply. As much coal will be mined as will be necessary tosatisfy the need. Similarly will as much food be raised as thecountry needs. It will be the requirements of the community
and the supply obtainable which will determine the amount it
is to receive. This applies to coal and food as to all other needsof the people.
“But suppose there is not enough of a certain product to goaround. What will you do then?”
Then we’ll do what is done even in capitalistic society intime of war and scarcity: the people are rationed, with the difference that in the free community rationing will be managed
on principles of equality.
“But suppose the farmer refuses to supply the city with his
products unless he gets money?”
The farmer, like any one else, wants money only if he canbuy with it the things he needs. He will quickly see that money
is useless to him. In Russia during the Revolution you could
not get a peasant to sell you a pound of flour for a bagful ofmoney. But he was eager to give you a barrel of the finest grain
for an old pair of boots. It is plows, spades, rakes, agricultural
machinery, and clothing which the farmer wants, not money.
For these he will let you have his wheat, barley, and corn. In
other words, the city will exchange with the farm the products
each requires, on the basis of need.
It has been suggested by some that exchange during the reconstruction should be based on some definite standard. It is
proposed, for example, that every community issue its own
money, as is often done in time of revolution; or that a day’s
work should be considered the unit of value and so-called labor
notes serve as medium of exchange. But neither of these proposals is of practical help. Money issued by communities in revolution would quickly depreciate to the point of no value, sincesuch money would have no secure guarantees behind it, without which money is worth nothing. Similarly labor notes would278

of labor’s time and energy, not to speak of the harmful moral
effect of the inevitable defeat.
Think over the strikes in which you yourself have taken partand of others you know of. Did your union ever win a fight unless it was able to compel the employer to give in? But when
was it able to do so? Only when the boss knew that the workers meant business, that there was no dissent among them,that there was no hesitation and dallying, that they were determined to win, at whatever cost. But particularly when theemployer felt himself at the mercy of the union, when he could
not operate his factory or mine in the face of the workers’ resolute stand, when he could not get scabs or strikebreakers, andwhen he saw that his interests would suffer more by defying
his employees than by granting their demands.
It is clear, then, that you can compel compliance only when
you are determined, when your union is strong, when you arewell organized, when you are united in such a manner that theboss cannot run his factory against your will. But the employer
is usually some big manufacturer or a company that has mills
or mines in various places. Suppose it is a coal combine. If it
cannot operate its mines in Pennsylvania because of a strike,it will try to make good its losses by continuing mining in Virginia or Colorado and increasing production there. Now, if theminers in those States keep on working while you in Pennsylvania are on strike, the company loses nothing. It may evenwelcome the strike in order to raise the price of coal on the
ground that the supply is short because of your strike. In thatway the company not only breaks your strike, but it also influences public opinion against you, because the people foolishlybelieve that the higher price of coal is really the result of yourstrike while in fact it is due to the greed of the mine owners.
You will lose your strike, and for some time to come you andthe workers everywhere will have to pay more for coal, and not
only for coal but for all the other necessities of life, because to-255gether with the price of coal the general cost of living will go
up.
Reflect, then, how stupid is the present union policy to permit the other mines to operate while your mine is on strike.
The others remain at work and give financial support to yourstrike, but don’t you see that their aid only helps to break yourstrike, because they have to keep on working, really scabbing
on you, in order to contribute to your strike fund? Can anything be more senseless and criminal?
This holds true of every industry and every strike. Can you
wonder that most strikes are lost? That is the case in America
as well as in other countries. I have before me the Blue Book
just published in England under the title of Labor Statistics. The
data prove that strikes do not lead to labor victories. The figures
for the last eight years are as follows:
Results in Favor of:
Year
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927

Working People
390
152
111
187
162
154
67
61

Employers
507
315
222
183
235
189
126
118

Actually, then, almost 60% of the strikes were lost. Incidentally, consider also the loss of working days resulting
from strikes, which means no wages. The total number of
workdays lost by English labor in 1912 was 40,890,000, whichis almost equal to the lives of 2,000 men, allotting to each 60
years. In 1919 the number of workdays lost was 34,969,000; in
1920, 26,568,000; in 1921, 85,872,000; in 1926, as a result of the256

