What is Communist Anarchism? Ch26!

This is the 28th installment of Alexander Berkman's book, What is Communist Anarchism, it can be found in the Anarchists' Library.

If you haven't been keeping up, feel free to go back to the beginning and start fresh.
These concepts build on, and reinforce, each other.

If you want the tldr, stop advocating the use of force to attain your political goals.
They call that terrorism, eh?

Chapter 26: Preparation

“Prepare for revolution!” exclaims your friend; “is that possible?

Yes.
Not only is it possible but absolutely necessary.

“Do you refer to secret preparations, armed bands, and men to lead the fight?” you ask.

No, my friend, not that at all.

If the social revolution meant only street battles and barricades, then the preparations you have in mind would be the thing.
But revolution does not signify that; at least the fighting phase of it is the smallest and least important part.

The truth is, in modern times revolution does not mean barricades any more.
These belong to the past.
The social revolution is a far different and more essential matter: it involves the reorganization of the entire life of society.
You will agree that this is certainly not to be accomplished by mere fighting.

Of course, the obstacles in the path of the social reconstruction have to be removed.
That is to say the means of that reconstruction must be secured by the masses.
Those means are at present in the hands of government and capitalism, and these will resist every effort to deprive them of their power and possessions.
That resistance will involve a fight.
But remember that the fight is not the main thing, is not the object, not the revolution.
It is only the preface, the preliminary to it.

It is very necessary that you get this straight.
Most people have very confused notions about revolution.
To them it means just fighting, smashing things, destroying.
It is the same as if rolling up your sleeves for work should be considered as the work itself that you have to do.
The fighting part of revolution is merely the rolling up of your sleeves.
The real, actual task is ahead.

What is that task?

“The destruction of the existing conditions,” you reply.

True.
But conditions are not destroyed by breaking and smashing things.
You can’t destroy wage slavery by wrecking the machinery in mills and factories, can you?
You won’t destroy government by setting fire to the White House.

To think of revolution in terms of violence and destruction is to misinterpret and falsify the whole idea of it.
In practical application such a conception is bound to lead to disastrous results.

When a great thinker, like the famous Anarchist Bakunin, speaks of revolution as destruction, he has in mind the ideas of authority and obedience which are to be destroyed.
It is for this reason that he said that destruction means construction, for to destroy a false belief is indeed most constructive work.

But the average man, and too often even the revolutionist, thoughtlessly talks of revolution as being exclusively destructive in the physical sense of the word.
That is a wrong and dangerous view.
The sooner we get rid of it the better.

Revolution, and particularly the social revolution, is not destruction but construction.
This cannot be sufficiently emphasized, and unless we clearly realize it, revolution will remain only destructive and thereby always a failure.
Naturally revolution is accompanied by violence, but you might as well say that building a new house in place of an old one is destructive because you have first to tear down the old one.
Revolution is the culminating point of a certain evolutionary process: it begins with a violent upheaval.
It is the rolling up of your sleeves preparatory to starting the actual work.

Indeed, consider what the social revolution is to do, what it is to accomplish, and you will perceive that it comes not to destroy but to build.

What, really, is there to destroy?

The wealth of the rich?
Nay, that is something we want the whole of society to enjoy.

The land, the fields, the coal mines, the railroads, factories, mills, and shops?
These we want not to destroy but to make useful to the entire people.

The telegraphs, telephones, the means of communication and distribution — do we want to destroy them?
No, we want them to serve the needs of all.

What, then, is the social revolution to destroy?
It is to take over things for the general benefit, not to destroy them.
It is to reorganize conditions for the public welfare.

Not to destroy is the aim of the revolution, but to reconstruct and rebuild.

It is for this that preparation is needed, because the social revolution is not the Biblical Messiah who is to accomplish his mission by simple edict or order.
Revolution works with the hands and brains of men.
And these have to understand the objects of the revolution so as to be able to carry them out.
They will have to know what they want and how to achieve it.
The way to achieve it will be pointed by the objects to be attained.
For the end determines the means, just as you have to sow a particular seed to grow the thing you need.

What, then, must the preparation for the social revolution be?

