The change that is promptly to be expected in the course of mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible,—the disappearance of the State, the transformation of law and property, and the appearance of the new condition,—will be accomplished, according to Kropotkin, by a social revolution; that is, by a violent subversion of the old order, which will come to pass of itself, but for which it is the function of those who foresee the course of evolution to prepare men's minds.

I. We know that we shall not reach the future condition "without intense perturbations."[600] "That justice may be victorious, and the new thoughts become reality, there is need of a frightful storm to sweep away all this rottenness, to vivify torpid souls with its breath, and to restore self-sacrifice, self-denial, and heroism to our senile, decrepit, crumbling society."[601] There is need of "social revolution: that is, the people's taking possession of society's total stock of goods, and the abolition of all authorities."[602] "The social revolution is at the door,"[603] "it stands before us at the end of this century,"[604] "it will be here in a few years."[605] It is "the task which history sets for us,"[606] but "whether we will or not, it will be accomplished independently of our will."[607]

1. "The social revolution will be no uprising of a few days: we shall have to go through a period of three, four, or five years of revolution, till the transformation of the social and economic situation is completed."[608] "During this time what we have sown to-day will be coming up and bearing fruit; and he who now is yet indifferent will become a convinced adherent of the new doctrine."[609] Nor will the social revolution be limited to a narrow area. "We must not assume, to be sure, that it will break out in all Europe at once."[610] "Germany is nearer the revolution than people think";[611] "but whether it start from France, Germany, Spain, or Russia, it will anyhow be a European revolution in the end. It will spread as rapidly as that of our predecessors the heroes of 1848, and set Europe afire."[612]

2. The first act of the social revolution will be a work of destruction.[613] "The impulse to destruction, which is so natural and justifiable because it is at the same time an impulse to renovation, will find its full satisfaction. How much old trash there is to clear away! Does not everything have to be transformed, the houses, the cities, the businesses of manufacturing and farming,—in short, all the arrangements of society?"[614] "Everything that it is necessary to abolish should be destroyed without delay: the penitentiaries and prisons, the forts that threaten cities, the slums whose disease-laden air people have breathed so long."[615]

Yet the social revolution will not be a reign of terror. "Naturally the fight will demand victims. One can understand how it was that the people of Paris, before they hurried to the frontiers, killed the aristocrats in the prisons, who had planned with the enemy for the annihilation of the revolution. He who would blame the people for this should be asked, 'Have you suffered with them and like them? if not, blush and be still.'"[616] But yet the people will never, like the kings and czars, exalt terror into a system. "They have sympathy for the victims; they are too good-hearted not to feel a speedy repugnance at cruelty. The public prosecutor, the corpse-cart, the guillotine, speedily become repulsive. After a little while it is recognized that such a reign of terror is merely preparing the way for a dictatorship, and the guillotine is abolished."[617]

The government will be overthrown first. "There is no need of fearing its strength. Governments only seem terrible; the first collision with the insurgent people lays them prostrate; many have collapsed in a few hours before now."[618] "The people rise, and the State machine is already at a standstill; the officials are in confusion and know not what to do; the army has lost confidence in its leaders."[619]

But it cannot stop with this. "On the day when the people has swept away the governments, it will also, without waiting for any directions from above, abolish private property by forcible expropriation."[620] "The peasants will drive out the great landlords and declare their estates common property; they will annul the mortgages and proclaim general release from debt";[621] and in the cities "the people will seize on the entire wealth accumulated there, turn out the factory-owners, and undertake the management themselves."[622] "The expropriation will be general; nothing but an expropriation of the broadest kind can initiate the re-shaping of society—expropriation on a small scale would appear like ordinary plunder."[623] It will extend not only to the materials of production, but also to those of consumption: "the first thing that the people do after the overthrow of the governments will be to provide itself with sanitary dwellings and with sufficient food and clothing."[624]—Yet expropriation will "have its limits."[625] "Suppose by pinching, a poor devil has got himself a house that will hold him and his family. Will he be thrown on the street? Certainly not! If the house is just big enough for him and his family, he shall keep it, and he shall also continue to work the garden under his window. Our young men will even lend him a hand in case of need. But, if he has rented a room to somebody else, the people will say to this one, 'You know, friend, don't you, that you no longer owe the old fellow anything? Keep your room gratis; you need no longer fear the officer of the court, we have the new society!"[626] "Expropriation will extend just to that which makes it possible for any one to exploit another's labor."[627]

3. "The work of destruction will be followed by a work of re-shaping."[628]

Most people conceive of revolution as with "a 'revolutionary government'"[629]—this in two ways. Some understand by this an elective government. "It is proposed to summon the people to elections, to elect a government as quickly as possible, and entrust to it the work which each of us ought to be doing of his own accord."[630] "But any government which an insurgent people attains by elections must necessarily be a leaden weight on its feet, especially in so immense an economic, political, and moral reorganization as the social revolution."[631] This is perceived by others; "therefore they give up the thought of a 'legal' government, at least for the time of insurrection against all laws, and preach the 'revolutionary dictatorship.' 'The party which has overthrown the government,' say they, 'will forcibly put itself in the government's place. It will seize the authority and adopt a revolutionary procedure. For every one who does not recognize it—the guillotine; for every one who refuses obedience to it—the guillotine likewise.' So talk the little Robespierres. But we Anarchists know that this thought is nothing but an unwholesome fruit of government fetishism, and that any dictatorship, even the best disposed, is the death of the revolution."[632]

"We will do what is needful ourselves, without waiting for the orders of a government."[633] "If the dissolution of the State is once started, if once the oppression-machine begins to give out, free associations will be formed quite automatically. Just remember the voluntary combinations of the armed bourgeoisie during the great Revolution. Remember the societies which were voluntarily formed in Spain, and which defended the independence of the country, when the State was shaken to its foundations by Napoleon's armies. As soon as the State no longer compels any co-operation, natural wants bring about a voluntary co-operation quite automatically. If the State be but overthrown, free society will rise up at once on its ruins."[634]