terests of the community, will take the place of personal ownership privately conducted for profit.
“But if you can’t buy anything, then what’s the use ofmoney?” you ask.
None whatever; money becomes useless. You can’t get anything for it. When the sources of supply, the land, factories, andproducts become public property, socialized, you can neither
buy nor sell. As money is only a medium for such transactions,
it loses its usefulness.
“But how will you exchange things?”
Exchange will be free. The coal miners, for instance, will deliver the coal they mined to the public coal yards for the use of
the community. In their turn the miners will receive from thecommunity’s warehouses the machinery, tools, and the othercommodities they need. That means free exchange without themedium of money and without profit, on the basis of requirement and the supply on hand.
“But if there is no machinery or food to be given to the miners?”
If there is none, money will not help matters. The miners
couldn’t feed on banknotes. Consider how such things are managed to-day. You trade coal for money, and for the money you
get food. The free community we are speaking of will exchange
the coal for food directly, without the medium of money.
“But on what basis? To-day you know what a dollar is worth,more or less, but how much coal will you give for a sack offlour?”You mean, how will value or price be determined. But wehave seen already in preceding chapters that there is no realmeasure of value, and that price depends on supply and demand and varies accordingly. The price of coal rises if there
is a scarcity of it; it becomes cheaper if the supply is greaterthan the demand. To make bigger profits the coal owners artificially limit the output, and the same methods obtain throughout the capitalistic system. With the abolition of capitalism no277

the general feeling against discrimination and favoritism, andgave convincing proof of the deep sense of justice inherent in
the masses.
All experience teaches that the just and square thing is at
the same time also the most sensible and practical in the longrun. This holds equally true of the individual as of collective
life. Discrimination and injustice are particularly destructive
to revolution, because the very spirit of revolution is born of
the hunger for equity and justice.
I have already mentioned that when the social revolution attains the stage where it can produce sufficient for all, then is
adopted the Anarchist principle of “to each according to hisneeds.” In the more industrially developed and efficient countries that stage would naturally be reached sooner than in backward lands. But until it is reached, the system of equal sharing, equal distribution per capita, is imperative as the only justmethod. It goes without saying, of course, that special consideration must be given to the sick and the old, to children, andto women during and after pregnancy, as was also the practicein the Russian Revolution.
“Let me get this straight,” you remark. “There is to be equal
sharing, you say. Then you won’t be able to buy anything?”
No, there will be no buying or selling. The revolution abolishes private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and with it goes capitalistic business. Personal possession remains only in the things you use. Thus, your watch isyour own, but the watch factory belongs to the people. Land,machinery, and all other public utilities will be collective property, neither to be bought nor sold. Actual use will be considered the only title — not to ownership but to possession. The
organization of the coal miners, for example, will be in chargeof the coal mines, not as owners but as the operating agency.
Similarly will the railroad brotherhoods run the railroads, andso on. Collective possession, coöperatively managed in the in-276

general strike, 162,233,000 days. These figures do not include
time and wages lost through unemployment.
It doesn’t take much arithmetic to see that strikes as atpresent conducted don’t pay, that the labor unions are not thewinners in industrial disputes.
This does not mean, however, that strikes serve no purpose.
On the contrary, they are of great value: they teach the worker
the vital need of coöperation, of standing shoulder to shoulder
with his fellows and unitedly fighting in the common cause.
Strikes train him in the class struggle and develop his spirit ofjoint effort, of resistance to the masters, of solidarity and responsibility. In this sense even an unsuccessful strike is not acomplete loss. Through it the toilers learn that “an injury to
one is the concern of all,” the practical wisdom that embodies the deepest meaning of the proletarian struggle. This does
not relate only to the daily battle for material betterment, butequally so to everything pertaining to the worker and his existence, and particularly to matters where justice and liberty are
involved.
It is one of the most inspiring things to see the masses roused
in behalf of social justice, whomever the case at issue may concern. For, indeed, it is the concern of all of us, in the truest anddeepest sense. The more labor becomes enlightened and awareof its larger interests, the broader and more universal grow its
sympathies, the more world-wide its defense of justice and liberty. It was a manifestation of this understanding when theworkers in every country protested against the judicial murderof Sacco and Vanzetti in Massachusetts. Instinctively and consciously the masses throughout the world felt, as did all decent
men and women, that it is their concern when such a crimeis being perpetrated. Unfortunately that protest, as many similar ones, contented itself with mere resolutions. Had organizedlabor resorted to action, such as a general strike, its demands
would not have been ignored, and two of the workers’ best257