If your object is to secure liberty, you must learn to do without authority and compulsion.
If you intend to live in peace and harmony with your fellow-men, you and they should cultivate brotherhood and respect for each other.
If you want to work together with them for your mutual benefit, you must practice coöperation.
The social revolution means much more than the reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishment of new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal; it means a different spirit in individual and collective life, and that spirit cannot be born overnight.
It is a spirit to be cultivated, to be nurtured and reared, as the most delicate flower is, for indeed it is the flower of a new and beautiful existence.

Do not dupe yourself with the silly notion that “things will arrange themselves.”
Nothing ever arranges itself, least of all in human relations.
It is men who do the arranging, and they do it according to their attitude and understanding of things.

New situations and changed conditions make us feel, think, and act in a different manner.
But the new conditions themselves come about only as a result of new feelings and ideas.
The social revolution is such a new condition.
We must learn to think differently before the revolution can come.
That alone can bring the revolution.

We must learn to think differently about government and authority, for as long as we think and act as we do to-day, there will be intolerance, persecution, and oppression, even when organized government is abolished.
We must learn to respect the humanity of our fellow-man, not to invade him or coerce him, to consider his liberty as sacred as our own; to respect his freedom and his personality, to foreswear compulsion in any form: to understand that the cure for the evils of liberty is more liberty, that liberty is the mother of order.

And furthermore we must learn that equality means equal opportunity, that monopoly is the denial of it, and that only brotherhood secures equality.
We can learn this only by freeing ourselves from the false ideas of capitalism and of property, of mine and thine, of the narrow conception of ownership.

By learning this we shall grow into the spirit of true liberty and solidarity, and know that free association is the soul of every achievement.
We shall then realize that the social revolution is the work of coöperation, of solidaric purpose, of mutual effort.

Maybe you think this too slow a process, a work that will take too long.
Yes, I must admit that it is a difficult task.
But ask yourself if it is better to build your new house quickly and badly and have it break down over your head, rather than to do it efficiently, even if it requires longer and harder work.

Remember that the social revolution represents the liberty and welfare of the whole of mankind, that the complete and final emancipation of labor depends upon it.
Consider also that if the work is badly done, all the effort and suffering involved in it will be for nothing and perhaps even worse than for nothing, because making a botch job of revolution means putting a new tyranny in place of the old, and new tyrannies, because they are new, have a new lease on life.
It means forging new chains which are stronger than the old.

Consider also that the social revolution we have in mind is to accomplish the work that many generations of men have been laboring to achieve, for the whole history of man has been a struggle of liberty against servitude, of social well-being against poverty and wretchedness, of justice against iniquity.
What we call progress has been a painful but continuous march in the direction of limiting authority and the power of government and increasing the rights and liberties of the individual, of the masses.
It has been a struggle that has taken thousands of years.
The reason that it took such a long time — and is not ended yet — is because people did not know what the real trouble was: they fought against this and for that, they changed kings and formed new governments, they put out one ruler only to set up another, they drove away a “foreign” oppressor only to suffer the yoke of a native one, they abolished one form of tyranny, such as the Tsars, and submitted to that of a party dictatorship, and always and ever they shed their blood and heroically sacrificed their lives in the hope of securing liberty and welfare.

But they secured only new masters, because however desperately and nobly they fought, they never touched the real source of trouble, the principle of authority and government.
They did not know that that was the fountainhead of enslavement and oppression, and therefore they never succeeded in gaining liberty.

But now we understand that true liberty is not a matter of changing kings or rulers.
We know that the whole system of master and slave must go, that the entire social scheme is wrong, that government and compulsion must be abolished, that the very foundations of authority and monopoly must be uprooted.
Do you still think any kind of preparation for such a great task can be too difficult?

Let us, then, fully realize how important it is to prepare for the social revolution, and to prepare for it in the right way.

“But what is the right way?” you demand.
“And who is to prepare?”

Who is to prepare?
First of all, you and I — those who are interested in the success of the revolution, those who want to help bring it about.
And you and I means every man and woman; at least every decent man and woman, every one who hates oppression and loves liberty, every one who cannot endure the misery and injustice which fill the world to-day.

And above all it is those who suffer most from existing conditions, from wage slavery, subjection, and indignity.

“The workers, of course,” you say.

Yes, the workers.
As the worst victims of present institutions, it is to their own interest to abolish them.
It has been truly said that “the emancipation of the workers must be accomplished by the workers themselves,” for no other social class will do it for them.
Yet labor’s emancipation means at the same time the redemption of the whole of society, and that is why some people speak of labor’s “historic mission” to bring about the better day.