"The reorganization of production will not be possible in a few days,"[635] especially as the revolution will presumably not break out in all Europe at a time.[636] The people will consequently have to take temporary measures to assure themselves, first of all, of food, clothing, and shelter. First the populace of the insurgent cities will take possession of the dealers' stocks of food, and of the grain warehouses and the slaughter-houses. Volunteers make an inventory of the provisions found, and distribute printed tabular statements by the million. Henceforth free taking of all that is present in abundance; rations of what has to be measured out, with preference to the sick and the weak; a supply for deficiencies by importation from the country (which will come in plenty if we produce things that the farmer needs and put them at his disposal) and also by the inhabitants of the city entering upon the cultivation of the royal parks and meadows in the vicinity.[637] The people will take possession of the dwelling-houses in like manner. Again volunteers make lists of the available dwellings and distribute them. People come together by streets, quarters, districts, and agree about the allotment of the dwellings. But the evils that will at first still have to be borne are soon to be done away: the artisans of the building trades need only work a few hours a day, and soon the over-spacious dwellings that were on hand will be sensibly altered, and model houses, entirely new, will be built.[638] The same procedure will be followed with regard to clothing. The people take possession of the great clothiers' establishments, and volunteers list the stocks. People take freely what is on hand in abundance, in rations what is limited in quantity. What is lacking is supplied in the shortest of time by the factories with their perfected machines.[639]

II. "To prepare men's minds"[640] for the approaching revolution is the task of those who foresee the course of evolution. This is especially "the task of the secret societies and revolutionary organizations."[641] It is the task of "the Anarchist party."[642] The Anarchists "are to-day as yet a minority, but their number is daily growing, will grow more and more, and will on the eve of the revolution become a majority."[643] "What a dismal sight France presented a few years before the great Revolution, and how weak was the minority of those who thought of the abolition of royalty and feudalism; but what a change three or four years later! the minority had begun the revolution and had carried the masses with it."[644]—But how are men's minds to be prepared for the revolution?

1. First and foremost, the aim of the revolution is to be made generally known. "It is to be proclaimed by word and deed till it is thoroughly popularized, so that on the day of the rising it is in everybody's mouth. This task is greater and more serious than is generally assumed; for, if some few do have the aim clearly before their eyes, it is quite otherwise with the masses, constantly worked upon as they are by the bourgeois press."[645]

But this does not suffice. "The spirit of insurrection must be aroused; the sense of independence and the wild boldness without which no revolution comes about must awake."[646] "Between the peaceable discussion of evils and tumult, insurrection, lies a chasm—the same chasm that in the greater part of mankind separates reflection from act, thought from will."[647]

2. The way to obtain these two results is "action—constant, incessant action by minorities. Courage, devotion, self-sacrifice are as contagious as cowardice, servility, and apprehension."[648]

"What forms is the propaganda to take? Every form that is prescribed by the situation, by opportunity, and propensity. It may be now serious, now jocular; but it must always be bold. It must never leave a means unused, never leave a fact of public life unobserved, to keep minds alert, to give aliment and expression to discontent, to stir hate against exploiters, to make the government ridiculous, and to demonstrate its impotence. But above all, to arouse boldness and the spirit of insurrection, it must continually preach by example."[649]

"Men of courage, willing not only to speak but to act; pure characters who prefer prison, exile, and death to a life that contradicts their principles; bold natures who know that in order to win one must dare,—these are the advance-guard who open the fight long before the masses are ripe to lift the banner of insurrection openly and to seek their rights arms in hand. In the midst of the complaining, talking, discussing, comes a mutinous deed by one or more persons, which incarnates the longings of all."[650]

"Perhaps at first the masses remain indifferent and believe the wise ones who regard the act as 'crazy', but soon they are privately applauding the crazy and imitating them. While the first of them are filling the penitentiaries, others are already continuing their work. The declarations of war against present-day society, the mutinous deeds, the acts of revenge, multiply. General attention is aroused; the new thought makes its way into men's heads and wins their hearts. A single deed makes more propaganda in a few days than a thousand pamphlets. The government defends itself, it rages pitilessly; but by this it only causes further deeds to be committed by one or more persons, and drives the insurgents to heroism. One deed brings forth another; opponents join the mutiny; the government splits into factions; harshness intensifies the conflict; concessions come too late; the revolution breaks out."[651]

3. To make still clearer the means by which the aim of the revolution is to be made generally known and the spirit of insurrection is to be aroused, Kropotkin tells some of the history of what preceded the Revolution of 1789.

He tells how at that time thousands of lampoons acquainted the people with the vices of the court, and how a multitude of satirical songs flagellated crowned heads and stirred hatred against the nobility and clergy. He sets before us how in placards the king, the queen, the farmers-general, were threatened, reviled, and jeered at; how enemies of the people were hanged or burned or quartered in effigy. He describes to us the way in which the insurrectionists got the people used to the streets and taught them to defy the police, the military, the cavalry. We learn how in the villages secret organizations, the jacques, set fire to the barns of the lord of the manor, destroyed his crops or his game, murdered him himself, threatened the collection or payment of rent with death. He sets forth to us how then, one day, the storehouses were broken into, the trains of wagons were stopped on the highway, the toll-gates were burned and the officials killed, the tax-lists and the account-books and the city archives went up in flames, and the revolution broke out on all sides.[652]

"What conclusions are to be drawn from this"[653] Kropotkin does not think it necessary to explain. He contents himself with characterizing as "a precious instruction for us"[654] the facts which he reports.