Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin

“ The so-called economists of whom we speak would hardly deny that the coal burnt in a machine is as necessary to production as the raw material itself. How then can food, without which the human machine could do no work, be excluded from the list of things indispensable to the producer? Such hair-splitting is worthy of the metaphysic of the schoolmen. The rich man's feast is indeed a matter of luxury, but the food of the worker is just as much a part of production as the fuel burnt by the steam engine. ”

“ If all the men and women in the country-side had their daily bread sure and their daily needs already satisfied, who would work for our capitalist, or be willing to manufacture for him, at a wage of half-a-crown a day, commodities selling in the market for a crown or even more?
Unhappily—we know it all too well—the poor quarters of our towns and the neighbouring villages are full of needy wretches, whose children clamour for bread. So, before the factory is well finished, the workers hasten to offer themselves. ”

“ They forget that in this same Paris, the worker, with his wife and children, suffocates in a noisome garret, while from his window he sees the rich man's palace. They forget that whole generations perish in crowded slums, starving for air and sunlight, and that to redress this injustice ought to be the first task of the Revolution. ”

“ Only one who has never seen the people resolve and act on their own initiative can doubt for a moment that if they were masters of the situation they could and would distribute rations to each and all in strictest accordance with justice and equity.
If you were to give utterance, in any gathering of people, to the opinion that delicacies—game and such like—should be reserved for the fastidious palates of aristocratic idlers, and black bread given to the sick in the hospitals, you would be hissed. ”

“ There is only one way in which Communism can be established equitably, only one way which satisfies our instincts of justice, and is at the same time practical, namely, the system already adopted by the agrarian Communes of Europe.
Take, for example, a peasant commune, no matter where, even in France, where the Jacobins have done their best to destroy all communal usage. If the commune possesses woods and copses, for instance, as long as brush-wood is plentiful, every one can take as much as they want, without other let or hindrance than the public opinion of their neighbors. ”

“ After that rent had to be paid, though Paris was in a state of chaos and industry at a standstill, so that the revolutionist had absolutely nothing to depend on but his allowance of fifteen pence a day!
Now the worker must be made to see clearly that in refusing to pay rent to a landlord or owner he is not simply profiting by the disorganisation of authority. He must understand that the abolition of rent is a recognised principle, sanctioned, so to speak, by popular assent; that to be housed rent-free is a right proclaimed aloud by the people. ”

“ Is it necessary to go into details, to prepare tables, showing how the distribution of rations will work, to prove that it is just and equitable, infinitely more just and equitable than the existing state of things? All these tables and details will not serve to convince those of the middle classes, nor, alas, those of the workers tainted with middle-class prejudices, who regard the people as a mob of savages ready to fall upon and devour each other directly the government ceases to direct affairs. ”

“ The idea of the people will be to provide bread for all. And while middle-class citizens and workmen infested with middle-class ideas admire their own rhetoric in the "Talking Shops," and "practical people" are engaged in endless discussions on forms of government, we, the "Utopian dreamers"—we must consider the question of daily bread.
We have the temerity to declare that all have a right to bread, that there is bread enough for all, and that with this watchword of Bread far All the Revolution will triumph. ”

“ It is just to wash the earth clean, to sweep away the shards and refuse accumulated by centuries of slavery and oppression, that the new Anarchist society will have need of this wave of brotherly love. ”

“ Nor do we want to divide up the wealth of the Rothschilds. What we do want is so to arrange things that every human being born into the world shall be ensured the opportunity in the first instance of learning some useful occupation, and of becoming skilled in it; next, that he shall be free to work at his trade without asking leave of master or owner, and without handing over to landlord or capitalist the lion's share of what he produces. As to the wealth held by the Rothschilds or the Vanderbilts, it will serve us to organise our system of communal production. ”

“ All that is needed is that the public mind should be thoroughly convinced of the necessity of this transformation, and should come to look upon it as an act of justice and of progress, and that it should no longer allow itself to be cheated by that dream so dear to the theorists—the dream of a revolution confining itself to taking possession of the profits of industry, and leaving production and commerce just as they are now. ”

“ But as long as the fertile valley is empty of folk our baron is not rich, His land brings him in nothing, he might as well possess a property in the moon. Now what does our baron do to enrich himself? He looks out for peasants!
But if every peasant-farmer had a piece of land, free from rent and taxes, if he had in addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm labor, who would plough the lands of the baron? Each would look after his own. But there are whole tribes of destitute persons ruined by wars, or drought, or pestilence. They have neither horse nor plough. ”

“ True, during the Revolution he cannot find bailiffs and police-sergeants to throw your rags and chattels into the street, but who knows what the new government will do to-morrow? Who can say that it will not call in the aid of force again, and set the police pack upon you to hound you out of your hovels? ”

“ But everything confirms us in the belief that the energy of the people will carry them far enough, and that, when the Revolution takes place, the idea of Anarchist Communism will have gained ground. It is not an artificial idea. The people themselves have breathed it in our ear, and the number of Communists is ever increasing as the impossibility of any other solution becomes more and more evident. ”

“ Society itself will be forced to take production in hand, in its entirety, and to reorganise it to meet the needs of the whole people. But this cannot be accomplished in a day or a month; it must take a certain time thus to reorganise the system of production, and during this time millions of men will be deprived of the means of subsistance—what then is to be done? ”