But “mission” is the wrong word.
It suggests a duty or task imposed on one from the outside, by some external power.
It is a false and misleading conception, essentially a religious, metaphysical sentiment.
Indeed, if the emancipation of labor is a “historic mission,” then history will see to it that it is carried out no matter what we may think, feel, or do about it.
This attitude makes human effort unnecessary, superfluous; because “what must be will be.”
Such a fatalistic notion is destructive to all initiative and the exercise of one’s mind and will.

It is a dangerous and harmful idea.
There is no power outside of man which can free him, none which can charge him with any “mission.”
Neither heaven nor history can do it.
History is the story of what has happened.
It can teach a lesson but not impose a task.
It is not the “mission” but the interest of the proletariat to emancipate itself from bondage.
If labor does not consciously and actively strive for it, it will never “happen.”
It is necessary to free ourselves from the stupid and false notion of “historic missions.”
It is only by growing to a true realization of their present position, by visualizing their possibilities and powers, by learning unity and coöperation, and practicing them, that the masses can attain freedom.
In achieving that they will also have liberated the rest of mankind.

Because of this the proletarian struggle is the concern of every one, and all sincere men and women should therefore be at the service of labor in its great task.
Indeed, though only the toilers can accomplish the work of emancipation they need the aid of other social groups.
For you must remember that the revolution faces the difficult problem of reorganizing the world and building a new civilization — a work that will require the greatest revolutionary integrity and the intelligent coöperation of all well-meaning and liberty-loving elements.
We already know that the social revolution is not a matter of abolishing capitalism only.
We might turn out capitalism, as feudalism was got rid of, and still remain slaves as before.
Instead of being, as now, the bondmen of private monopoly we might become the servants of State capitalism, as has happened to the people in Russia, for instance, and as conditions are developing in Italy and other lands.

The social revolution, it must never be forgotten, is not to alter one form of subjection for another, but is to do away with everything that can enslave and oppress you.

A political revolution may be carried to a successful issue by a conspirative minority, putting one ruling faction in place of another.
But the social revolution is not a mere political change: it is a fundamental economic, ethical, and cultural transformation.
A conspirative minority or political party undertaking such a work must meet with the active and passive opposition of the great majority and therefore degenerate into a system of dictatorship and terror.

In the face of a hostile majority the social revolution is doomed to failure from its very beginning.
It means, then, that the first preparatory work of the revolution consists in winning over the masses at large in favor of the revolution and its objects, winning them over, at least, to the extent of neutralizing them, of turning them from active enemies to passive sympathizers, so that they may not fight against the revolution even if they do not fight for it.

The actual, positive work of the social revolution must, of course, be carried on by the toilers themselves, by the laboring people.
And here let us bear in mind that it is not only the factory hand who belongs to labor but the farm worker as well.
Some radicals are inclined to lay too much stress on the industrial proletariat, almost ignoring the existence of the agricultural toiler.
Yet what could the factory worker accomplish without the farmer?
Agriculture is the primal source of life, and the city would starve but for the country.
It is idle to compare the industrial worker with the farm laborer or discuss their relative value.
Neither can do without the other; both are equally important in the scheme of life and equally so in the revolution and the building of a new society.

It is true that revolution first breaks out in industrial localities rather than in agricultural.
This is natural, since these are greater centers of laboring population and therefore also of popular dissatisfaction.
But if the industrial proletariat is the advance-guard of revolution, then the farm laborer is its backbone.
If the latter is weak or broken, the advance-guard, the revolution itself, is lost.

Therefore, the work of the social revolution lies in the hands of both the industrial worker and the farm laborer.
Unfortunately it must be admitted that there is too little understanding and almost no friendship or direct coöperation between the two.
Worse than that — and no doubt the result of it-there is a certain dislike and antagonism between the proletarians of field and factory.
The city man has too little appreciation of the hard and exhausting toil of the farmer.
The latter instinctively resents it; moreover, unfamiliar with the strenuous and often dangerous labor of the factory, the farmer is apt to look upon the city worker as an idler.
A closer approach and better understanding between the two is absolutely vital.
Capitalism thrives not so much on division of work as on the division of the workers.
It seeks to incite race against race, the factory hand against the farmer, the laborer against the skilled man, the workers of one country against those of another.
The strength of the exploiting class lies in disunited, divided labor.
But the social revolution requires the unity of the toiling masses, and first of all the coöperation of the factory-proletarian with his brother in the field.

