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.
FOOTNOTES:
[431] Kr. "Paroles" p. 99.
[432] Ib. p. 104.