Louisa Sarah Bevington
An Anarchist MAINFESTO
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About the print version:
An Anarchist MAINFESTO
ISSUED BY THE LONDON Anarchist Communist Alliance.
London:
Printed and published at the METROPOLITAN PRINTING WORKS,
127 Ossulston Street, Euston Road, N.W.
1895. Price One Halfpenny.
*************
FELLOW WORKERS,
We come before you as Anarchist Communists to explain our principles. We
are aware that the minds of many of you have been poisoned by the lies which all
parties have diligently spread about us. But surely the persecutions to which we
have been and are subjected by the governing classes of all countries should
open the eyes of those who love fair play. Thousands of our comrades are
suffering in prison or are driven homeless from one country to the other. Free
speech--almost the only part of British liberty that can be of any use to the
people--is denied to us in many instances, as the events of the last few years
have shown.
The misery around us is increasing year by year. And yet there was never
so much talk about labor as there is now, labor, for the welfare of which all
professional politicians profess to work day and night. A very few sincere and
honest but impracticable reformers, in company with a multitude of mere quacks,
ambitious placehunters, etc., say they are able to benefit labor, if labor will
only follow their useless advice. All this does not lessen the misery in the
least: look at the unemployed, the victims of hunger and cold, who die every
year in the streets of our rich cities, where wealth of every description is
stored up.
Not only do they suffer who are actually out of work and starving, but
every working man who is forced to go through the same dreary routine day by
day--the slavery and toil in the factory or workshop--the cheerless home, if the
places where they are forced to herd together can be called homes. Is this life
worth living? What becomes of the intellectual faculties, the artistic
inclinations, nay, the ordinary human feeling and dignity of the greater part of
the workers? All these are warped and wasted, without any chance of development,
making the wretched worker nothing but a human tool to be exploited until more
profitably replaced by some new invention or machine.
Is all this misery necessary? Is is not if you, the wealth producers,
knew that there is enough and to spare of food and of the necessaries of life
for all, if all would work. But now, in order to keep the rich in idleness and
luxury, all the workers must lead a life of perpetual misery and exploitation.
As to these facts we are all agreed; but as to the remedy most of you,
unfortunately, have not given up trust in Parliament and the State. We shall
explain how the very nature of the State prevents anything good coming from it.
What does the State do? It protects the rich and their ill-gotten wealth; it
suppresses the attempts of the workers to recover their rights, if these
attempts are thought dangerous to the rich. Thus idle electioneering, labor
politics etc. are not suppressed, but any effective popular demonstration,
vigorous strikes as at Featherstone and Hull, Anarchist propaganda, etc., are
suppressed or fought against by the vilest means. Moreover, the State,
pretending thereby to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, grants Royal
Commissions on the Sweating System, the Aged Poor, on Labor in general, or
Select Committees on the Unemployed--which produce heaps of Blue Books, and give
an opportunity to the politicians and labor leaders, "to show themselves off."
And that is about all. If the workers demand more--there is the workhouse; and
if not satisfied with that, the truncheons of the police and the bullets and
bayonets of the soldiers face them:--not bread, but lead!
All political promises are of the same value: either they are not kept,
even if it could be, or they involve social changes which can only be effected
by a revolution, and not by mere votes cast in Parliament. This applies to the
promises of Socialist candidates, even if it could be admitted that these
candidates could remain uncorrupted by the demoralising influence of Parliament.
There can be no true humanity, no true self-respect, without
self-reliance. No one can help you if you do not help yourselves. We do not
promise to do anything for you, we do not want anything from you, we only appeal
to you to co-operate with us to bring about a state of society which will make
freedom, well-being possible for all.
To do this efficiently, we must all be imbued with the spirit of
freedom, and this--freedom, and freedom alone--is the fundamental principle of
Anarchy.
Freedom is a necessary condition to, and the only guarantee of, the
proper development of mankind. Nature is most beautiful when unfettered by the
artificial interference of man. Wild animals are stronger and more harmoniously
developed than their domesticated kind, which the exploiting mind of man makes
mere instruments of profit by developing chiefly those parts of them which are
of use to him. The same threatens to be the case with the human victims of exploitation, if an end is not put to the system which allows the rich and crafty exploiters to reduce the greater part of mankind to a position resembling that of domestic animals--working machines, only fit to do mechanically a certain kind of work, but becoming intellectually wrecked and ruined.
All who acknowledge this to be the great danger to human progress should
carefully ponder over it, and if they believe that it is necessary to ensure by
every means the free development of humanity, and to remove by all means every
obstacle placed in its path, they should join us and adopt the principles of
Anarchism.
Belief in and submission to authority is the root cause of all our
misery. The remedy we recommend:--struggle unto death against all authority,
whether it be that of physical force identical with the State or that of
doctrine and theories, the product of ages of ignorance and superstition
inculcated into the workers' minds from their childhood--such as religion,
patriotism, obedience to the law, belief in the State, submission to the rich
and titled, etc., generally speaking, the absence of any critical spirit in face
of all the humbugs who victimise the workers again and again. We can only deal
here briefly with all these subjects, and must limit ourselves to touch only on
the chief points.
Economic exploitation--the result of the monopolisation of the land, raw
materials and means of production by the capitalists and landlords--is at the
bottom of the present misery. But the system which produces it would have long
ago broken down if it were not upheld on one hand by the State, with its armies
of officials, soldiers and police--the whole machinery of government, in one
word; and on the other hand by the workers themselves, who tamely submit to
their own spoliation and degradation, because they think it right, owing to a
superstitious belief in a divine providence inculcated by their masters, or
because they desire, by sneaking means, to be exploiters themselves--an object
which only one in a thousand can succeed in--or because they have not lost faith
in political action or the capacity of the State to do for them that which they
are too ignorant to do for themselves. Under these protections the rich classes
are enjoying their spoil in safety and comfort.
It is evident that this system, if to be destroyed at all, must be
attacked by the workers themselves, as we cannot expect those who profit by it
to cut their own throats, so to say.
Many still consider the State a necessity. Is this so in reality? The
State, being only a machine for the protection and preservation of property, can
only obstruct freedom and free development, being bound to keep up the law and every statute law is an obstacle to progress and freedom.
Laws are of two kinds. They are either simple formulæ, derived from the
observation of phenomena as the so-called laws of nature, the phrasing of which
is open to revision with the progress of human knowledge and the accumulation of
fresh material to draw deductions from. No authority is required to enforce
them, they exist; and every being arranges his conduct in conformity with his
knowledge of their action. The phenomenon of fire burning is the result of such
a natural law, and all pay attention to it though there is no policeman posted
behind every match and fireplace. Here again Nature gives us an example of free
development and Anarchy, and in a free society all social facts and necessities
would be equally well recognised and acted upon.
But there is the other kind of law. ...
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