A nearer approach between the two is an important step in preparation for the social revolution.
Actual contact between them is of prime necessity.
Joint councils, exchange of delegates, a system of coöperatives, and other similar methods, would tend to form a closer bond and better understanding between the worker and farmer.

But it is not only the coöperation of the factory proletarian with the farm laborer which is necessary for the revolution.
There is another element absolutely needed in its constructive work.
It is the trained mind of the professional man.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that the world has been built with hands only.
It has also required brains.
Similarly does the revolution need both the man of brawn and the man of brain.
Many people imagine that the manual worker alone can do the entire work of society.
It is a false idea, a very grave error that can bring no end of harm.
In fact, this conception has worked great evil on previous occasions, and there is good reason to fear that it may defeat the best efforts of the revolution.

The working class consists of the industrial wage earners and the agricultural toilers.
But the workers require the services of the professional elements, of the industrial organizer, the electrical and mechanical engineer, the technical specialist, the scientist, inventor, chemist, the educator, doctor, and surgeon.
In short, the proletariat absolutely needs the aid of certain professional elements without whose coöperation no productive labor is possible.

Most of those professional men in reality also belong to the proletariat.
They are the intellectual proletariat, the proletariat of brain.
It is clear that it makes no difference whether one earns his living with his hands or with his head.
As a matter of fact, no work is done only with the hands or only with the brain.
The application of both is required in every kind of effort.
The carpenter, for instance, must estimate, measure, and figure in the course of his task: he must use both hand and brain.
Similarly the architect must think out his plan before it can be drawn on paper and put to practical use.

“But only labor can produce,” your friend objects; “brain work is not productive.”

Wrong, my friend.
Neither manual labor nor brain work can produce anything alone.
It requires both, working together, to create something.
The bricklayer and mason can’t build the factory without the architect’s plans, nor can the architect erect a bridge without the iron and steel worker.
Neither can produce alone.
But both together can accomplish wonders.

Furthermore, do not fall into the error of believing that only productive labor counts.
There is much work that is not directly productive, but which is useful and even absolutely necessary to our existence and comfort, and therefore just as important as productive labor.

Take the railroad engineer and contractor, for instance.
They are not producers, but they are essential factors in the system of production.
Without the railroads and other means of transport and communication we could manage neither production nor distribution.

Production and distribution are the two points of the same life pole.
The labor required for the one is as important as that needed for the other.

What I said above applies to numerous phases of human effort which, though themselves not directly productive, play a vital part in the manifold processes of our economic and social life.
The man of science, the educator, the physician and surgeon are not productive in the industrial sense of the word.
But their work is absolutely necessary to our life and welfare.
Civilized society could not exist without them.

It is therefore evident that useful work is equally important whether it be that of brain or of brawn, manual or mental.
Nor does it matter whether it is a salary or wages which one receives, whether he is paid much or little, or what his political or other opinions might be.

All the elements that can contribute useful work to the general welfare are needed in the revolution for the building of the new life.
No revolution can succeed without their solidaric coöperation, and the sooner we understand this the better.
The reconstruction of society involves the reorganization of industry, the proper functioning of production, the management of distribution, and numerous other social, educational, and cultural efforts to transform present-day wage slavery and servitude into a life of liberty and well-being.
Only by working hand in hand will the proletariat of brain and brawn be able to solve those problems.

It is most regrettable that there exists a spirit of unfriendliness, even of enmity, between the manual and intellectual workers.
That feeling is rooted in lack of understanding, in prejudice and narrow-mindedness on both sides.
It is sad to admit that there is a tendency in certain labor circles, even among some Socialists and Anarchists, to antagonize the workers against the members of the intellectual proletariat.
Such an attitude is stupid and criminal, because it can only work evil to the growth and development of the social revolution.
It was one of the fatal mistakes of the Bolshevik; during the first phases of the Russian Revolution that they deliberately set the wage earners against the professional classes, to such an extent indeed that friendly coöperation became impossible.
A direct result of that policy was the breaking down of industry for lack of intelligent direction, as well as the almost total suspension of railroad communication because that was no trained management.
Seeing Russia facing economic shipwreck, Lenin decided that the factory worker and farmer alone could not carry on the industrial and agricultural life of the country, and that the aid of the professional elements was necessary.
He introduced a new system to induce the technical men to help in the work of reconstruction.
But almost too late came the change, for the years of mutual hating and hounding had created such a gulf between the manual worker and his intellectual brother that common understanding and coöperation were made exceptionally difficult.
It has taken Russia years of heroic effort to undo, to some extent, the effects of that fratricidal war.