friends and noblest of men would not have been sacrificed to
the forces of reaction.
Equally important, it would have served as a valuable
demonstration of the tremendous power of the proletariat, thepower that always conquers when it is unified and resolute.
This has been proven on numerous occasions in the pastwhen the determined stand of labor prevented planned legal
outrages, as in the case of Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone,
officials of the Western Federation of Miners, whom the coalbarons of the State of Idaho had conspired to send to thegallows during the miners’ strike of 1905. Again, in 1917, it
was the solidarity of the toilers which thwarted the executionof Tom Mooney, in California. The sympathetic attitude oforganized labor in America toward Mexico has also till now
been an obstacle to the military occupation of that country by
the United States Government in behalf of the American oilinterests. Similarly in Europe united action by the workers has
been successful in repeatedly forcing the authorities to grant
amnesty to political prisoners. The Government of England sofeared the expressed sympathy of British labor for the Russian
Revolution that it was compelled to pretend neutrality. It
did not dare openly to aid the counter-revolution in Russia.
When the dock workers refused to load food and ammunition
intended for the White armies, the English Government
resorted to deception. It solemnly assured the workers thatthe shipments were intended for France. In the course of
my work collecting historic material in Russia, in 1920 and
1921, I came into possession of official British documents
proving that the shipments had been immediately forwarded
from France, by direct orders of the British Government, tothe counter-revolutionary generals in the North of Russia
who had established there the so-called Tchaikovsky-Miller
Government. This incident — one out of many — demonstrates
the wholesome fear the powers that be have of the awaken-

tellectuals rather than soldiers or sailors? Such methods were
unjust and vicious: they immediately created material inequality and opened the door to misuse of position and opportunity, to speculation, graft, and swindle. They also stimulated
counter-revolution, for those indifferent or unfriendly to the
Revolution were embittered by the discrimination and therefore became an easy prey to counter-revolutionary influences.
This initial discrimination and the many others which followed were not dictated by the needs of the situation but solely
by political party considerations. Having usurped the reins ofgovernment and fearing the opposition of the people, the Bolsheviki sought to strengthen themselves in the government
seat by currying favor with the sailors, soldiers, and workers.
But by these means they succeeded only in creating indignation and antagonizing the masses, for the injustice of the system was too crying and obvious. Furthermore, even the “favored class,” the proletariat, felt discriminated against because
the soldiers were given better rations. Was the worker not as
good as the soldier? Could the soldier fight for the Revolution —the factory man argued — if the worker would not supply him
with ammunition? The soldier, in his turn, protested against
the sailor getting more. Was he not as valuable as the sailor?
And all condemned the special rations and privileges bestowed
on the Bolshevik members of the Party, and particularly the
comforts and even luxuries enjoyed by the higher officials andcommissars, while the masses suffered privation.
Popular resentment of such practices was strikingly expressed by the Kronstadt sailors. It was in the midst of an
extremely severe and hungry winter, in March, 1921, thata public mass-meeting of the sailors unanimously resolved
voluntarily to give up their extra rations in behalf of the lessfavored population of Kronstadt, and to equalize the rations in
the entire city.1 This truly ethical revolutionary action voiced1

258

See The Kronstadt Rebellion, by the author.

275

Chapter 29: Consumption
and Exchange
Let us take up the organization of consumption first, because
people have to eat before they can work and produce.
“What do you mean by the organization of consumption?”
your friend asks.
“He means rationing, I suppose,” you remark.
I do. Of course, when the social revolution has become
thoroughly organized and production is functioning normallythere will be enough for everybody. But in the first stages of
the revolution, during the process of reconstruction, we musttake care to supply the people as best we can, and equally,
which means rationing.
“The Bolsheviki did not have equal rationing,” your friend interrupts; “they had different kinds of rations for different people.
They did, and that was one of the greatest mistakes they
made. It was resented by the people as a wrong and it provoked
irritation and discontent. The Bolsheviki had one kind of ration
for the sailor, another of lower quality and quantity for the soldier, a third for the skilled worker, a fourth for the unskilledone; another ration again for the average citizen, and yet another for the bourgeois. The best rations were for the Bolsheviki, the members of the Party, and special rations for the Communist officials and commissars. At one time they had as manyas fourteen different food rations. Your own common sense willtell you that it was all wrong. Was it fair to discriminate against
people because they happened to be laborers, mechanics, or in274

