FRIEEDO1MV PAMPHLET.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
EXPROPRIATION.
BY
PETER KROPOTKIN
---(o)I.
IT is told of Rothschild that, seeing his fortune threatened by the Revolution of 1849, he hit upon the following stratagem:-" I am quite
willing to admit," said he, " that my fortune has been accumulated at
bie expense of others, but if it were divided among the millions of
Europe to-morrow the share of each would onlyamount to five shillings.
Very well then, I undertake to render to each his five shillings if he
asks me for it."
Having given due publicity to his promise, our millionaire proceeded
as usual to stroll quietly through the streets of Frankfort. Three or
four passers-by asked for their five shillings, which he disbursed with
a sardonic smile. His stratagem succeeded and the family of the
millionaire is still in possession of its wealth.
It is in much the same fashion that the shrewd heads among the
middle-classes reason when they say ", Ah, Expropriation, I know what
that means. You take all the top-coats and lay them in a heap, and
every one is free to help himself and fight for the best."
But such jests are irrelevant as well as flippant. What we want is
not a redistribution of top-coats. Besides, is it likely that in such a
general scramble the shivering folk would come off any better? Nor
do we want to divide up the wealth of the Rothschilds. What we do
want is so to arrange things that every human being born into the
world shall be ensured the opportunity in the first instance of learning
some useful occupation, and of becoming skilled in it; next, that he
shall be free to work at his trade without asking leave of master o0



2                       Freedom  Pamphlets.
owner, and without handing over to landlord or capitalist the lion's
share of what he produces. As to the wealth held by the Rothschilds
or the Vanderbilts, it will serve us to organise our system of communal
production.
The day when the laborer may till the ground without paying away
half of what he produces, the day when the machines necessary to prepare the soil for rich harvests are at the free disposal of the cultivators,
the day when the worker in the factory produces for the co nmunity
and not for the monopolist-that day will see the workers clothed and
fed; and there will be no more Rothschilds or other exploiters.
No one will then have to sell his working power for a wage that
only represents a fraction of what he produces.
" So far good," say our critics, " but you will have Rothschilds coming in from outside. How are you to prevent a person from amassing
iillions in China and then settling amongst you? How are you going
to prevent such an one from surrounding himself with lackeys and wageslaves-from exploiting them and enriching himself at their expense? "
"You cannot bring about a Revolution all over the world at the
same time. Well then, are you going to establish Custom Houses on
your frontiers, to search all who enter your country, and confiscate the
money they bring with them?-Anarchist policemen firing on travellers
would be a fine spectacle! "
But at the root of this argument there is a great error. Those who
propound it have never paused to inquire whence come the fortunes of the rich. A little thought would suffice to show them that
these fortunes have their beginnings in the poverty of the poor. When
there are no longer any destitute there will no longer be any rich to
exploit them.
Let us glance for a moment at the middle ages, when great fortunes
began to spring up.
A feudal baron seizes on a fertile valley. But as long as the fertile
valley is empty of folk our baron is not rich. His land brings him in
nothing, he might as well possess a property in the moon. Now what
does our baron do to enrich himself? He looks out for peasants!
But if every peasant-farmer had a piece of land, free from rent and
taxes, if he had in addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm
labor, who would plough the lands of the baron? Each would look
after his own. But there are whole tribes of destitute persons ruined
by wars, or drought, or pestilence. They have neither horse nwr
plough. (Iron was costly in the middle ages, and a draught-horse stifl
more so.)



sxpropriation.

6

All these destitute creatures are trying to better their condition.
One day they see on the road at the confines of our baron's estate a
notice-board indicating by certain signs adapted to their comprehension
that the laborer who is willing to settle on this estate will receive the
tools and materials to build his cottage and sow his fields, and a portion
of land rent free for a certain number of years. The number of years
is represented by so many crosses on the sign-board, and the peasant
understands the meaning of these crosses.
So the poor wretches swarm over the baron's lands, making roads,
draining marshes, building villages.   In nine years he begins to tax
them.   Five years later he levies rent. Then he doubles it. The
peasant accepts these new conditions because he cannot find better ones
elsewhere; and little by little, by the aid of laws made by the oppressors, the poverty of the peasant becomes the source of the landlord's
wealth. And it is not only the Lord of the Manor who preys upon
him. A whole host of usurers swoop down upon the villages, increasing as the wretchedness of the peasants increases. That is how things
went in the Middle Ages; and today is it not still the same thing? If
there were free lands which the peasant could cultivate if he pleased,
would he pay ~50 to some " Shabble of a Duke " * for condescending
to sell him a scrap? Would he burden himself with a lease which
absorbed a third of the produce? Would he-on the metayer systemconsent to give the half of his harvest to the landowner?
But he has nothing. So he will accept any conditions, if only he can
keep body and soul together, while he tills the soil and enriches the
landlord.
So in the Nineteenth Century, just as in the Middle Ages, the
poyerty of the peasant is a source of wealth to the landed proprietor.
II.
THE landlord owes his riches to the poverty of the peasants, and the
wealth of the capitalist comes from the same source.
Take the case of a citizen of the middle class who, somehow or other,
finds himself in possession of ~20,000. He could, of course, spend his
money at the rate of ~2,000 a year, a mere bagatelle in these days of
fantastic, senseless luxury. But then he would have nothing left at
the end of ten years. So, being a " practical person," he prefers to
* "Shabble of a Duke " is an expression coined by Carlyle; it is a somewhat
free rendering of Kropotkine's " Monsieur le Vicomte," but I think it expresses
his meaning.-TRANs.



