From now onwards I threw myself with enthusiasm into the arms of the most extreme section of the anarchist movement. I gave up the whole of my property to the support of newspapers, to the publication of pamphlets, to the support of agitators, and so on. But, at the same time, I remained in touch with the “upper ten thousand.” I travelled through the principal countries of Europe and America, everywhere forming associations, everywhere developing amid the receptive element of the movement my most radical tendencies—in most cases with good result.
(He now describes in detail his propagandist destructive activity, especially in Spain.)
IX.
Meanwhile, in my home in Eastern Europe the revolutionary tendency was continually gaining force; anarchism also became more influential. I felt that there was the proper field for my further activity.
Henceforward I lived partly in Paris and partly in Genf and Zürich, in order from these places to guide the movement in my direction.
Among my own countrymen I soon found adherents to whom nothing seemed too fantastic, nothing too radical.
Soon we were in possession of a small printing-office, with the aid of which we issued leaflets, pamphlets, and newspapers.
These generally contained the same ideas: the working classes should not bother themselves with political demands, such as “universal suffrage,” “individual liberty,” and the like. For, even if all these were to be gained, social oppression and exploitation would remain unaltered: these are what they feel most deeply, and from these evils all the others result. The working classes should rather aim at the “social revolution,” they should undertake the “expropriation of the expropriators.”
In the newspapers and pamphlets we proved in a scientific manner the justice of all forms of individual expropriation—robbery with violence, theft, extortion, etc.; we conducted an attack on property; we demanded the destruction of wealth, whether in private hands or in the hands of the State, in order that its possession might be more easily gained.
When the war between Japan and Russia broke out, we all felt that the time for increased activity had now arrived—most of us moved to Poland, Lithuania, or Bessarabia. A few only remained in Switzerland, in order to keep a grip upon the organization in these parts.