ing class-consciousness and solidarity of the international
proletariat.
The stronger the workers grow in this spirit the more
effective will be their struggle for emancipation. Class
consciousness and solidarity must assume national andinternational proportions before labor can attain its fullstrength. Wherever there is injustice, wherever persecution
and suppression — be it the subjugation of the Philippines,
the invasion of Nicaragua, the enslavement of the toilers in
the Congo by Belgian exploiters, the oppression of the masses
in Egypt, China, Morocco, or India — it is the business of
the workers everywhere to raise their voice against all suchoutrages and demonstrate their solidarity in the common
cause of the despoiled and disinherited throughout the world.
Labor is slowly advancing to this social consciousness:
strikes and other sympathetic expressions are a valuablemanifestation of this spirit. If the greater number of strikes
are lost at present, it is because the proletariat is not yet
fully aware of its national and international interests, is notorganized on the right principles, and does not sufficiently
realize the need of world-wide coöperation.
Your daily struggles for better conditions would quickly assume a different character if you were organized in such amanner that when your factory or mine goes on strike, thewhole industry should quit work; not gradually but at once, allat the same time. Then the employer would be at your mercy,
for what could he do when not a wheel turns in the wholeindustry? He can get enough strikebreakers for one or a few
mills, but an entire industry cannot be supplied with them, norwould he consider it safe or advisable. Moreover, suspensionof work in any one industry would immediately affect a large
number of others, because modern industry is interwoven. The
situation would become the direct concern of the whole country, the public would be aroused and demand a settlement. (Atpresent, when your single factory strikes, no one cares and you
259

may starve as long as you remain quiet.) That settlement would
again depend on yourself, on the strength of your organization.
When the bosses would see that you know your power andthat you are determined, they’d give in quickly enough or seek
a compromise. They would be losing millions every day, thestrikers might even sabotage the works and machinery, andthe employers would be only too anxious to “settle,” while in a
strike of one factory or district they usually welcome the situation, knowing as they do that the chances are all against you.
Reflect therefore how important it is in what manner, on
what principles your union is built, and how vital labor solitarily
and coöperation are in your every-day struggle for better conditions. In unity is your strength, but that unity is non-existentand impossible as long as you are organized on craft lines instead of by industries.
There is nothing more important and urgent than that you
and your fellow workers see to it immediately that you change
the form of your organization.
But it is not only the form that must be changed. Your unionmust become clear about its aims and purposes. The worker
should most earnestly consider what he really wants, how hemeans to achieve it, by what methods. He must learn what his
union should be, how it should function, and what it should try
to accomplish.
Now, what is the union to accomplish? What should be thearms of a real labor union?
First of all, the purpose of the union is to serve the interestsof its members. That is its primary duty. There is no quarrel
about that; every workingman understands it. If some refuse tojoin a labor body it is because they are too ignorant to appreciate its great value, in which case they must be enlightened. But
generally they decline to belong to the union because they haveno faith or are disappointed in it. Most of those who remainaway from the union do so because they hear much boasting
about the strength of organized labor while they know, often
260

foremost. The history of previous revolutions proves that themasses were ever willing to suffer and to sacrifice material
well-being for the sake of greater liberty and justice. Thus in
Russia neither cold nor starvation could induce the peasants
and workers to aid counter-revolution. All privation andmisery notwithstanding they served heroically the interestsof the great cause. It was only when they saw the Revolution
monopolized by a political party, the new-won liberties curtailed, a dictatorship established, and injustice and inequality
dominant again that they became indifferent to the Revolution,
declined to participate in the sham, refused to coöperate, andeven turned against it.
To forget ethical values, to introduce practices and methods
inconsistent with or opposed to the high moral purposes of therevolution means to invite counter-revolution and disaster.
It is therefore clear that the success of the social revolution
primarily depends on liberty and equality. Any deviation fromthem can only be harmful; indeed, is sure to prove destructive.
It follows that all the activities of the revolution must be basedon freedom and equal rights. This applies to small things as togreat. Any acts or methods tending to limit liberty, to create
inequality and injustice, can result only in a popular attitude
inimical to the revolution and in best interests.
It is from this angle that all the problems of the revolutionary
period must be considered and solved. Among those problems
the most important are consumption and housing, productionand exchange.