4                       Freedom  Pamphkt.
keep his fortune intact, and win for himself a snug little rannual income
as well.
That is very easy in our society, for the good reason that the towns
and villages swarm with workers who have not the wherewithal to
live for a month, or even a fortnight. So our worthy citizen starts a
factory: the banks hasten to lend him another ~20,000, especially if he
has a reputation for "1 business ability"; and with this round sum he
can command the labor of five hundred hands.
If all the then and women in the country-side had their daily bread
sure and their daily needs already satisfied, who would work for our
capitalist, or be willing to manufacture for him, at a wage of half-acrown a day, commodities selling in the market for a crown or even more?
Unhappily-we know it all too well-the poor quarters of our towns
and the neighbouring villages are full of needy wretches, whose children clamour for bread. So, before the factory is well finished, the
workers hasten to offer themselves. Where a hundred are required a
thousand besiege the doors, and from the time his mill is started the
owner, if he is not more than commonly stupid, will clear ~40 a year
out of each mill-hand he employs.
He is thus able to lay by a snug little fortune, and if he chooses a
lucrative trade, and if he has "business talents," he will'increase his
income by doubling the number of the men he exploits.
So he becomes a personage of importance. He can afford to give
dinners to other personages, to the local magnates, the civic, legal, and
political dignitaries. With his money he can " marry money," by-andby he may pick and choose* places for his children, and later on perhaps
get something good from the government-a contract for the army or
for the police.  His gold breeds gold; till at last a war, or even a
rumour of war, or a speculation on the Stock Exchange, gives him his
great opportunity.
Nine-tenths of the huge fortunes made in the United States are (as
Henry George has shown in his "Social Problems") the result of
knavery on a large scale, assisted by the State. In Europe nine-tenths
of the fortunes made in our Monarchies and Republics have the same
origin. There are not two ways of becoming a millionaire.
This is the secret of wealth; find the starving and destitute, pay
them half-a-crown, and make them produce ten shillings worth in the
day, amass a fortune by these means, and then increase it by some
lucky hit, made with the help of the State.
Need we go on to speak of small fortunes attributed by the economists to forethought and frugality, whea we know that mere saviLg in



Expropriation.                       b
itself brings in nothing, so long as the pence saved are not used to exploit the famishing?
Take a shoemaker, for instance. Grant that his work is well paid,
that he has plenty of custom, and that by dint of strict frugality he
contrives to lay by from eighteen pence to two shillings a day, perhaps
~2 a month.
Grant that our shoemaker is never ill, that he does not half starve
himself, in spite of his passion for economy; that he does not marry or
that he has no children; that he does not die of consumption; suppose
anything and everything you please!
Well, at the age of fifty he will not have scraped together ~800; and
he will not have enough to live on during his old age, when he is past
work. Assuredly this is not how great fortunes are made. But suppose our shoemaker, as soon as he has laid by a few pence, thriftily
conveys them to the savings-bank, and that the savings-bank lends
them to the capitalist who is just about to " employ labor"-i.e., to
exploit the poor. Then our shoemaker takes an apprentice, the child
ot some poor wretch who will think himself lucky if in five years time
his son has learned the trade and is able to earn his living.
Meanwhile our shoemaker does not lose by him; and if trade is brisk
he soon takes a second, and then a third apprentice. By-and-by he
will take two or three journeymen-poor wretches, thankful to receive
half-a-crown a day for work that is worth five shillings, and if our shoemaker is "in luck," that is to say, if he is keen enough and mean
enough, his journeymen and apprentices will bring him in nearly ~1 a
day, over and above the product of his own toil. He can then enlarge
his business. He will gradually become rich, and no longer have any
need to stint himself in the necessaries of life. He will leave a snug
little fortune to his son.
That is what people call " being economical and bhing frugal, temperate habits." At bottom it is nothing more nor less than grinding
the face of the poor.
Commerce seems an exception to this rule. ' Such a man," we are
told, " buys tea in China, brings it to France and realises a profit of
thirty per cent. on his original outlay. He has exploited nobody '
Nevertheless, the case is analogous. If our merchant had carried
his bales on his back, well and good! In early medieval times, that
was exactly how foreign trade was conducted, and so no one reached
such giddy heights of fortune as in our days. Very few, and very hardly
earned, were the gold coins which the medieval merchant gained from
a long and dangerous voyage. It was less the love of money than the.
thirst of travel and adventure that inspired his undertakings.



6                       Freedom  Pamphlets.
Now-a-days the method is simpler. A merchant who has some capital need not stir from his desk to become wealthy. He telegraphs to an
agent telling him to buy a hundred tons of tea, he freights a ship, and
in a few weeks, in three months, if it is a sailing ship, the vessel brings
him his cargo. He does not even take the risks of the voyage, for his
tea and his vessel are insured, and if he has expended four thousand
pounds he will receive more than five thousand; that is to say, if he
has not attempted to speculat3 in some novel commodities, in which
case he runs a chance of either doubling his fortune or losing it altogether.
Now, how could he find men willing to cross the sea, to travel to
China and back, to endure hardship and slavish toil and to risk their
lives for a miserable pittance? How could he find dock-laborers willing to load and unload his ships for " starvation wages?"   How?
Because they are needy and starving. Go to the sea-ports, visit the
cook-shops and taverns on the quays, and look at these men who have
co.e to hire themselves crowding round the dock-gates, which they
besiege from early dawn, hoping to be allowed to work on the vessels.
Look at these sailors, happy to be hired for a long voyage, after weeks
and months of waiting. All their lives long they have gone down to
the sea in ships, and they will sail in others still, until the day when
they perish in the waves.
Enter their cabins, look at their wives and children in rags, living
one knows not how till the father's return, and you will have the
answer to the question. Multiply examples, choose them   where you
will, consider the origin of all fortunes, large or small, whether arising
out of commerce, finance, manufactures, or the land. Everywhere you
will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the
poor. An Anarchist society need not fear the advent of an unknown
Rothschild who would seek to settle in its midst. If every member of
the community knows that after a few hours of productive toil he will
have a right to all the pleasures that civilisation procures, and to those
deeper sources of enjoyment which art and science offer to all who seek
them, he will not sell his strength for a starvation wage. No one will
volunteer to work for the enrichment of your Rothschild. His golden
guineas will be only so many pieces of metal-useful for various purposes, but incapable of breeding more.
In answering the above objection we have at the same time indicated
the scope of Expropriation. It must extend to all that permits any one,
no matter whom-financier, mill-owner, or landlord-to appropriate
the product of others' toil. Our formula is simple and comprehensive.
We do not want to rob any one of his coat, but we wish to give to



