Page:Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin - The Commune of Paris (1896).djvu/14

14 of our towns there are enough clothes to dress every one, kept there in reserve while outside there is nakedness and poverty. There are even enough luxuries for each to choose amongst them according to his liking."

Judging by what is said at Commune Commemoration meetings in France and elsewhere, the workers have made up their minds that the coming Revolution will introduce Anarchist Communism and the free re-organization of production. These two points seem so far settled and in these respects the Communes of the next Revolution will not repeat the errors of the forerunners, who so generously shed their blood to clear the path for future progress.

There is, however, a third and no less important point upon which the same agreement is not yet reached, though it is not so very far off. This is the question of government.

As is well known, there are two sections of the Socialist party completely divided upon this point. "On the very day of the Revolution," says the one, "we must constitute a Government to take possession of the supreme power. A strong, powerful, resolute Government will make the Revolution by decreeing this and that, and forcing all to obey its commands.

"A miserable delusion!" says the other. "Any central government, taking upon itself to rule a nation, must certainly be a mere hindrance to the Revolution. It cannot fail to be made up of the most incongruous elements, and its very essence as a government is Conservatism. It will do nothing but hold back the Revolution in Communes ready to go ahead, without being able to inspire backward Communes with the breath of revolution. The same within a Commune in revolt. Either the Communal government will merely sanction accomplished facts—and then it will be a useless and dangerous bit of machinery; or else it will wish to take the lead to make rules for what has yet to be freely worked out by the people themselves if it is to be really practicable; it will apply theories where all society ought to work out fresh forms of common life with that creative force which springs up in the social organism when it breaks its chains and sees new and larger horizons opening before it. The men in power will obstruct this outburst, without doing any of the things they might themselves have done if they had remained amongst the people, working with them at the new organisation, instead of shutting themselves up in ministerial offices and wearing