“ As it will be a question of maintaining iniquity at any price, our opponents will of course protest "in the name of justice." "Is it not a crying shame," they will exclaim, "that the people of Paris should take possession of all these fine houses, while the peasants in the country have only tumble-down huts to live in?" But do not let us make a mistake. These enthusiasts for justice forget, by a lapse of memory to which they are subject, the "crying shame" which they themselves are tacitly defending. ”

“ All the same, we maintain our contention: bread must be found for the people during the Revolution, and the question of bread must take precedence of all other questions. If it is settled in the interests of the people, the Revolution will be on the right road; for in solving the question of Bread we must accept the principle of equality, which will force itself upon us to the exclusion of every other solution. ”

“ An Anarchist society need not fear the advent of an unknown Rothschild who would seek to settle in its midst. If every member of the community knows that after a few hours of productive toil he will have a right to all the pleasures that civilisation procures, and to those deeper sources of enjoyment which art and science offer to all who seek them, he will not sell his strength for a starvation wage. ”

“ The day when the laborer may till the ground without paying away half of what he produces, the day when the machines necessary to prepare the soil for rich harvests are at the free disposal off the cultivators, the day when the worker in the factory produces for the community and not for the monopolist—that day will see the workers clothed and fed; and there will be no more Rothschilds or other exploiters. ”

“ If agriculture could free itself from great landowners, while industry still remained the bond slave of the capitalist, the merchant and the banker, nothing would be accomplished. The farmer suffers to-day not only in having to pay rent to the landlord, he is oppressed on all hands by existing conditions. ”

“ And are we to believe that the inhabitants of a great European city would be less intelligent and less capable of organisation than Russian or Hindoo peasants?
Moreover, we must not blink the fact that every Revolution means a certain disturbance to every-day life, and those who expect this tremendous lift out of the old grooves to be accomplished without so much as jarring the dishes on their dinner tables will find themselves mistaken. ”

“ So Utopian are we in fact, that we go the length of believing that the Revolution can and ought to assure shelter, food and clothes to all—an idea extremely displeasing to middle-class citizens, whatever their party colour, for they are quite alive to the fact that it is not easy to keep the upper hand of a people whose hunger is satisfied. ”

“ Or, finally, suppose you oust the land-owners, and hand over the mills and factories to the worker, without interfering with the swarm of middlemen who drain off the produce of our manufacturers and speculate in corn and flour, meat and groceries in our great centres of commerce. Well, when exchange is arrested and products cease to circulate, when London is without bread, and Yorkshire finds no buyers for her cloth, a terrible counter-revolution will take place—a counter-revolution trampling upon heaps of slain, sweeping the towns and villages with shot and shell ”

“ It is they who reserve to themselves the right of employing the surplus of production—in the interests of all. Moreover, Collectivism draws a very subtle but very far-reaching distinction between the work of the laborer and of the man who has learned a craft. Unskilled labor in the eyes of the Collectivist is simple labor, while the work of the craftsman, the mechanic, the engineer, the man of science etc. is what Marx calls complex labor, and is entitled to a higher wage. ”

“ Until labor is reorganised, as long as the disturbed period lasts, and while it is impossible to distinguish between inveterate idlers and genuine workers thrown out of work, the available food ought to be shared by all without exception. Those who have been enemies to the new order will hasten of their own accord to rid the commune of their presence. But it seems to us that the people, who have always proved themselves magnanimous, and have nothing of vindictiveness in their composition, will be ready to share their bread with all who remain with them, conquered and conquerors alike. ”

“ There are millions of unemployed workers in Europe at this moment. It will be still worse when Revolution has burst upon us and spread like fire laid to a train of gunpowder. The number of the out-of-works will be doubled as soon as the barricades a-re erected in Europe and the United States. What is to be done to provide these multitudes with bread? ”

“ On the one hand the slave of the soil will take advantage of the Revolution to straighten his bowed back. Instead of working fourteen or fifteen hours a day, as he does at present, he will be at liberty to work only half that time, which of course would have the effect of decreasing the production of the principal articles of consumption, grain and meat.
But, on the other hand, there will be an increase of production as soon as the peasant realises that he is no longer forced to support the idle rich by his toil. New tracts of land will be cleared, new and improved machines set agoing. ”

“ But if the people themselves, organised by streets, districts and parishes, undertake to move the inhabitants of the slums into the half-empty dwellings of the middle classes, the trifling inconveniences, the little inequalities will be easily tided over. Barely has appeal been made to the good instincts of the masses—only as a last resort, to save the sinking ship in times of revolution—but, never has such an appeal been made in vain ”

“ Not being able to offer to each man a sable-lined coat, and to every woman a velvet gown, society would probably distinguish between the superflous and the necessary, and, provisonally at least, class sable and velvet among the superfluities of life, ready to let time prove whether what is a luxury to-day may not become common to all to-morrow. ”

“ Since all our middle-class civilisation is based on the exploitation of inferior races and countries with less advanced industrial systems, the Revolution will confer a boon at the very outset, by menacing that "civilisation," and allowing so-called inferior races to free themselves. ”