Expropriation.                         7
the workers all those things the lack of which makes them fall an easy
prey to the exploiter, and we will do our utmost that none shall lack
aught, that not u single man shall be forced to sell the strength of his
right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and his babes. That
is what we mean when we talk of Expropriation; that will be our duty
during the Revolution, for whose coming we look, not two hundred
years hence, but soon, very soon.
III.
THE ideas of Anarchism in general and of Expropriation in particular
find much more sympathy than we are apt to imagine among men of
independent character, and those for whom idleness is not the supreme
ideal. " Still," our friends often warn us, " take care you do not go too
far! Humanity cannot be changed in a day, so do not be in too great
a hurry with your schemes of Expropriation and Anarchy, or you will
be in danger of achieving no permanent result."
Now, what we fear with regard to Expropriation is exactly the
contrary. We are afraid of not going far enough, of carrying out
Expropriation on too small a scale to be lasting. We would not have
the revolutionary impulse arrested in mid-career, to exhaust itself in
half-measures, which would content no one, and which, while producing
a tremendous upheaval of society, and stopping its customary activities,
would have no power of life in themselves, and would merely spread
general discontent and inevitably prepare the way for the triumph of
reaction.
There are, in fact, in a modern state established relations which it is
practically impossible to modify if one attacks them only in detail.
There are wheels within wheels in our economic organisation-the
machinery is so complex and interdependent that no one part can be
modified without disturbing the whole. This will become clear as soon
as an attempt is made to expropriate anything.
Let us suppose that in a certain country a limited form of Expropriation is effected; for example, that, as recently suggested by Henry
George, only the property of the great landlords is confiscated, whilst
the factories are left untouched; or that, in a certain city, house property
is taken over by the commune, but merchandise is left in private ownership; or that, in some manufacturing centre, the factories are
communalised, but the land is not interfered with.
The same result would follow in each case-a terrible shattering of
the industrial system, without the means of reorganising it on new lines.



8

Freedom  Pamphlets.

Industry and commerce would be at a dead-lock, yet a return to the first
principles of justice would not have been achieved, and society would
find itself powerless to construct a harmonious whole.
If agriculture could free itself from great landowners, while industry
still remained the bond slave of the capitalist, the merchlnt and the
banker, nothing would be accomplished. The farmer suffers to-day
not only in having to pay rent to the landlord, he is oppressed on all
hands by existing conditions. He is exploited by the tradesman, who
makes him pay half-a-crown for a spade which, measured by the labor
spent on it, is not worth more than sixpence. He is taxed by the State,
which cannot do without its formidable hierarchy of officials, and finds
it necessary to maintain an expensive army, because the traders of all
nations are perpetually fighting for the markets, and any day a little
quarrel arising from the exploitation of some part of Asia or Africa
may result in war
Then again farmer and laborer suffer from the depopulation of country
places: the young people are attracted to the large factory towns by the
bait of high wages paid temporarily by the manufacturers of articles
of luxury, or by the attractions of a more stirring life. The artificial
protection of industry, the industrial exploitation of foreign countries,
the prevalence of stock-jobbing, the difficulty of improving the soil and
the machinery of production-all these are causes which work together
against agriculture, which indeed is burdened not only by rent, but by the
whole complexity of conditions developed in a society based on exploitation. Thus, even if the expropriation of land were accomplished, and
every one were free to till the soil and cultivate it to the best advantage,
without paying rent, agriculture, even though it should enjoy-which
can by no means be taken for granted-a momentary prosperity, would
soon fall back into the slough'in which it finds itself to-day. The whole
thing would have to be begun over again, with increased difficulties.
The same holds true of industry. Take the converse case; make over
the factories to those who work in them, but leave the agricultural
laborers slaves to farmer and landlord.  Abolish the master-manufacturers, but leave the landowner his land, the banker his money, the
merchant his Exchange, maintain still the swarm of idlers who live on
the toil of the workmen, the thousand and one middlemen, the State
with its numberless officials, and industry would come to a stand-still.
Finding no purchasers in the mass of country people still as poor as ever,
having no raw material, unable to export its products, and embarrassed by the stoppage of trade, industry could only struggle on feebly,
and thousands of workers would be thrown upon the streets. These
starving crowds would be ready and willing to submit to the first



Expropriation.                          9
schemer who came to exploit them, they would even consent to return
to the old slavery, if only under promise of work.
Or, finally, suppose you oust the land-owners, and hand over the mills
and factories to the worker, without interfering with the swarm of mid-,(lemen who drain off the produce of our manufacturers and speculate
in corn and flour, meat and groceries in our great centres of commerce.
Well, when exchange is arrested and products cease to circulate, when
London is without bread, and Yorkshire finds no buyers for her cloth, a
terrible counter-revolution will take place-a counter-revolution trampling upon heaps of slain, sweeping the towns and villages with shot and
shell; there will be proscriptions, panic, flight, perhaps all the terrors
of wholesale judicial massacre of the Guillotine, as in France in 1815,
1848, and 1871.
All is interdependent in a civilised society; it is impossible to reform
any one thing without altering the whole. On that day when we strike
at private property, under any one of its forms, territorial or industrial,
we shall be obliged to attack all its manifestations. The very success of
the Revolution will demand it.
Besides, we could not if we would confine ourselves to a partial expropriation. Once the principle of the " Divine Right of Property " is
shaken, no amount of theorising will prevent its overthrow, here by the
slaves of the soil, there by the slaves of the machine.
If a great town, Paris for example, were to confine itself to taking
possession of the houses or the factories, it would still be forced to deny
the right of the bankers to levy upon the Commune a tax amounting
to ~2,000,000, in the form of interest for former loans. The great city
would be obliged to put itself in touch with the rural districts, and its
influence would inevitably urge the peasants to free themselves from
the landowner.   It would be necessary to communalise the railways
that the citizens might get food and work, and lastly, to prevent the
caste of supplies, and to guard against the chicanery of corn-speculators,
ike those to whom the Commune of 1793 fell a prey; it would place in
die hands of the citizens the work of stocking their warehouses with
commodities, and apportioning the produce.
Nevertheless, some Socialists still seek to establish a distinction.
" Of course," they say, " the soil, the mines, the mills and manufactures
must be expropriated; these are the instruments of production, and it
is right we should consider them public property. But articles of consumption, food, clothes and dwellings, should remain private property."
Popular common-sense has got        the  better   of  this  subtle
distinction. We are not savages who can live in the woods, without



10

Freedom  Pamphlets.

