Propaganda of the deed

Propaganda of the deed, or propaganda by the deed, is a type of direct action intended to influence public opinion. The action itself is meant to serve as an example for others to follow, acting as a catalyst for social revolution.
It is primarily associated with acts of violence perpetrated by proponents of insurrectionary anarchism in the late 19th and early 20th century, including bombings and assassinations aimed at the state, the ruling class in a spirit of anti-capitalism, and church arsons targeting religious groups, even though propaganda of the deed also had non-violent applications. These acts of terrorism were intended to ignite a "spirit of revolt" by demonstrating the state, the middle and upper classes, and religious organizations were not omnipotent as well as to provoke the State to become escalatingly repressive in its response. The 1881 London Social Revolutionary Congress gave the tactic its approval.
The foundations of propaganda of the deed were first laid in the early 19th century, when members of the student counterculture began to call for revolutionary action. An early invocation of propaganda by the deed (Italian: propaganda dei fatti) was first outlined by the Italian socialist Carlo Pisacane in 1857. Pisacane rejected "propaganda of the idea", as he believed that "ideas result from deeds" and that "people will not be free when they are educated, but educated when they are free." To Pisacane, all citizens of a country ought to cooperate with social revolution; he specified conspiracies and assassination attempts as examples of ways citizens could contribute to a social revolution. The theory of propaganda by the deed was formalised in 1869 by the Russian revolutionaries Mikhail Bakunin and Sergey Nechayev, who favoured insurrectionary direct action over "pointless propaganda" which had no basis in reality. In August 1870, Bakunin called for revolutionaries to put their ideas into practice, propagating revolutionary principles through deeds, rather than words. He believed that revolutionary actors ought to focus on acts of destruction, which he considered a necessary prelude to any social revolution.
In the wake of the suppression of the Paris Commune and rising political repression against the left-wing, during the 1870s, many European anarchists became impatient with gradualist methods such as education and industrial action. They instead turned towards propaganda by the deed, which they saw as a means to accelerate social change and bring about a revolution. When Italian activists such as Carlo Cafiero, Andrea Costa and Errico Malatesta joined the nascent anarchist movement, they organised political demonstrations and strike actions, with the aim of inciting an uprising that would escalate into a generalised insurrection. In 1874, Costa and Malatesta planned an insurrection in Bologna, but they were arrested by the Carabinieri before they made it to the city.
After the defeat of the Bologna insurrection, Cafiero and Malatesta adopted the doctrine of propaganda by the deed. They believed that symbolic actions could drive workers and peasants towards revolution, and encouraged members of the international anarchist movement to engage in violent action. At the 1876 Bern Congress of the Anti-authoritarian International, Malatesta argued that revolutions were driven by deeds, not words. He proposed that, every time class conflict erupted, revolutionary socialists were obliged to extend their support to the workers' movement. Among the people convinced by Malatesta's arguments was the French anarchist Paul Brousse, who became a leading proponent of propaganda of the deed, causing conflict between him and the moderate James Guillaume. Brousse called for workers to seize the means of production, peasants to occupy agricultural land, and for people to rise up in insurrection and establish a free association of producers.
Three months after the Bern Congress, Malatesta and Cafiero sought to define propaganda of the deed in the Jura Federation's Bulletin; they declared that actions which affirmed socialist principles were the most effective form of propaganda. At a subsequent national congress of Italian anarchists, held in Florence, Cafiero and Malatesta passed a resolution confirming the insurrectionary character of the Italian anarchist movement. A series of actions affirming propaganda by the deed were carried out over the subsequent years. On 18 March 1877, the sixth anniversary of the Paris Commune, Paul Brousse led a political demonstration in which he carried a red flag through the streets of Bern; he saw this as an act of propaganda of the deed, through which he aimed to raise class consciousness. In April 1877, Cafiero and Malatesta carried out another insurrection in the southern province of Benevento, hoping to incite a revolution through propaganda by the deed. After putting two small villages under an armed occupation, they burned tax registers and proclaimed the overthrow of the Kingdom of Italy. Despite being welcomed by local peasants, they did not receive their active support, so the insurrection was quickly suppressed. Cafiero and Malatesta were driven into exile, the Anti-authoritarian International was banned in Italy and its former members turned to acts of terrorism; in 1878, the new King Umberto I survived a stabbing by an Italian anarchist.
During the late 1870s, debates over propaganda of the deed intensified. These discussions sought to analyse the relationship between individual actions and wider society, as symbolic rebellious acts were intended to trigger a generalised revolution. Debates were also had over whether propaganda by the deed was supplementary to educational work or if it was intended as a replacement for the written and spoken word. In August 1877, Brousse wrote an article for the Jura Federation's Bulletin, in which he proposed that propaganda of the deed was intended to set an example, educate people and incite further action. Cafiero himself proposed that revolutionary ends justified any means. In an article published in Le Révolté in December 1880, he called for anarchists to use any means necessary to incite permanent revolution, whether it be by writing and public speaking, by violent attacks, or by voting. Cafiero's remarks in Le Révolté led to a wider debate within the anarchist movement on issues of strategy and the use of violence. At the time, propaganda by the deed was defined as any act of rebellion against the existing system, even those that were not carried out to gain support for the anarchist movement; it did not yet have the inherent implication of violence that it would later assume.
