Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/423

Rh there will have to be some sort of coercive organisation controlled by anarchistic parties and leagues such as will be determined by the extant type of social organisation.

We must distinguish between the ultimate condition of anarchism, the ideal which the anarchists aspire to attain, on the one hand, and the means proposed by anarchists to enable them to advance-towards that ideal.

The ultimate aim of anarchism is not difficult to specify. It is that there should be secured an absolutely free union of individuals, enabling them to satisfy their economic, biological, and mental needs in the absence of any kind of state and of any form of coercion. It is, however, less easy to classify the means recommended by anarchists, for this is a matter upon which far less unity prevails. There is much less agreement among anarchists than there is among socialists concerning the means by which they hope to attain the goal.

Anarchism demands the disorganisation of the extant social order, founded upon coercion. Anarchism is revolutionary on principle, is the negation on principle of the old order. The anarchist conceives of revolution as mass revolution, and he regards the definitive revolution as an immediate practical possibility.

By a minority of anarchists this revolution is conceived as involving neither bloodshed nor the use of force. Certain anarchists, in fact, reject force, on principle. They desire a revolution, but it must come without constraint; disorganisation is to be reorganisation; they advocate education, reform. Anarchists of this type, of whom Tolstoi is a typical example, are termed "ethical anarchists."

Some, of course, advocate reform in addition to revolution. Bakunin aimed solely at disorganisation, and never troubled his head about reorganisation; and even to-day most anarchists think and feel as he thought and felt. Anarchism is therefore negative. Anarchists of this complexion approve of terrorist guerrilla warfare, of individual outrages. Anarchism is still looked upon as propaganda on behalf of outrage, although its advocates now incline above all to favour strikes, and notably the general strike, as the instrument of anarchist revolution. The more consistent among the anarchists favour individual outrage in the most rigid sense of the term, contending that the deed must not be planned by the anarchist group, but must be the purely spontaneous act of an individual.