other shelter than the branches. The civilised man needs a roof-tree
and a hearth, a bed-chamber and a bed. It is true that the bed, the
room and the house of the non-producer are only part of the paraphernalia of idleness. But for the worker a room, properly heated and
lighted, is as much an instrument of production as the tool or the
machine. It is the place where the nerves and sinews gather strength
for the work of the morrow. The rest of the workman is the daily
repairing of the machine.
The same argument applies even more obviously to food. The socalled economists of whom we speak would hardly deny that the coal
burnt in a machine is as necessary to production as the raw material
itself. How then can food, without which the human machine could
do no work, be excluded from the list of things indispensable to the
producer? Such hair-splitting is worthy of the metaphysic of the schoolmen. The rich man's feast is indeed a matter of luxury, but the food
of the worker is just as much a part of production as the fuel burnt by
the steam engine.
The same with clothing: if the economists who draw this distinction
between articles of production and of consumption dressed themselves
in the fashion of New Guinea we could understand their objection.
But men who could not write a word without a shirt on their back are
not in a position to draw such a hard and fast line between their shirt
and their pen. And though the dainty gowns of their dames must certainly rank as objects of luxury, there is nevertheless a certain quantity
of linen, cotton and woollen stuff which is a necessity of life to the producer. The shirt and shoes in which he goes to his work, his cap and
the jacket he slips on after the day's toil is over, these are as necessary
to him as the hammer to the anvil.
Whether we like it or not, that is what the people mean by a revolution. As soon as they have made a clean sweep of the Government,
they will seek first of all to insure to themselves decent dwellings and
sufficient food and clothes-free of rent and taxes.
And the people will be right. The methods of the people will be
much more in accordance with science than those of the economists who
draw so many distinctions between instruments of production and
articles of consumption. The people understand that this is just the
point where the Revolution ought to begin; and they will lay the
foundations of the only economic science worthy the name-a science
which might be called: " The Study of the Needs of Humanity, and of
the Economic Means to satisfy them."



Expropriation.

11

IV.
IF the coming Revolution is to be a Social Revolution it will be distinguished from all former uprisings not only by its aim, but also by its
methods. To attain a new end new means are required.
The three great popular movements which we have seen in France,
during the last hundred years, differ from each other in mary ways, but
they have one common feature.
In each case, the people strove to overturn the old rqgime, and spent
their heart's-blood for the cause. Then, after having borne the brunt
of the battle, they sank again into obscurity. A government, composed
of men more or less honest, was formed and undertook to organisethe Republic in 1793, Labor in 1848, and the Free Commune in 1871.
This government was filled with Jacobin ideas, and concerned
almost exclusively with political questions, such as the reorganisation
of the machinery of government, the purifying of the administration,
the separation of Church and State, civic liberty and such matters. It
is true the workmen's clubs kept an eye on the members of the new
government, and often imposed their ideas on them. But even in these
clubs, whether the leaders belonged to the middle or to the working
classes, it was always middle-class ideas which prevailed. They discussed various political questions at great length, but forgot to discuss
the question of bread.
At such times great ideas sprang up, ideas that have moved the
world; words were spoken which still stir our hearts, at the interval of
a century. But the people were starving in the streets.
From the very commencement of the Revolution industry stopped of
necessity, the circulation of produce was checked, and capital was withdrawn. The master-the employer-bad nothing to fear at such times,
he battened on his dividends, if indeed he did not speculate on the
wretchedness around; but the wage-earner was reduced to live from
hand to mouth. Want knocked at the door.
Famine was abroad in the land-such famine as had hardly been
seen under the old regime.
" The Girondists are starving us!" was the cry in the workmen's
quarters in 1793, and thereupon the Girondists were guillotined, and
full powers were given to " the Mountain " and to the Commune. The
commune indeed concerned itself with the question of bread, and made
heroic efforts to feed Paris. At Lyons, Fouchi and Collot d'Herbois
established plenty of granaries, but the sums spent on filling them were
woefully insufficient. The town-councils made great efforts to procure
corn; the bakers who hbarded flour were hanged-and still the people
lacked bread.



12

Freedom  Pamphlets.

Then they turned on the royalist conspirators and laid the blame at
their door. They guillotined a dozen or fifteen a day-servants and
duchesses alike, especially servants, for the duchesses had gone to Coblentz. But if they had guillotined a hundred dukes and viscounts a
day it would have been equally futile.
The want only grew. For the wage-earner cannot live without his
wage, and the wage was not forthcoming. What difference could a
thousand corpses more or less make to him?
Then the people began to grow weary. " So much for your vaunted
Revolution! You are more wretched than ever before," whispered the
reactionary in the ears of the woi ker. And little by little the rich took
courage, emerged from their hiding-places, and flaunted their luxury in
the face of the starving multitude. They pranked themselves out in
fantastic fashions, and bade the worker have done with his folly-with
this Revolution which had left him worse off than before. " It is time
to make an end," they said.
Sick at heart and weary of patience in vain, the revolutionIry had at
last to admit to himself that the cause was lost once more. He
retreated into his hovel and awaited the worst.
Then Conservatism returned with flying colours. The political rightabout-face was accomplished. The Revolution was dead. Nothing
remained now but to spurn its corpse and trample it under foot.
The White Terror began. Blood flowed like water, the guillotine
was never idle, the prisons were crowded, while the pageant of rank
and fashion resumed its old course, and went on merrily as before.
That picture is typical of all our revolutions. In 1848 the workers
of Paris placed " three months of starvation " at the service of the
Republic, and then, having reached the limit of their powers, they
made one last desperate effort-an effort which was drowned in blood.
In 1871 the Commune perished for lack of combatants. It had taken
measures for the separation of Church and State, but it neglected, ala s,
until too late, to take measures for providing the people with bread.
And so it came to pass in Paris that exquisites and fine gentlemen could
spurn the confederates, and bid them go sell their lives for a miserable
pittance, and leave their " betters" to feast at their ease ini fashionable
restaurants.
At last the Commune saw its mistake, and opened communal kitchens.
But it was too late. Its days were already numbered, and the troops
of Versailles were on the ramparts.
" Bread, it is bread that the Revolution needs!"
Let others spend their time in issuing pompous proclamations, in



Expropriation.