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are usurped by a political party or are centered in some specialorganization, revolutionary effort becomes limited to a comparatively small circle from which the large masses are practically excluded. The natural result is that popular enthusiasm
is dampened, interest gradually weakens, initiative languishes,
creativeness wanes, and the revolution becomes the monopolyof a clique which presently turns dictator.
This is fatal to the revolution. The sole prevention of such acatastrophe lies in the continued active interest of the workers
through their every-day participation in all matters pertaining
to the revolution. The source of this interest and activity is theshop and the union.
The interest of the masses and their loyalty to the revolution
depend furthermore on their feeling that the revolution represents justice and fair play. This explains why revolutions havethe power of rousing the people to acts of great heroism and devotion. As already pointed out, the masses instinctively see in
revolution the enemy of wrong and iniquity and the harbingerof justice. In this sense revolution is a highly ethical factor andan inspiration. Fundamentally it is only great moral principles
which can fire the masses and lift them to spiritual heights.
All popular upheavals have shown this to be true; particularly so the Russian Revolution. It was because of that spiritthat the Russian masses so strikingly triumphed over all obstacles in the days of February and October. No opposition could
conquer their devotion inspired by a great and noble cause. But
the Revolution began to decline when it had become emasculated of its high moral values, when it was denuded of its elements of justice, equality, and liberty. Their loss was the doomof the Revolution.
It cannot be emphasized too strongly how essential spiritualvalues are to the social revolution. These and the consciousness of the masses that the revolution also means material
betterment are dynamic influences in the life and growth of
the new society. Of the two factors the spiritual values are272

from bitter experience, that it is defeated in almost every important struggle. “Oh, the union,” they say scornfully, “it don’tamount to anything.” To speak quite truthfully, to a certain
extent they are right. They see organized capital proclaim theopen shop policy and defeat the unions; they see labor leaders
sell out strikes and betray the workers; they see the membership, the rank and file, helpless in the political machinations inand out of the union. To be sure, they don’t understand why it
is so; but they do see the facts, and they turn against the union.
Some again refuse to have anything to do with the union
because they had at one time belonged to it, and they knowwhat an insignificant rôle the individual member, the average
worker, plays in the affairs of the organization. The local leaders, the district and central bodies, the national and international officers, and the chiefs of the American Federation ofLabor, in the United States, “run the whole show,” they willtell you; “you have nothing to do but vote, and if you object
you’ll fly out.”
Unfortunately they are right. You know how the union is
managed. The rank and file have little to say. They have delegated the whole power to the leaders, and these have become
the bosses, just as in the larger life of society the people are
made to submit to the orders of those who were originallymeant to serve them — the government and its agents. Once
you do that, the power you have delegated will be used against
you and your own interests every time. And then you complain that your leaders “misuse their power.” No, my friend,they don’t misuse it; they only use it, for it is the use of power
which is itself the worst misuse.
All this has to be changed if you really want to achieve
results. In society it has to be changed by taking politicalpower away from your governors, abolishing it altogether. I
have shown that political power means authority, oppression,and tyranny, and that it is not political government that weneed but rational management of our collective affairs.
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Just so in your union you need sensible administration ofyour business. We know what tremendous power labor has as
the creator of all wealth and the supporter of the world. If properly organized and united, the workers could control the situation, be the masters of it. But the strength of the worker is
not in the union meeting-hall; it is in the shop and factory, inthe mill and mine. It is there that he must organize; there, on
the job. There he knows what he wants, what his needs are,and it is there that he must concentrate his efforts and his will.
Every shop and factory should have its special committee to attend to the wants and requirements of the men, not leaders, but
members of the rank and file, from the bench and furnace, tolook after the demands and complaints of their fellow employees. Such a committee, being on the spot and constantly under
the direction and supervision of the workers, wields no power:
it merely carries out instructions. Its members are recalled atwill and others selected in their place, according to the needof the moment and the ability required for the task in hand. It
is the workers who decide the matters at issue and carry theirdecisions out through the shop committees.
That is the character and form of organization that laborneeds. Only this form can express its real purpose and will, be
its adequate spokesman, and serve its true interests.
These shop and factory committees, combined with similar
bodies in other mills and mines, associated locally, regionally,and nationally, would constitute a new type of labor organization which would be the virile voice of toil and its effective
agency. It would have the whole weight and energy of theunited workers back of it and would represent a power tremendous in its scope and potentialities.
In the daily struggle of the proletariat such an organization
would be able to achieve victories about which the conservative union, as at present built, cannot even dream. It would
enjoy the respect and confidence of the masses, would attract
the unorganized and unite the labor forces on the basis of the262

