1. "A system of Anarchy in actual operation implies a previous education of the people in the principles of Anarchy."[819] "The individual must be penetrated with the Anarchistic idea and taught to rebel."[820] "Persistent inculcation of the doctrine of equality of liberty, whereby finally the majority will be made to see in regard to existing forms of invasion what they have already been made to see in regard to its obsolete forms,—namely, that they are not seeking equality of liberty at all, but simply the subjection of all others to themselves."[821] "The Irish Land League failed because the peasants were acting, not intelligently in obedience to their wisdom, but blindly in obedience to leaders who betrayed them at the critical moment. Had the people realized the power they were exercising and understood the economic situation, they would not have resumed the payment of rent at Parnell's bidding, and to-day they might have been free. The Anarchists do not propose to repeat their mistake. That is why they are devoting themselves entirely to the inculcation of principles, especially of economic principles. In steadfastly pursuing this course regardless of clamor, they alone are laying a sure foundation for the success of the revolution."[822]
2. In particular, according to Tucker, appropriate means for the inculcation of the Anarchistic idea are "speech and the press."[823]—But what if the freedom of speech and of the press be suppressed? Then force is justifiable.[824]
But force is to be used only as a "last resort."[825] "When a physician sees that his patient's strength is being exhausted so rapidly by the intensity of his agony that he will die of exhaustion before the medical processes inaugurated have a chance to do their curative work, he administers an opiate. But a good physician is always loth to do so, knowing that one of the influences of the opiate is to interfere with and defeat the medical processes themselves. It is the same with the use of force, whether of the mob or of the State, upon diseased society; and not only those who prescribe its indiscriminate use as a sovereign remedy and a permanent tonic, but all who ever propose it as a cure, and even all who would lightly and unnecessarily resort to it, not as a cure, but as an expedient, are social quacks."[826]
Therefore violence "should be used against the oppressors of mankind only when they have succeeded in hopelessly repressing all peaceful methods of agitation."[827] "Bloodshed in itself is pure loss. When we must have freedom of agitation, and when nothing but bloodshed will secure it, then bloodshed is wise."[828] "As long as freedom of speech and of the press is not struck down, there should be no resort to physical force in the struggle against oppression. It must not be inferred that, because 'Libertas' thinks it may become advisable to use force to secure free speech, it would therefore sanction a bloody deluge as soon as free speech had been struck down in one, a dozen, or a hundred instances. Not until the gag had become completely efficacious would 'Libertas' advise that last resort, the use of force."[829] "Terrorism is expedient in Russia and inexpedient in Germany and England."[830]—In what form is violence to be used? "The days of armed revolution have gone by. It is too easily put down."[831] "Terrorism and assassination"[832] are necessary, but they "will have to consist of a series of acts of individual dynamiters."[833]
3. But, besides speech and the press, there are yet other methods of "propagandism."[834]
Such a method is "isolated individual resistance to taxation."[835] "Some year, when an Anarchist feels exceptionally strong and independent, when his conduct can impair no serious personal obligations, when on the whole he would a little rather go to jail than not, and when his property is in such shape that he can successfully conceal it, let him declare to the assessor property of a certain value, and then defy the collector to collect. Or, if he have no property, let him decline to pay his poll tax. The State will then be put to its trumps. Of two things one,—either it will let him alone, and then he will tell his neighbors all about it, resulting the next year in an alarming disposition on their part to keep their own money in their own pockets; or else it will imprison him, and then by the requisite legal processes he will demand and secure all the rights of a civil prisoner and live thus a decently comfortable life until the State shall get tired of supporting him and the increasing number of persons who will follow his example. Unless, indeed, the State, in desperation, shall see fit to make its laws regarding imprisonment for taxes more rigorous, and then, if our Anarchist be a determined man, we shall find out how far a republican government, 'deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed,' is ready to go to procure that 'consent,'—whether it will stop at solitary confinement in a dark cell or join with the czar of Russia in administering torture by electricity. The farther it shall go the better it will be for Anarchy, as every student of the history of reform well knows. Who shall estimate the power for propagandism of a few cases of this kind, backed by a well-organized force of agitators outside the prison walls?"[836]
Another method of propaganda consists in "a practical test of Anarchistic principles."[837] But this cannot take place in isolated communities, but only "in the very heart of existing industrial and social life."[838] "In some large city fairly representative of the varied interests and characteristics of our heterogeneous civilization let a sufficiently large number of earnest and intelligent Anarchists, engaged in nearly all the different trades and professions, combine to carry on their production and distribution on the cost principle, and,"[839] "setting at defiance the national and State banking prohibitions,"[840] "to start a bank through which they can obtain a non-interest-bearing currency for the conduct of their commerce and dispose their steadily accumulating capital in new enterprises, the advantages of this system of affairs being open to all who should choose to offer their patronage,—what would be the result? Why, soon the whole composite population, wise and unwise, good, bad, and indifferent, would become interested in what was going on under their very eyes, more and more of them would actually take part in it, and in a few years, each man reaping the fruit of his labor and no man able to live in idleness on an income from capital, the whole city would become a great hive of Anarchistic workers, prosperous and free individuals."[841]
II. If a sufficient number of persons are convinced that their self-interest demands the change, then the time is come to abolish the State, transform law and property, and bring about the new condition, by "the Social Revolution,"[842] i. e. by as general a refusal of obedience as possible. The State "is sheer tyranny, and has no rights which any individual is bound to respect; on the contrary, every individual who understands his rights and values his liberties will do his best to overthrow it."[843]
1. Many believe "that the State cannot disappear until the individual is perfected.
"In saying which, Mr. Appleton joins hands with those wise persons who admit that Anarchy will be practicable when the millennium arrives. No doubt it is true that, if the individual could perfect himself while the barriers to his perfection are standing, the State would afterwards disappear. Perhaps, too, he could go to heaven, if he could lift himself by his boot-straps."[844] "'Bullion' thinks that 'civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves and then letting them do it.' A very slight change suffices to make this stupid statement an entirely accurate one, after which it would read: 'Civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves by letting them do it.'"[845] Therefore it is necessary to "abolish the State"[846] by "the impending social revolution."[847]
