“And what then?” ask many of our opponents, after we have shown the evil effects of the vicious social organization which governs us, and made them understand that no reform is possible under the present regime; that by the very nature of existing institutions the best of them are bound to react against their original purpose and become a further aggravation to the miseries of the exploited; that those which might indeed effect a change in the lot of the worker cannot do so save on condition of attacking the aforesaid institutions; and that since such are rejected by the governing classes, it would require a revolution to realize them. Now, it is this revolution which frightens most people; the general overtoppling of things it would occasion makes them recoil before the remedy even after recognizing the evil. “Yes,” say they, “perhaps you are right; it is true society is badly constituted; some change must take place. The Revolution!⁠—Maybe⁠—I cannot say⁠—but afterwards, what then?”⁠—Afterwards, we reply, there will be full liberty for individuals, the possibility for all to satisfy their physical, moral, and intellectual needs. Authority and property being abolished, society being no longer based, as now, upon the antagonism of interests, but, on the contrary, upon the strictest solidarity, people, being sure of the morrow and no longer having to hoard up provision against the future, will cease to regard each other as enemies ready to devour each other for the sake of getting a mouthful of bread or taking another’s job in some exploiter’s sweatshop. The causes of struggle and animosity being destroyed, social harmony will reestablish itself. Some competition between the divers groups may indeed arise, some emulation in attaining what is best, the ideal aim which will always expand in proportion as people find it easier to satisfy their aspirations; but this competition must be but brief, since neither mercantile, proprietary, nor governmental interest will stand in the way, and those competitors who are behindhand will have every facility for assimilating the progress made by their happier competitors.

What creates poverty today is the congestion of products, which choking up the warehouses occasions enforced idleness and hunger among those who cannot find work until the said products have been distributed. This alone shows the abnormal state of our present society. In that society for which we are striving, the more abundant the products the more easily will harmony among people be established, since they will no longer be under the necessity of measuring the means of existence. The quicker the production, the faster the perfection of mechanical appliances proceeded, the more rapidly would the amount of productive labor incumbent upon each be reduced, the sooner would it become what it really ought to be, a mere gymnastic exercise requisite for the health of the muscles. In a normally constituted society, labor would lose the character of toil and suffering which it has acquired through its intensity, in these our days of exploitation. It would no longer be anything more than a diversion in the midst of all the other employments in which people would engage merely for their own pleasure just as they do in their studies, as expressions of the needs of their temperaments, undertaken under penalty of otherwise being gradually transformed into mere digestive sacks, which the bourgeoisie would soon become if their sway could be firmly secured; which a certain species of ant has already become, it being incapable of feeding itself, and starving to death when there are no slaves about to give it food.20 “Yes,” say our opponents again, “what you want is very good; it is certainly the highest ideal which humanity could attain; but there is no way at all of telling that it would get along so nicely as you imagine⁠—that the strong would not want to impose their will upon the weak, or that there would not be lazy ones seeking to live at the expense of those who work. If no bounds be set to restrain the masses, who shall say whether instead of being a step in advance this revolution will not be a retrogression? If you should be conquered, would it not retard the movement for twenty, thirty, fifty years, and perhaps more? If you conquer, will you be able to prevent private revenge? Who knows whether you may not be ‘snowed under’ by the masses? From one end to the other there will be an unloosing of bestial passions⁠—violence, savagery, and all the horrors of mankind returning to animality.”

To this we reply that with the economic crisis constantly accentuating, involuntary idleness becoming more and more frequent, the difficulties of getting a living more and more pronounced every day, and political entanglements more aggravated, keeping relative pace with the increase of folly on the part of those who hold “the reins of government,” we are marching steadily towards this revolution, which will be brought about by the force of circumstances, which nothing can prevent, and concerning which, therefore, there is but one thing to do, viz., to be ready to take part in it in order to turn it to the profit of the principles we champion. But this fear of the unknown is so strong, so tenacious, that after having admitted the logic of all our objections and agreed to the truth of all our deductions, our opponent begins again: “Yes, that is all true; but would it not be better to act prudently? Progress advances by slow degrees; brutal action should be avoided; we might perhaps succeed at last in getting the bourgeoisie to make concessions!”