18,lecorating themselves lavishly with official gold lace, and in ranting
About political liberty!
Be it ours to see, from the first day of the Revolution to the last, in
all the provinces fighting for freedom, that there is not a single man
who lacks bread, not a single woman compelled to stand with the weariful crowd outside the bakehouse-door, that haply a coarse loaf may be
thrown to her in charity, not a single child pining for want of food.
It has always been the middle-class idea to harangue about " great
principles "-great lies rather!
The idea of the people will be to provide bread for all. And while
middle-class citizens and workmen infested with middle-class ideas
admire their own rhetoric in the " Talking Shops," and " practical
people " are engaged in endless discussions on forms of government, we,
the " Utopian dreamers "-we must consider the question of daily bread.
We have the temerity to declare that all have a right to bread, that
there is bread enough for all, and that with this watchword of Bread
for All the Revolution will triumph.
V.
WE are utopians, that is of course. So utopian are we in fact, that we
go the length of believing that the Revolution can and ought to assure
shelter, food and clothes to all--an idea extremely displeasing to middleclass citizens, whatever their party colour, for they are quite alive to
the fact that it is not easy to keep the upper hand of a people whose
hunger is satisfied.
All the same, we maintain our contention: bread must be found for
the people during the Revolution, and the question of bread must take
precedence of all other questions. If it is settled in the interests of the
people, the Revolution will be on the right road; for in solving the
question of Bread we must accept the principle of equality, which will
force itself upon us to the exclusion of every other solution.
It is certain that the coming Revolution--like in that respect to the
Revolution of 1848-will buirst upon us in the middle of a great industrial crisis. Things have been seething for more than a dozen years
now, and can only go from bad to worse. Everything tends that way;
new nations entering the lists of international trade and fighting for
possession of the world's markets, wars, taxes ever increasing. National
debts, the insecurity of the morrow, and huge commercial undertakings
in every quarter of the globe.
There are millions of unemployed workers in Europe at this moment.
It will be still worse when Revolution has burst upon us and spread



14

Freedom  Pamphlets.

like fire laid to a train of gunpowder. The number of the out-of-works
will be doubled as soon as the barricades are erected in Europe and the
United States.   What is to be done to provide these multitudes with
bread?
We do not know whether the folk who call themselves " practical:
people " have ever asked themselves this question in all its nakedness.
But we do know that they wish to maintain the wage system, and we
must therefore expect to have "national workshops" and " public
works " vaunted as a means of giving food to the unemployed.
Because national workshops were opened in 1789 and in 1793;
because the same means were resorted to in 1848; because Napoleon III.
succeeded in contenting the Parisian proletariat for eighteen years by
giving them  public works-which cost Paris to-day its debt of.~80,000,000-and its municipal tax of three or four pounds a head;
because this excellent method of " taming the beast:" was customary in
Rome, and even in Egypt four thousand years ago; and lastly because
despots, kings and emperors have always employed the ruse of throwing a scrap of food to the people, to gain time to snatch up the whip,it is natural that " practical " men should extol this method of perpetuating the wage system. What need to rack our brains when we have
the time-honored method of the Pharaohs at our disposal!
Well, should the Revolution be so misguided as to start on this path,
all would be lost.
In 1848, when the national workshops were opened on the 27th of
February, the unemployed of Paris numbered only 8,000, a fortnight
later they had already increased to 49,000. They would soon have been
100,000, without counting those who crowded in from the provinces.
Yet at that time trade and manufactures in France only employed
half as many hands as to-day. And we know that in time of Revolution exchange and industry suffer most from the general upheaval.
To realise this, we have only to think for a moment of the number of
workmen whose labor depends directly or indirectly upon export trade,
or of the number of hands employed in producing luxuries whose consumers are the middle-class minority.
A Revolution in Europe means the immediate stoppage of at least
half the factories and workshops. It means millions of workers and
their families thrown on the streets.
And your " practical men " would seek to avert this truly terrible
situation by means of national relief works, that is to say, by means of
new industries created on the spot to give work to the unemployed!
It is evident, as Proudhon has already pointed out, that the smallest
attack upon property will bring in its train the complete disorganisa


Expropriation.

15

tion of the system based upon private enterprise and wage labor.
Society itself will be forced to take production in hand, in its entirety,
and to reorganise it to meet the needs of the whole people. But this
cannot be accomplished in a day or a month; it must take a certain
time thus to reorganise the system of production, and during this time
millions of men will be deprived of the means of subsistance-what
then is to be done?
There is only one really practical solution of the problem-boldly to
face the great task which awaits us, and instead of trying to patch up
a situation which we ourselves have made untenable, to proceed to
reorganise production on a new basis.
Thus the really practical course of action, in our view, would be that
the people should take immediate possession of all the food of the
insurgent districts, keeping strict account of it all, that none might be
wasted and that by the aid of these accumulated resources every one
might be able to tide over the crisis. During that time an agreement
would have to be made with the factory workers, the necessary raw
material given them and the means of subsistence assured to them
while they worked to supply the needs of the agricultural population.
For we must not forget that while France weaves silks and satins to
deck the wives of German financiers, the Empress of Russia and the Queen
of the Sandwich Islands, and while Paris fashions wonderful trinkets
and playthings for rich folk all the world over, two-thirds of the French
peasantry have not proper lamps to give them light, or the implements
necessary for modern agriculture. Lastly, unproductive land, of which
there is plenty, would have to be turned to the best advantage, poor
soils enriched, and rich soils, which yet, under the present system, do
not yield a quarter, no, nor a tenth of what they might produce,
submitted to intensive culture and tilled with as much care as a market
garden or a flower plot. It is impossible to imagine any other practical
solution of the problem, and, whether we like it or not, sheer force of
circumstances will bring it to pass.
VI.
THE most prominent characteristic of capitalism is the wage system,
which in brief amounts to this:
A man, or a group of men, possessing the necessary capital, starts
some industrial enterprise; he undertakes to supply the factory or workshops with raw material, to organise production, to pay the employees
a fixed wage, and lastly to pocket the surplus-value or profits, under
pretext of recouping himself for managing the concern, for running the



16

Freedom  Pamphlets.

risks it may involve, and for the fluctuations of price in the market
value of the wares.
To preserve this system, those who now monopolise capital would be
ready to make certain concessions: to share, for example, a part of the
profits with the workers, or rather to establish a: sliding scale." which
would oblige them to raise wages when prices were high; in brief, they
would consent to certain sacrifices on condition that they were still
allowed to direct industry and to take its first fruits.
Collectivism, as we know, does not abolish wages, though it introduces
considerable modifications into the existing order of things. It only
substitutes the State, that is to say, Representative Government,
National or Local, for the individual employer of labor. Under collectivism, it is the representatives of the nation, or of the district, and
their deputies and officials, who are to have the control of industry. It
is they who reserve to themselves the right of employing the surplus of
production-in the interests of all. Moreover, Collectivism draws a very
subtle but very far-reaching distinction between the work of the laborer
and of the man who has learned a craft.    Unskilled labor in the eyes
of the Collectivist is simple labor, while the work of the craftsman, the
mechanic, the engineer, the man of science etc. is what Marx calls complex labor, and is entitled to a higher wage. But laborers and craftsmen,
weavers and men of science, are all wage-servants of the State-" all
officials," as has been said lately, to gild the pill.
The coming Revolution can render no greater service to humanity
than to make the wage system, in all its forms, an impossibility, and
to render Communism, which is the negation of wage-slavery, the only
possible solution.
For even admitting that the Collectivist modification of the present
system is possible, if introduced gradually during a period of prosperity
and peace-though for my part I question its practicability even under
such conditions-it would become impossible in a period of Revolution,
when the need of feeding hungry millions springs up with the first call
to arms.   A political revolution can be accomplished without shaking
the foundations of industry, but a revolution where the people lay
hands upon property will inevitably paralyse exchange and production.
Millions of public money would not suffice for wages to the millions of
out-o'-works.
This point cannot be too much insisted upon: the reorganisation of
industry on a new basis (and we shall presently show how tremendous
this problem is) cannot be accomplished in a few days, nor, on the other
hand, will the people submit to be half-starved for years in order to
oblige the theorists who uphold the wage-system.   To tide over the



Expropriation.