Let us learn this valuable lesson from the Russian experiment.

“But professional men belong to the middle classes,” you object, “and they are bourgeois-minded.”

True, men of the professions generally have a bourgeois attitude toward things; but are not most workingmen also bourgeois-minded?
It merely means that both are steeped in authoritarian and capitalistic prejudices.
It is just these that must be eradicated by enlightening and educating the people, be they manual or brain workers.
That is the first step in preparation for the social revolution.

But it is not true that professional men, as such, necessarily belong to the middle classes.

The real interests of the so-called intellectuals are with the workers rather than with the masters.
To be sure, most of them do not realize that.
But no more does the comparatively highly-paid railroad conductor or locomotive engineer feel himself a member of the working class.
By his income and attitude he also belongs to the bourgeoisie.
But it is not income or feeling that determines to what social class a person belongs.
If the street beggar should fancy himself a millionaire, would he thereby be one?
What one imagines himself to be does not alter his actual situation.
And the actual situation is that whoever has to sell his labor is an employee, a salaried dependent, a wage earner, and as such his true interests are those of employees and he belongs to the working class.

As a matter of fact, the intellectual proletarian is even more subject to his capitalistic master than the man with pick and shovel.
The latter can easily change his place of employment.
If he does not care to work for a certain boss he can look for another.
The intellectual proletarian, on the other hand, is much more dependent on his particular job. His sphere of exertion is more limited.
Not skilled in any trade and physically incapable of serving as a day laborer, he is (as a rule) confined to the comparatively narrow field of architecture, engineering, journalism, or similar work.
This puts him more at the mercy of his employer and therefore also inclines him to side with the latter as against his more independent fellow-worker at the bench.

But whatever the attitude of the salaried and dependent intellectual, he belongs to the proletarian class.
Yet it is entirely false to maintain that the intellectuals always side with the masters as against the workers.
“Generally they do,” I hear some radical fanatic interject.
And the workers?
Do they not, generally, support the masters and the system of capitalism?
Could that system continue but for their support?
It would be wrong to argue from that, however, that the workers consciously join hands with their exploiters.
No more is it true of the intellectuals.
If the majority of the latter stand by the ruling class it is because of social ignorance, because they do not understand their own best interests, for all their “intellectuality.”
Just so the great masses of labor, similarly unaware of their true interests, aid the masters against their fellow-workers, sometimes even in the same trade and factory, not to speak of their lack of national and international solidarity.
It merely proves that the one as the other, the manual worker no less than the brain proletarian, needs enlightenment.

In justice to the intellectuals let us not forget that their best representatives have always sided with the oppressed.
They have advocated liberty and emancipation, and often they were the first to voice the deepest aspirations of the toiling masses.
In the struggle for freedom they have frequently fought on the barricades shoulder to shoulder with the workers and died championing their cause.

We need not look far for proof of this.
It is a familiar fact that every progressive, radical, and revolutionary movement within the past hundred years has been inspired, mentally and spiritually, by the efforts of the finest element of the intellectual classes.
The initiators and organizers of the revolutionary movement in Russia, for instance, dating back a century, were intellectuals, men and women of non-proletarian origin and station.
Nor was their love of freedom merely theoretical.
Literally thousands of them consecrated their knowledge and experience, and dedicated their lives, to the service of the masses.
Not a land exists but where such noble men and women have testified to their solidarity with the disinherited by exposing themselves to the wrath and persecution of their own class and joining hands with the downtrodden.
Recent history, as well as the past, is full of such examples.
Who were the Garibaldis, the Kossuths, the Liebknechts, Rosa Luxemburgs, the Landauers, the Lenins, and Trotskys but intellectuals of the middle classes who gave themselves to the proletariat?
The history of every country and of every revolution shines with their unselfish devotion to liberty and labor.

Let us bear these facts in mind and not be blinded by fanatical prejudice and baseless antagonism.
The intellectual has done labor great service in the past.
It will depend on the attitude of the workers toward him as to what share he will be able and willing to contribute to the preparation and realization of the social revolution.