Page:Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin - Anarchism; Its Philosophy and Ideal (1897).djvu/13

 Rh means of transport is already the watch- word of these imposing fractions, and repression—the favorite weapon of the rich and powerful—can no longer do anything to arrest the triumphal march of the spirit of revolt. And if millions of workers do not rise to seize the land and factories from the monopolists by force, be sure it is not for want of desire. They but wait for a favorable opportunity—a chance, such as presented itself in 1848, when they will be able to start the destruction of the present economic system, with the hope of being supported by an International movement.

That time cannot be long in coming; for since the International was crushed by governments in 1872—especially since then—it has made immense progress of which its most ardent partisans are hardly aware. It is, in fact, constituted—in ideas, in sentiments, in the establishment of constant intercommunication. It is true the French, English, Italian and German plutocracies are so many rivals, and at any moment can even cause nations to war with one another. Nevertheless, be sure when the Communist and Social revolution does take place in France, France will find the same sympathies as formerly among the nations of the world, including Germans, Italians and English. And when Germany, which, by the way, is nearer a revolution than is thought, will plant the flag—unfortunately a Jacobin one—of this revolution, when it will throw itself into the revolution with all the ardor of youth in an ascendant period, such as it is traversing to-day, it will find on this side of the Rhine all the sympathies and all the support of a nation that loves the audacity of evolutionists and hates the arrogance of plutocracy.

Divers causes have up till now delayed the bursting forth of this inevitable revolution. The possibility of a great European war is no doubt partly answerable for it. But there is, it seems to me, another cause, a deeper-rooted one, to which I would call your attention. There is going on just now among the Socialists—many tokens lead us to believe it—a great transformation in ideas, like the one I sketched at the beginning of this lecture iu speaking of general sciences. And the uncertainty of Socialists themselves concerning the organisation of the society they are wishing for, paralyses their energy up to a certain, point.

At the beginning, in the forties. Socialism presented itself as Communism, as a republic one and indivisible, as a governmental and jacobin dictatorship, in its application to economics. Such was the ideal of that time. Religious and freethinkiug Socialists were equally ready to submit to any strong government, even an imperial one, if,