17

period of stress, they will demand what they have always demanded in
such cases-communisation of supplies-the giving of rations.
It will be in vain to preach patience. The people will be patient no
longer, and if food is not put in common they will plunder the bakeries.
If the people are not strong enough to carry all before them, they
will be shot down to give Collectivism a fair field for experiment. To
this end " order " must be maintained at any price-order, discipline,
obedience!   And as the capitalists will soon realise that when the
people are shot down by those who call themselves Revolutionists the
Revolution itself will become hateful in the eyes of the masses, they
will certainly lend their support to the champions of order-even though
they are Collectivists.  In such a line of conduct, the capitalists will
see a means of hereafter crushing the Collectivists in their turn. If
"' order is established " in this fashion, the consequences are easy to foresee. Not content with shooting down the " marauders," the faction of
" order " will search out the " ringleaders of the mob."  They will set
up again the law courts and reinstate the hangman. The most ardent
Revolutionists will be sent to the scaffold. It will be 1793 over again.
Do not let us forget how reaction triumphed in the last century.
First the " Hebertists," " the madmen," were guillotined-those whom
Mignet, with the memory of the struggle fresh upon him, still called
" Anarchists."  The Dantonists soon followed them; and when the
party of Robespierre had guillotined these Revolutionaries, they in their
turn had to mount the scaffold; whereupon the people, sick of bloodshed, and seeing the Revolution lost, threw up the sponge, and let the
reactionaries do their worst.
If " order is restored," we say, the Social Democrats will hang the
Anarchists; the Fabians will hang the Social Democrats, and will in
their turn be hanged by the reactionaries, and the Revolution will have
to be begun all over again.
But everything confirms us in the belief that the energy of the people
will carry them far enough, and that, when the Revolution takes place,
the idea of Anarchist Communism will have gained ground.     It is not
an artificial idea. The people themselves have breathed it in our ear, and
the number of Communists is ever increasing as the impossibility of
any other solution becomes more and more evident.
And if the impetus of the people is strong enough affairs will take a
very different turn. Instead of plundering the bakers' shops one day
and starving the next, the people of the insurgent cities will take
possession of the warehouses, the cattle markets, in fact of all the provision stores and of all the food to be had. The well-intentioned citizens,



18

Freedom Pamphlets.

men and women both, will form themselves into bands of volunteers,
and address themselves to the task of making a rough general inventory
of the contents of each shop and warehouse. In twenty-four hours the
revolted town or district will know what Paris has not found out yet,
in spite of the statistical commission, and what it never did find out
during the siege-the quantity of provisions it contains.   In fortyeight hours, millions of copies will be printed of the tables giving a
sufficiently exact account of the available food, the places where it is
stored, and the means of distribution.
In every block of houses, in every street, in every town ward, bands
of volunteers will have been organised. These commissariat volunteers
will work in unison and keep in touch with each other.   If only the
Jacobin bayonets do not get in the way; if only the self-styled " scientific " theorists do not thrust themselves in to darken counsel! Or rather
let them expound their muddle-headed theories as much as they like,
provided they have no authority, no power! And that admirable spirit
of organisation inherent in the people, above all in every social
grade of the French nation,* but which they have so seldom been
allowed to exercise, will initiate, even in so huge a city as Paris, and in
the midst of a Revolution, an immense guild of free workers, ready to
furnish to each and all the necessary food.
Give the people a free hand, and in ten days the food service will be
conducted with admirable regularity. Only those who have never seen
the people hard at work, only those who have passed their lives buried
among documents, can doubt it. Speak of the organising genius of the
" Great Misunderstood," the people, to those who have seen it in Paris
in the days of the barricades, or in London during the last great strike,
when half-a-million of starving folk had to be fed, and they will tell
you how superior it is to the official ineptness of Bumbledom,
And even supposing we had to endure a certain amount of discomfort
and confusion for a fortnight or a month; surely that would not matter
very much. For the mass of the people it could not but be an improveir.ent on their former condition, and, besides, in times of Revolution
one can dine contentedly enough on a bit of bread and cheese, while
eagerly discussing events.
In any case, a system which springs up spontaneously, under stress
of immediate need, will be infinitely preferable to anything invented
between four walls, by hide-bound theorists sitting on any number of
committees.
* Kropotkine is here supposing the Revolution to break out first in France.



Expropriatiovn.

19

VII.
THS people of the great towns will be driven by force of circumstances
to take possession of all the provisions, beginning with the barest necessaries, and gradually extending Communism to other things, in order
to satisfy the needs of all the citizens.
The sooner it is done the better; the sooner it is done the less misery
there will be and the less strife.
But upon what basis must society be organised in order tnat all may
share and share alike? That is the question that meets us at the outset.
We answer that there are no two ways. There is only one way
in which Communism can be established equitably, only one way which
satisfies our instincts of justice, and is at the same time practical,
namely, the system already adopted by the agrarian Communes of
Europe.
Take, for example, a peasant commune, no matter where, even in
France, where the Jacobins have done their best to destroy all communal usage. If the commune possesses woods and copses, for instance,
as long as brush-wood is plentiful, every one can take as much as
they want, without other let or hindrance than the public opinion of
their neighbors. As to the timber-trees, which are always scarce, they
have to be carefully apportioned.
The same with the communal pasture-land; while there is enough
and to spare, no limit is put to what the cattle of each homestead may
consume, nor to the number of beasts grazing upon the pastures.
Grazing grounds are not divided nor fodder doled out, unless there is
scarcity. All the Swiss communes, and many of those in France and
Germany also, wherever there is communal pasture-land, practice this
system.
And in the countries of Eastern Europe, where there are great forests
and no scarcity of land, you find the peasants felling the trees as they
need them, and cultivating as much of the soil as they require, without
any thought of limiting each man's share of timber or of land. But the
timber will be divided, and the land parcelled out, to each household
according to its needs, as soon as either becomes scarce, as is already
the case in Russia.
In a word, then, the system is this: no stint or limit to what the
community possesses in abundance, but equal sharing and dividing of
those commodities which are scarce or apt to run short. Of the 350
millions who inhabit Europe, 200 millions still follow this system of
natural communism.
It is a fact worth remarking that the same system prevails in the



