Errico Malatesta Archive
Written: 1922
Source: Published online by LibCom.org
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
CESARE: Let's resume our usual conversation.
Apparently, the thing that most immediately interests you is the insurrection; and I admit that, however difficult it seems, it could be staged and won, sooner or later. In essence governments rely on soldiers; and the conscripted soldiers, who are forced reluctantly into the army barracks, are an unreliable weapon. Faced with a general uprising of the people, the soldiers who are themselves of the people, won't hold on for long; and as soon as the charm and the fear of discipline is broken, they will either disband or join the people.
I admit therefore that by spreading a lot of propaganda among the workers and the soldiers, or among the youth who tomorrow will be soldiers, you put yourselves in a position to take advantage of a favorable situation - economic crises, unsuccessful war, general strike, famine etc. etc. - to bring down the government.
But then?
You will tell me: the people themselves will decide, organize, etc. But these are words. What will probably take place is that after a shorter or longer period of disorder, of dissipation and probably of massacres, a new government will take the place of the other, will reestablish order... and everything will continue as before.
To what purpose then was such a waste of energy?
GIORGIO: If it should occur as you suggest, it does not mean that the insurrection would have been useless. After a revolution things do not return to as they were before because the people have enjoyed a period of liberty and have tested their own strength, and it is not easy to make them accept once again the previous conditions. The new government, if government there has to be, will feel that it cannot remain safely in power unless it gives some satisfaction, and normally it tries to justify its rise to power by giving itself the title of interpreter and successor of the revolution.
Naturally the real task the government will set itself will be to prevent the revolution going any further and to restrict and to alter, with the aim of domination, the gains of the revolution; but it could not return things to how they were before.
This is what has happened in all past revolutions.
However we have reason to hope that in the next revolution we will do a lot better.
CESARE: Why?
GIORGIO: Because in past revolutions all the revolutionaries, all the initiators and principal actors of the revolution wanted to transform society by means of laws and wanted a government that would make and impose those laws. It was inevitable therefore that it would produce a new government - and it was natural that a new government thought first of all of governing, that is of consolidating its power and, in order to do this, of forming around itself a party and a privileged class with a common interest in it remaining permanently in power.
But now a new factor has appeared in history, which is represented by anarchists. Now there are revolutionaries who want to make a revolution with distinctly anti-government aims, therefore the establishment of a new government would face an obstacle that has never been found in the past.
Furthermore, past revolutionaries, wanting to make the social transformation they desired by means of laws, addressed the masses solely for the basic cooperation they could provide, and did not bother to give them a consciousness of what could be wished for and of the way in which they could fulfill their aspirations. So, naturally, the people, liable to self-destruction, themselves asked for a government, when there was a need to reorganize everyday social life.
On the other hand, with our propaganda and with workers' organizations we aim to form a conscious minority that knows what it wants to do, and which, intermingled with the masses, could provide for the immediate necessities and take those initiatives, which on other occasions were waited for from the government.
CESARE: Very well; but since you will only be a minority, and probably in many parts of the country you will not have any influence, a government will be established just the same and you will have to endure it.
GIORGIO: It is more than likely that a government will succeed in establishing itself; but whether we'll have to put up with it… that we will see.
Note this well. In past revolutions there was a primary concern to create a new government and the orders were awaited from this government. And in the meantime things remained substantially the same, or rather the economic conditions of the masses deteriorated because of the interruption of industry and commerce. Therefore people quickly became tired of it all; there was a hurry to get it over and done with and hostility from the public towards those who wanted to prolong the state of insurrection for too long. And so whoever demonstrated a capacity to restore order, whether it be a soldier of fortune, or a shrewd and daring politician, or possibly the some sovereign who had been thrown out, would be welcomed with popular applause as a peacemaker and a liberator.
We on the contrary understand revolution very differently. We want the social transformation at which the revolution aims to begin to be realized from the first insurrectional act. We want the people immediately to take possession of existing wealth; declare gentlemen's mansions public domain, and provide through voluntary and active initiatives minimal housing for all the population, and at once put in hand through the work of the constructor's association, the construction of as many new houses as is considered necessary. We want to make all the available food products community property and organize, always through voluntary operations and under the true control of the public, an equal distribution for all. We want the agricultural workers to take possession of uncultivated land and that of the landowners and by so doing convince the latter that now the land belongs to the laborers. We want workers to remove themselves from the direction of the owners and continue production on their own account and for the public. We would like to establish at once exchange relationships among the diverse productive associations and the different communes; - and at the same time we want to burn, to destroy, all the titles and all material signs of individual property and state domination. In short, we want from the first moment to make the masses feel the benefits of the revolution and so disturb things that it will be impossible to reestablish the ancient order.
CESARE: And do you think that all of this is easy to carry out?
GIORGIO: No, I'm well aware of all the difficulties that we will be confronting; I clearly foresee that our program cannot be applied everywhere at once, and that where applied it will give rise to a thousand disagreements and a thousand errors. But the single fact that there are people who want to apply it and will try and to apply it wherever possible, is already a guarantee that at this point the revolution can no longer be a simple political transformation and must put in train a profound change in the whole of social life.
Moreover, the bourgeoisie did something similar in the great French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, although to a smaller degree, and the ancien régime could not reestablish itself notwithstanding the Empire and the Restoration.
CESARE: But if, despite all your good or bad intentions, a government establishes itself, all your projects will go up in the air, and you would have to submit to the law like everybody else.
GIORGIO: And why is that?
That a government or governments will establish itself is certainly very probable. There are a lot of people that like to command and a lot more that are disposed to obey!
But it is very difficult to see how this government could impose itself, make itself accepted and become a regular government, if there are enough revolutionaries in the country, and they have learned enough to involve the masses in preventing a new government finding a way to become strong and stable.
A government needs soldiers, and we will do everything possible to deny them soldiers; a government needs money and we will do all we can to ensure that no one pays taxes and no one gives it credit.
There are some municipalities and perhaps some regions in Italy where revolutionaries are fairly numerous and the workers quite prepared to proclaim themselves autonomous and look after their own affairs, refusing to recognize the government and to receive its agents or to send representatives to it.
These regions, these municipalities will be centers of revolutionary influence, against which any government will be impotent, if we act quickly and do not give it time to arm and consolidate itself.
CESARE: But this is civil war!
GIORGIO: It may very well be. We are for peace, we yearn for peace… but we will not sacrifice the revolution to our desire for peace. We will not sacrifice it because only by this route can we reach a true and permanent peace.