of a general strike to press for universal suffrage was launched. In ’86 violent strikes erupted, with accompanying armed gangs, machine-breaking, ransacking of plants, arson attacks on castles. “Order” was restored: the repression was terrible… but the very first “social legislation” dates from that year: inadequate and derisory though it may be, the bourgeoisie would never have passed it had they not been spurred to it by fear of further unrest.
In ’87 there were further strikes, further violence, further revolts. Using agents provocateurs, the government tried to find a pretext for snuffing out the movement before it could become strong enough to win. But, as is often the case, government intrigues backfired because they served only to cement the union between the workers, which had only momentarily been shattered, and thereby it gave renewed impetus to the feared movement.
Since then, worker organization has gone from strength to strength and through demonstrations, rallies, strikes and revolts, the day came when the bourgeoisie had no option but to relent in order to avert revolution.
Let us now ask the parliamentary socialists: if the people, denied so-called political rights, were able, by virtue of the strength of their organization, to impose their wishes upon the government, why do you say that nothing can be achieved unless deputies are appointed? And why, having managed to win universal suffrage with admirable vigor, have they not managed to win anything worthwhile since then? Might it be because, whenever the people vote, they grow accustomed to looking to Parliament for everything and cease doing things for themselves?
Then again, all the effort put into securing the vote—for the right to appoint the people to whom they look for certain reforms—might that not have been effort better invested in going after the desired reforms directly?
But the parliamentary socialists could justifiably answer thus: what you would have us do—why haven’t you done it yourself?
We shall explain that next time.
157 A. Dewinne, “Dal Belgio. Come si conquista il suffragio universale” (From Belgium. How universal suffrage is brought about), Avanti!, March 27, 1897. The article from L’Agitazione reprints parts of the original article almost verbatim. However, we have decided to include it here in its entirety, both to better understand Malatesta’s follow-up remarks, without further condensing an already condensed article, and because Malatesta had been an eye-witness of the events. Having gone to Belgium with Charles Malato during the crucial days of April 1893, Malatesta was well placed to confirm Dewinne’s account, which he actually pronounces as truthful. Moreover, reference to this article, as belonging to Malatesta, was made by the prosecution in the indictment brought against him before the courts in April 1898. Malato recounts their trip in his autobiography, Les Joyeusetés de l’Exil (Mauléon: Acratie 1985; originally published in 1897), 62–75.
158 Part one of the article stops at this point. The second instalment of Dewinne’s article, as published in Avanti! on April 4, 1897, is summarized in the paragraphs that follow.
159 This out-of-sequence date is carried over from Avanti!’s article.
160 “Nais” is almost certainly a misspelling, carried over from the Avanti! article. In all probability the reference is to Georges Maes, a leader of the Parti Ouvrier Belge, who was sentenced, in 1893, for his part in the general strike.
161 In reality, Avanti! had published the third and final instalment of the article on April 6, 1897.
Higher Education and Anarchy
Translated from “L’istruzione superiore e l’Anarchia,”
L’Agitazione (Ancona) 1, no. 5 (April 12, 1897).
A republican friend sends us the following question and tells us, almost like throwing down a gauntlet, that there is no way of coming up with a satisfactory answer:
“In anarchy, everybody will be out to achieve the highest degree of education. How are you going to provide jobs for everybody if, say, 90 in every 100 individuals manage to reach the top level of education?”
The question seems somewhat of an embarrassment to our friend because he no doubt supposes that in anarchy men will continue to be divided, like they are today, into manual workers, who bear the entire burden of material production, and doctors, men of letters, etc., who have a monopoly on higher education and who would think themselves humiliated if they had to turn their hand to productive toil—not to mention, since they do not come into it, those who do nothing at all, neither with their hands nor with their brain. If that were the case, then, plainly, once economic privilege had been done away with and everyone been accorded the right and the wherewithal to pursue studies, everybody would become scientists and artists, and there would be nobody left to produce life’s necessities, or there would be only those few whom nature has made ill-disposed or ill-equipped for study. Given the dividing line between manual labor and intellectual labor, the fact is that the latter holds out the prospect of greater satisfaction and affords a moral pre-eminence that no one would willingly forego. Therefore, economic privilege would be a social necessity, a means of preventing too many people from turning towards study and away from material production.
But this problem evaporates the moment one considers that in anarchy, or, more broadly, under socialism, which is to say, an egalitarian society in which everyone would have the means to work and to study, everybody would, of necessity, have to take part in essential production, and everybody would be, as the saying goes, simultaneously toilers by brawn and toilers by brain.
And, far from being a snag in socialism, this is instead one of its great blessings, even for those who think they have an interest in preserving the existing state of affairs, because they will find here the way of committing themselves entirely to study.
For the sake of his full development, in order to fully savor the strength and health his body has to offer, man needs all his organs to function in harmony—his muscles as well as his brains. As witness the gymnastic exercises through which the rich burn off the muscular energy that they are not willing, capable, or able to employ in pleasant productive toil.
True, there are jobs that are onerous and repugnant and that could not readily be compared to some enjoyable, salubrious sports exercise. But the drawbacks would soon be reduced if everybody had to do their part. When the architect has to climb the bricklayer’s scaffolding and the mining engineer dig the coal and the physician remake his patients’ beds, oh, then we will see lots of ways devised of making work hygienic, easy, and pleasant—ways never even considered at present or which, if discovered, are not employed because those who organize and oversee the work and who have the means, the time, and requisite expertise are not the ones who do the work, so they do not feel its irritations and dangers.
Besides, what a boost science and art will receive once all men are in a position to contribute towards their advancement! Will not scientists and artists—apart from the fact that today they, too, often live in poverty—enjoy greater satisfaction if they can live in a brotherhood of equals, free of nightmarish indebtedness to the suffering endured by the bulk of producers for their pleasures and their wealth, instead of being privileged types, afflicted (if they have a heart) by the sight of other people’s wretchedness and tormented by remorse over the privileges they have enjoyed, loners in the midst of a crowd that does not know how to appreciate their efforts, forced to suffer the foolish pretensions of wealthy patrons?