20

Freedom   Pamphlets.

great towns in the distribution of one commodity at least, which is found
in abundance, the water supplied to each house.
As long as there is no fear of the supply running short, no water
company thinks of checking the consumption of water in each house.
Take what you please! In Paris during the great droughts if there is
any fear of supply failing, the water companies know that all they have
to do is to make known the fact, by means of a short advertisement in
the papers, and the citizens will reduce their consumption of water and
not let it run to waste.
But if water were actually scarce, what would be done? Recourse
would be had to a system of rations. Such a measure is so natural, so
inherent in common sense, that Paris twvice asked to be put on rations
during the two sieges which it supported in 1871.
Is it necessary to go into details, to prepare tables, showing how the
distribution of rations will work, to prove that it is just and equitable,
infinitely more just and equitable than the existing state of things? All
these tables and details will not serve to convince those of the middleclasses,
nor, alas, those of the workers tainted with middle-class prejudices, who
regard the people as a mob of savages ready to fall upon and devour
each other directly the government ceases to direct affairs. Only one
who has never seen the people'resolve and act on their own initiative
can doubt for a moment that if they were masters of the situation
they could and would distribute rations to each and all in strictest
accordance with justice and equity.
If you were to give utterance, in any gathering of people, to the
opinion that delicacies--game and such like-should be reserved for
the fastidious palates of aristocratic idlers, and black bread given to the
sick in the hospitals, you would be hissed. But say at the same gathering, preach at the street corners and in the market places, that the most
tempting delicacies ought to be kept for the sick and feeble-especially
for the sick. Say that if there are only five brace of partridge in the
whole of Paris, and only one case of sherry wine, they should go to
sick people and convalescents. Say that after the sick come the children. For them the milk of the cows and goats should be reserved if
there is not enough for all. To the children and the aged the last piece
of meat, and to the strong man dry bread, if the community be reduced
to that extremity.
Say, in a word, that if this or that article of consumption runs short,
and has to be doled out, to those who have most need most should be
given: say that and see if you do not meet with universal agreement.
The man who is full-fed does not understand this, but the people do
understand; have always understood it, and even the child of luxury,



Expropriation.

21

if he is thrown on the street and comes into contact with the masses,
even he will learn to understand.
The theorists-for whom the soldier's uniform and the barrack mess
table are civilisation's last word-would like no doubt to start a regime
of National Kitchens and " Spartan Broth."   They will point out the
advantages thereby gained, the economy in fuel and food if huge
kitchens were established where everyone could come for their rations
of soup and bread and vegetables.
We do not question these advantages. We are well aware that important economies have already been achieved in this direction-as for
instance when the handmill, or quern, and the baker's oven attached to
each house were abandoned. We can see perfectly well that it would
be more economical to cook broth for a hundred families at once, instead
of lighting a hundred separate fires. We know, besides, that there are
a thousand ways of doing up potatoes, but that cooked in one huge pot
for a hundred families they would be just as good.
We know, in fact, that variety in cooking is a matter of the seasoning introduced by each cook or housewife, the cooking together of a
hundred weight of potatoes would not prevent each cook or housewife
from dressing and serving them in any way she pleased. And we know
that stock made from meat can be converted into a hundred different
soups to suit a hundred different tastes.
But though we are quite aware of all these facts, we still maintain
that no one has a right to force the housewife to take her potatoes from
the communal kitchen ready cooked if she prefers to cook them herself
in her own pot on her own fire. And, above all, we should wish each
one to be free to take his meals with his family, or with his friends, or
even in a restaurant, if so it seemed good to him.
Naturally large public kitchens will spring up to take the place of
the restaurants, where people are poisoned now-a-days. Already the
Parisian housewife gets the stock for her soup from the butcher and
transforms it into whatever soup she likes, and London housekeepers
know that they can have a joint roasted, or an apple or rhubarb tart
baked at the bakers for a trifling sum, thus economising time and fuel.
And when the communal kitchen-the common bakehouse of the future
-is established, and people can get their food cooked without the risk
of being cheated or poisoned, the custom will no doubt become general
of going to the communal kitchen for the fundamental parts of the
meal, leaving the last touches to be added as individual taste shall suggest.
But to make a hard and fast rule of this, to make a duty of taking
home our food ready cooked, that would be as repugnant to our modern



22

Freedom Pamphlets.

minds as the ideas of the convent or the barrack, morbid ideas born in
brains warped by tyranny or superstition.
Who will have a right to the food of the commune, will assuredly
be the first question which we shall have to ask ourselves. Every township will answer it for itself, and we are convinced that the answers will
all be dictated by the sentiment of justice. Until labor is reorganised,
as long as the disturbed period lasts, and while it is impossible to distinguish between inveterate idlers and genuine workers thrown out of
work, the available food ought to be shared by all without exception.
Those who have been enemies to the new order will hasten of their own
accord to rid the commune of their presence. But it seems to us that
the people, who have always proved themselves magnanimous, and have
nothing of vindictiveness in their composition, will be ready to share
their bread with all who remain with them, conquered and conquerors
alike. It will be no loss to the Revolution to be inspired by such an ideal, and,
when work is set agoing again, the antagonists of yesterday will stand
side by side in the same workshops. A society where work is free will
have nothing to fear from idlers.
" But provisions will run short in a month," our critics at once
exclaim.
So much the better, we say. It will prove that for the first time on
record the people have had enough to eat. As to the means of keeping
up the supply of food, that is the very question we are going to attack
next.
VIII.
WE have now to consider by what means a city in a state of revolution
could supply itself with food. Before answering this question it should
be pointed out that obviously the means resorted to will depend on the
character of the revolution in the provinces, and in neighboring
countries. If the entire nation, or, better still, if all Europe should
accomplish the Social Revolution simultaneously, and start with thoroughgoing Communism, our procedure would be simplified; but if only a
tew communities in Europe make the attempt, other means will have to
be chosen. The circumstances will dictate the measures.
We are thus led, before proceeding further, to glance at the state of
Europe, and, without pretending to prophesy, we ought to be able to
foresee what course the Revolution will take, or at least what will be
its essential features.