While the Italian anarchists advocated for propaganda of the deed, other anarchists, including the Russian narodnik Peter Kropotkin, continued to advocate for education. Kropotkin believed that small groups of revolutionaries should enter into larger workers' organisations, particularly trade unions, and agitate for social revolution. He was ambivalent towards revolutionary violence, rejecting Bakunin's conspiratorial methods and preferring methods of peaceful propaganda. However, he was not outright opposed to violent actions, so long as they were carried out as part of a larger revolutionary movement, had a clear purpose and were directed against a specific oppressive structure. He refused to condemn anarchists that engaged in terrorism, emphasising state terrorism as a motivating factor in all acts of individual terrorism. Although he was also personally repulsed by violence, he believed it to be necessary in some cases, so long as they were directed against economic forces and not individual targets. Kropotkin personally objected to Cafiero's definition of propaganda by the deed and preferred not to use the term.
By the turn of the 1880s, the French ecologist Élisée Reclus was advocating for propaganda by the deed, although he personally preferred propaganda by the word. Reclus believed that any revolt against oppression was inherently good and that the means were inherently neutral. He considered individual terrorism acceptable if it weakened the state, declaring that "all revolutionary acts are, by their very nature, essentially anarchical, whatever the power which seeks to profit from them". Meanwhile, in the United States, the German anarchist Johann Most became a fervent promoter of propaganda by the deed, which he believed could raise the class consciousness of the American working class. He toured the country giving speeches inciting revolutionary violence against Wall Street and the capitalist ruling class, during which he gained notoriety for claiming that every criminal was an anarchist. Most learned how to make bombs while working at an explosives factory and published a pamphlet detailing how to manufacture various kinds of bombs. He also believed that revolutionary ends justified any means, including assassinations against individual targets, which he considered a valid method to remove oppressive officials. Although Most himself never acted according to his own espoused doctrine, he inspired many revolutionaries to carry out propaganda by the deed. For a time he was considered the most dangerous man in America, a characterisation he delighted in, although he would distance himself from his advocacy of violence after the Haymarket affair.
State repression (including the infamous 1894 French lois scélérates) of the anarchist and labor movements following the few successful bombings and assassinations may have contributed to the abandonment of these kinds of tactics, although reciprocally state repression, in the first place, may have played a role in these isolated acts. The dismemberment of the French socialist movement, into many groups and, following the suppression of the 1871 Paris Commune, the execution and exile of many communards to penal colonies, favored individualist political expression and acts.
Later anarchist authors advocating "propaganda of the deed" included the German anarchist Gustav Landauer, and the Italians Errico Malatesta and Luigi Galleani. For Gustav Landauer, "propaganda of the deed" meant the creation of libertarian social forms and communities that would inspire others to transform society.
The anarchist Luigi Galleani, perhaps the most vocal proponent of "propaganda by the deed" from the turn of the century through the end of the First World War, took undisguised pride in describing himself as a subversive, a revolutionary propagandist and advocate of the violent overthrow of established government and institutions through the use of "direct action," i.e., bombings and assassinations. Galleani heartily embraced physical violence and terrorism, not only against symbols of the government and the capitalist system, such as courthouses and factories, but also through direct assassination of "enemies of the people": capitalists, industrialists, politicians, judges, and policemen. He had a particular interest in the use of bombs, going so far as to include a formula for the explosive nitroglycerine in one of his pamphlets advertised through his monthly magazine, Cronaca Sovversiva. By all accounts, Galleani was an extremely effective speaker and advocate of his policy of violent action, attracting a number of devoted Italian-American anarchist followers who called themselves Galleanisti. Carlo Buda, the brother of Galleanist bombmaker Mario Buda, said of him, "You heard Galleani speak, and you were ready to shoot the first policeman you saw."
Propaganda of the deed thus included stealing (in particular bank robberies – named "expropriations" or "revolutionary expropriations" to finance political activity), rioting and general strikes which aimed at creating the conditions of an insurrection or even a revolution. These acts were justified as the necessary counterpart to state repression.
As early as 1911, Leon Trotsky condemned individual acts of violence by anarchists as useful for little more than providing an excuse for state repression. "The anarchist prophets of the 'propaganda by the deed' can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses," he wrote in 1911, "Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise." Vladimir Lenin largely agreed, viewing individual anarchist acts of terrorism as an ineffective substitute for coordinated action by disciplined cadres of the masses. Both Lenin and Trotsky acknowledged the necessity of violent rebellion and assassination to serve as a catalyst for revolution, but they distinguished between the ad hoc bombings and assassinations carried out by proponents of the propaganda of the deed and organized violence coordinated by a professional revolutionary vanguard utilized for that specific end.
This timeline lists some significant actions that have been described as "Propaganda of the deed" since the 19th century.