that it is not government and laws which produce and create,make the wheat grow and the wheels turn, but concord andcoöperation. Experience will teach him to substitute the management of things in place of the government of men. In thedaily life and struggles of his shop-committee the worker must
learn how to conduct the revolution.
Shop and factory committees, organized locally, by district,region, and State, and federated nationally, will be the bodies
best suited to carry on revolutionary production.
Local and State labor councils, federated nationally, will be
the form of organization most adapted to manage distribution
by means of the people’s coöperatives.
These committees, elected by the workers on the job, connect their shop and factory with other shops and factories ofthe same industry. The Joint Council of an entire industry links
that industry with other industries, and thus is formed a federation of labor councils for the entire country.
Coöperative associations are the mediums of exchange between the country and city. The farmers, organized locally andfederated regionally and nationally, supply the needs of thecities by means of the coöperatives and receive through thelatter in exchange the products of the city industries.
Every revolution is accompanied by a great outburst of popular enthusiasm full of hope and aspiration. It is the springboard of revolution. This high tide, spontaneous and powerful, opens up the human sources of initiative and activity. The
sense of equality liberates the best there is in man and makes
him consciously creative. These are the great motors of the social revolution, its moving forces. Their free and unhindered
expression signifies the development and deepening of the revolution. Their suppression means decay and death. The revolution is safe, it grows and becomes strong, as long as the masses
feel that they are direct participants in it, that they are fashioning their own lives, that they are making the revolution,that they are the revolution. But the moment their activities
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The main aim of the social revolution is therefore to establish
equal liberty on the basis of equal opportunity. The revolutionary reorganization of life must immediately proceed to secure
the equality of all, economically, politically, and socially.
That reorganization will depend, first and foremost, on thethorough familiarity of labor with the economic situation of
the country: on a complete inventory of the supply, on exact
knowledge of the sources of raw material, and on the properorganization of the labor forces for efficient management.
It means that statistics and intelligent workers’ associations
are vital needs of the revolution, on the day after the upheaval.
The entire problem of production and distribution — the lifeof the revolution — is based on it. It is obvious, as pointed out
before, that this knowledge must be acquired by the workers
before the revolution if the latter is to accomplish its purposes.
That is why the shop and factory committee, dealt with in theprevious chapter, are so important and will play such a decisiverôle in the revolutionary reconstruction.
For a new society is not born suddenly, any more than a childis. New social life gestates in the body of the old just as new
individual life does in the mother’s womb. Time and certain
processes are required to develop it till it becomes a complete
organism capable of functioning. When that stage has beenreached birth takes place in agony and pain, socially as individually. Revolution, to use a trite but expressive saying, is the
midwife of the new social being. This is true in the most literal
sense. Capitalism is the parent of the new society; the shopand factory committee, the union of class-conscious labor andrevolutionary aims, is the germ of the new life. In that shopcommittee and union the worker must acquire the knowledgeof how to manage his affairs: in the process he will grow to
the perception that social life is a matter of proper organization, of united effort, of solidarity. He will come to understandthat it is not the bossing and ruling of men but free associationand harmonious working together which accomplish things;
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equality of all workers and their joint interests and aims. It
would face the masters with the whole might of the working
class back of it, in a new attitude of consciousness and strength.
Only then would labor acquire unity and the expression of it
assume real significance.
Such a union would soon become something more than amere defender and protector of the worker. It would gain a vital
realization of the meaning of unity and consequent power, oflabor solidarity. The factory and shop would serve as a training
camp to develop the worker’s understanding of his proper rôlein life, to cultivate his self-reliance and independence, teachhim mutual help and coöperation, and make him conscious of
his responsibility. He will learn to decide and act on his own
judgment, not leaving it to leaders or politicians to attend to his
affairs and look out for his welfare. It will be he who will determine, together with his fellows at the bench, what they want
and what methods will best serve their aims, and his committee
on the spot would merely carry out instructions. The shop andfactory would become the worker’s school and college. Therehe will learn his place in society, his function in industry, andhis purpose in life. He will mature as a workingman and as aman, and the giant of labor will attain his full stature. He willknow and be strong thereby.
Not long will he then be satisfied to remain a wage slave, an
employee and dependent on the good will of his master whom
his toil supports. He will grow to understand that present economic and social arrangements are wrong and criminal, and hewill determine to change them. The shop committee and union
will become the field of preparation for a new economic system,
for a new social life.
You see, then, how necessary it is that you and I, and every
man and woman who has the interests of labor at heart, work
toward these objects.
And right here I want to emphasize that it is particularly urgent that the more advanced proletarian, the radical and the263