Assuredly if we had to deal only with insincere people that contradict for pure love of contradiction, because they are determined not to be convinced, the proper thing to do would be to quit the discussion, turn our backs, and give them Cambronne’s answer.21 Unfortunately the most sincere people in the world, affected by their surroundings, education, and habituation to authority, likewise believe that everything is lost when they see it disappear from their horizon; and having no further answer to make, regularly come back, without perceiving it, to their first argument, unable to imagine a society without laws, judges, or policemen, wherein people should live side by side, mutually aiding each other instead of leaping at each other’s throats. What can we say to them? They want proofs that society will go on as we foresee. We may draw conclusions from the logic of events, form a comparison of them through the arguments we may gather from the analysis thereof. But palpable proofs! Experiment alone can give them to us, and these experiments can only be made by commencing with the overthrow of existing society!

But one thing is left for us to say to them: We have shown you that the present society begets poverty, creates famine, entails the ignorance of an entire class⁠—the most numerous at that⁠—prevents the development of new generations by bequeathing to them a heritage of prejudices and lies which it preserves alive. We have shown you that its organization tends to ensure the exploitation of the mass for the benefit of a privileged minority. We have shown you that its evil functioning, together with the development of new aspirations in the breasts of the workers, is leading us to a revolution. What more do you want us to say?⁠—If we have got to fight, let it at least be for the realization of what seems just and best to us!

Shall we be conquerors or conquered? Who can foresee? If we waited to be sure of the victory before demanding our rights, we might wait centuries for our emancipation. Moreover we do not dictate circumstances; much oftener they sweep us along; the most we can do is to foresee them that we may not be submerged in the flood. Once in the melee the duty of the Anarchists will be to exert all the energy of which they are capable towards carrying the masses along with them.⁠—That there may be acts of private vengeance in the coming revolution, massacres, deeds of savagery, is very likely. Not only can nobody prevent it, but nobody ought to prevent it. If the propagandists are outdone by the crowd, so much the better. Let them shoot everybody who would turn the revolution into sentimentality! For if they suffered reactionary measures in order to save a few victims, they might also permit such as would stem the revolutionary outburst for the purpose of preventing an attack upon those institutions which must disappear, causing it to spare what ought to be destroyed. The struggle once begun sentimentality will be out of place; the masses should ignore all phrase-makers, and pitilessly crush everything which would stand in the way. All that we can do is to declare, from now on, that the doing away with individuals can be of but small moment to the workers; that it is institutions they must attack; that it is these that must be sapped, overthrown, destroyed, and no vestige of them allowed to remain, thus preventing any reconstruction of them under other names. Capitalistic society is strong only by virtue of its institutions and because it has succeeded in making the workers believe that they are interested in the preservation of these institutions; because it has succeeded partly through their own will, partly by force, in making them its defenders. Reduced to their own unaided strength the capitalistic class could not resist the revolution; and how many of them would have the slightest will to do so? Individuals, therefore, are not dangerous, taken individually. But if, on the day of the revolution, there be some who are obstacles, let them be swept away by the tempest! If private revenge be indulged in, so much the worse for those who have served to resurrect such vengeance! Their evil deeds must have been many for hatred of their personality to be unappeased by the destruction of their caste and the abolition of their privileges; so much the worse for those who stay behind to defend them! The masses never go too far; it is only the leaders who think so, because they shrink from moral or practical responsibility. No silly sentimentalism, even though the fury of the masses should miscarry and break upon more or less innocent heads! To silence our pity we have only to recall the thousands of victims which the present social Minotaur devours daily for the sake of the all-powerful belly of the bourgeoisie. And if some of these people get strung up to lampposts, knocked on the head at some street-corner, or drowned in the river, they will only reap the harvest that their class has sown. So much the worse for them! Whoever is not with the people is against them.

For us workers the situation is clear: On one side we have the existing society with its cortege of poverty, uncertainty for the morrow, privations and sufferings without hope of allayment⁠—a society in which we are stifled, in which our brains sicken for want of light, in which we must crush down deep into the obscurity of our being all our sentiments of beauty, goodness, justice, and love;⁠—on the other side, the future!⁠—An ideal of liberty, happiness, intellectual and physical satisfaction, the complete unfolding of our individuality! Our choice is made. Whatever the future revolution may bring forth, whatever happens to us, it cannot be for us worse than our present condition. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by a change. Society fetters us; well, let us overthrow it. So much the worse for those who get crushed in the fall; it will be because they tried to shelter themselves under its walls, or to cling to its rotten supports. They should have been on the side of the abolitionists.