revolutionary, reflect upon this more earnestly, for to most ofthem, even to some Anarchists, this is only a pious wish, a distant hope. They fail to realize the transcending importance ofefforts in that direction. Yet it is no mere dream. Large numbers of progressive workingmen are coming to this understanding: the Industrial Workers of the World and the revolutionary Anarchist-syndicalists in every country are devoting themselves to this end. It is the most pressing need of the present.
It cannot be stressed too much that only the right organizationof the workers can accomplish what we are striving for. In itlies the salvation of labor and of the future. Organization fromthe bottom up, beginning with the shop and factory, on thefoundation of the joint interests of the workers everywhere, irrespective of trade, race, or country, by means of mutual effort
and united will, alone can solve the labor question and serve
the true emancipation of man.
“You were speaking of the workers taking over the industries,’ your friend reminds me. “How are they going to do this?”Yes, I was on the subject when you made that remark aboutorganization. But it is well that the matter was discussed, because there is nothing more vital in the problems we are examining.
To return to the taking over of the industries. It means not
only taking them over, but the running of them by labor. As
concerns the taking over, you must consider that the workers
are actually now in the industries. The taking over consists inthe workers remaining where they are, yet remaining not as
employees but as the rightful collective possessors.
Grasp this point, my friend. The expropriation of the capitalist class during the social revolution — the taking over of theindustries — requires tactics directly the reverse of those you
now use in a strike. In the latter you quit work and leave theboss in full possession of the mill, factory, or mine. It is an idiotic proceeding, of course, for you give the master the entire

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Chapter 28: Principles andPractice
The main purpose of the social revolution must be the immediate betterment of conditions for the masses. The successof the revolution fundamentally depends on it. This can beachieved only by organizing consumption and production soas to be of real benefit to the populace. In that lies the greatest— in fact, the only — security of the social revolution. It was
not the Red army which conquered counter-revolution in
Russia: it was the peasants holding on for dear life to the land
they had taken during the upheaval. The social revolution
must be of material gain to the masses if it is to live and grow.
The people at large must be sure of actual advantage fromtheir efforts, or at least entertain the hope of such advantage
in the near future. The revolution is doomed if it relies for its
existence and defense on mechanical means, such as war andarmies. The real safety of the revolution is organic; that is, itlies in industry and production.
The object of revolution is to secure greater freedom, to increase the material welfare of the people. The aim of the social
revolution, in particular, is to enable the masses by their own
efforts to bring about conditions of material and social wellbeing, to rise to higher moral and spiritual levels.
In other words, it is liberty which is to be established by thesocial revolution. For true liberty is based on economic opportunity. Without it all liberty is a sham and lie, a mask for exploitation and oppression. In the profoundest sense liberty is
the daughter of economic equality.
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At the same time the larger organization, the union, mustuse every effort to compel capital to permit greater labor participation in the actual management. But this, even at best, canbenefit only a small minority of the workers. The plan suggested above, on the other hand, opens the possibility of industrial training to practically every worker in shop, mill, andfactory.
It is true, of course, that there are certain kinds of work —such as engineering: civil, electrical, mechanical — which theindustrial councils will not be able to acquire by actual practice.
But what they will learn of the general processes of industry
will be of inestimable value as preparation. For the rest, thecloser bond of friendship and coöperation between worker andtechnician is a paramount necessity.
The taking over of the industries is therefore the first great
object of the social revolution. It is to be accomplished by theproletariat, by the part of it organized and prepared for thetask. Considerable numbers of workers are already beginning
to realize the importance of this and to understand the task
before them. But understanding what is necessary to be done
is not sufficient. Learning how to do it is the next step. It is
up to the organized working class to enter at once upon thispreparatory work.

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advantage: he can put scabs in your place, and you remain out
in the cold.
In expropriating, on the contrary, you stay on the job andyou put the boss out. He may remain only on equal terms withthe rest: a worker among workers.
The labor organizations of a given place take charge of the
public utilities, of the means of communication, of production
and distribution in their particular locality. That is, the telegraphers, the telephone and electrical workers, the railroad men,and so on, take possession (by means of their revolutionary
shop committees) of the workshop, factory, or other establishment. The capitalistic foremen, overseers, and managers are removed from the premises if they resist the change and refuse
to coöperate. If willing to participate, they are made to understand that henceforth there are neither masters nor owners:that the factory becomes public property in charge of the unionof workers engaged in the industry, all equal partners in thegeneral undertaking.
It is to be expected that the higher officials of large industrial and manufacturing concerns will refuse to coöperate. Thus
they eliminate themselves. Their place must be taken by workers previously prepared for the job. That is why I have emphasized the utmost importance of industrial preparation. This is a
primal necessity in a situation that will inevitably develop andon it will depend, more than on any other factor, the success ofthe social revolution. Industrial preparation is the most essential point, for without it the revolution is doomed to collapse.
The engineers and other technical specialists are more likely
to join hands with labor when the social revolution comes, particularly if a closer bond and better understanding have in themeantime been established between the manual and mental
workers.
Should they refuse and should the workers have failed to prepare themselves industrially and technically, then production
would depend on compelling the willfully obstinate to coöper265

ate — an experiment tried in the Russian Revolution and proved
a complete failure.
The grave mistake of the Bolsheviki in this connection was
their hostile treatment of the whole class of the intelligentsia
on account of the opposition of some members of it. It was
the spirit of intolerance, inherent in fanatical dogma, whichcaused them to persecute an entire social group because of thefault of a few. This manifested itself in the policy of wholesale vengeance upon the professional elements, the technicalspecialists, the coöperative organizations, and all cultured persons in general. Most of them, at first friendly to the Revolution,some even enthusiastic in its favor, were alienated by these Bolshevik tactics, and their coöperation was made impossible. As
a result of their dictatorial attitude the Communists were led
to resort to increased oppression and tyranny till they finallyintroduced purely martial methods in the industrial life of thecountry. It was the era of compulsory labor, the militarizationof factory and mill, which unavoidably ended in disaster, because forced labor is, by the very nature of coercion, bad andinefficient; moreover, those so compelled react upon the situation by willful sabotage, by systematic delay and spoilage ofwork, which an intelligent enemy can practice in a way thatcannot be detected in due time and which results in greater
harm to machinery and product than direct refusal to work. In
spite of the most drastic measures against this kind of sabotage, in spite even of the death penalty, the government was
powerless to overcome the evil. The placing of a Bolshevik, ofa political commissar, over every technician in the more responsible positions did not help matters. It merely created alegion of parasitic officials who, ignorant of industrial matters,
only interfered with the work of those friendly to the Revolution and willing to aid, while their unfamiliarity with thetask in no way prevented continued sabotage. The system offorced labor finally developed in what practically became economic counter-revolution, and no efforts of the dictatorship266

could alter the situation. It was this that caused the Bolsheviki
to change from compulsory labor to a policy of winning overthe specialists and technicians by returning them to authority
in the industries and rewarding them with high pay and special
emoluments.
It would be stupid and criminal to try again the methods
which have so signally failed in the Russian Revolution andwhich, by their very character, are bound to fail every time,
both industrially and morally.
The only solution of this problem is the already suggested
preparation and training of the workers in the art of organizing and managing industry, as well as closer contact between
the manual and technical men. Every factory, mine, and millshould have its special workers’ council, separate from and independent of the shop committee, for the purpose of familiarizing the workers with the various phases of their particular industry, including the sources of raw material, the consecutive
processes of manufacture, by-products, and manner of distribution. This industrial council should be permanent, but its membership must rotate in such a manner as to take in practically all
the employees of a given factory or mill. To illustrate: suppose
the industrial council in a certain establishment consists of fivemembers or of twenty-five, as the case may be, according to
the complexity of the industry and the size of the particularfactory. The members of the council, after having thoroughly
acquainted themselves with their industry, publish what they
had learned for the information of their fellow-workers, andnew council members are chosen to continue the industrial
studies. In this manner the whole factory or mill can consecutively acquire the necessary knowledge about the organizationand management of their trade and keep step with its development. These councils would serve as industrial colleges where
the workers would become familiar with the technique of theirindustry in all its phases.

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