Expropriation.

23

Certainly it would be very desirable that all Europe should rise at
once, that expropriation should be general, and that Communistic principles should inspire all and sundry, Such a universal rising would do
much to simplify the task of our century.
But all the signs lead us to believe that it will not take place. That
the Revolution will embrace Europe, we do not doubt. If one of the
four great continental capitals-Paris, Vienna, Brussels or Berlinrises in revolution and overturns its government, it is almost certain
that the three others will follow its example within a few weeks' time.
It is, moreover, highly probable that the Peninsulas and even London
and St. Petersburg would not be long in following suit.  But whether
the revolution would have everywhere the same character is quite
another question.
Though it is more than probable that expropriation will be everywhere carried into effect on a larger or smaller scale, and that this policy
carried out by anyone of the great nations of Europe will influence all
the rest, yet the beginnings of the Revolution will exhibit great local
differences, and its course will vary in different countries. In 1789 -1793, the French peasantry took four years to finally rid themselves of
the redemption of feudal rights, and the bourgeois to overthrow royalty.
Let us keep that in mind, therefore, and be prepared to see the Revolution develop itself somewhat gradually. Let us not be disheartened
if here and there its steps should move less rapidly. Whether it would
take an avowedly Socialist character in all European nations, at any rate
at the beginning, is doubtful. Germany, be it remembered, is still
realising its dream of a United Empire. Its advanced parties see visions
of a Jacobin Republic like that of 1848, and of the organisation of
labor according to Louis Blanc; while the French people, on the other
hand, want above all things a free Commune, whether it be a Communist Commune or not.
That, when the coming Revolution takes place, Germany will go
further than France, there is every reason to believe. The middle-class
Revolution in France in the eighteenth century was an advance on the
English Revolution of the seventeenth, abolishing as it did at once the
power of the throne and of the landed aristocracy, whose influence still
survives in England. But, if Germany goes further and does greater
things than the France of 1848, there can be no doubt that the ideas
which will foster the birth of the Revolution will be those of 1848, as
the ideas which will inspire the Revolution in Russia will be those of
1789, modified somewhat by the intellectual movements of our own
century.
Without, however, attaching to these forecasts a greater importance
than they merit, we may safely conclude this much: the Revolution



24

24                  Freedom   PaunpI~lets.

will take a different character in each of the diffierent European nations,%
the point attained in the socia-lisation of wealth will not he everywhere
the same.
Will it therefore be necessary, as is sometimes suggested, that the
nations in the vanguard of the movement should adapt their pace to
those who lagr behind? Must we wait till the Communist Revolution
is ripe in all civilised countries? Clearly not! Even if it were a
thing to be desired it is not possible. History does not wait for the
laggards.
Besides, we do not believe that in any one country the Revolution
will be accomplished at a stroke, in the twinkling of an eye, as some
Socialists dream. It is highly probable that if one of the five or six
large towns of France-Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Lille, Saint Etienne,
Bordeaux-were to proclaim the Commune, the others would follow its
example, and that many smaller towns would do the same. Probably
also various mining districts and industrial centres would hasten to rid
themselves of "1owners " and "1masters," and form themselves into free
groups.
But many country places have not advanced to that point. Side by
side with the revolutionised communes such places would remain in an
expectant attitude and would go or' living on the Individualist system.
Undisturbed by visits of the bailiff or the tax-collector, the peasants
would not be hostile to the revolutionaries, and thus, while, profiting by
the new state of affairs, they would defer the settlement of accounts
with the local exploiters. But with that practical enthusiasm which
always characterises, agrarian uprisings (witness the passionate toil of
1792) they would throw themselves into the task of cultivating the
land, which, freed from taxes and mortgages, would become so much
dearer to them.
As to foreign countries, there would be Revolution everywhere, but
Revolution under various aspects; here State Socialism, there Federation; everywhere more or less of Socialism, but uniformity nowhere.
Ix.
LET us now return to our city in revolt and consider how its folk are
to be fed. How are the necessary provisions to be obtained if the
nation as a whole has not accepted Communism? That is the question
to be solved. Take for example one of the large French towns-take
the capital itself, for that matter.  Paris consumes every year
thousands of tons of grain, 350,000 head of oxen, 200,000 calves,
%-~,000 swine, and more than two millions of sheep, besides great



Expropriation.                       20
quantities of game. This huge city devours, besides, eighteen million
pounds of butter, 172 million eggs, and other produce in like proportion,
It imports flour and grain from the United States and from Russia.
Hungary, Italy, Egypt and the Indies; live stock from Germany, Italy,
Spain-even Roumania and Russia; and, as for groceries, there is not a
country in the world that it does not lay under contribution. Now, let
us see how Paris or anyother great town could be revictualled by homegrown produce, supplies of which would be readily and willingly sent in
from the provinces.
To those who put their trust in "authority " the question will appear
quite simple. They would begin by establishing a strongly centr:lised
government, furnished with all the machinery of coercion: the police,.
the army, the guillotine. This government would draw up a statement of all the produce contained in France. It would divide tih
country into districts of supply, and then comm9and that a prescribed
quantity of some particular food stuff be sent to such a place on such a
day, and delivered at such a station, to be there received on a given
day by a specified official and stored in particular warehouses..Now, we declare with the fullest conviction, not merely that such a
solution is undesirable, but that it never could by any possibility be
put into practice. It is wildly utopian!
Pen in hand, one may dream such a dream in the study, but in contact with reality it comes to nothing; for, like all such theories, it leaves
out of account the spirit of independence that is in man. The attempt
would lead to a universal uprising, three or four vendees in one, the
villages warring against the towns, all France up in arms defying the
city for its arrogance in attempting to impose such a system upon the
country.
But enough of Jacobin utopias! Let us see if some other form of
organisation will fit the case.
In 1793 the provinces starved the large towns, and killed out the
Revolution. And yet it is a known fact that the production of grain
in France during 1792-93 had not diminished, indeed the evidence goes
to show that it had increased. But after having taken possession of
the manorial lands, after having reaped a harvest from them, the
peasants would not part with their grain for paper-money. They withheld their produce, waiting for a rise in the price, or the introduction
of gold. The most rigorous measures of the National Convention were
without avail, and even the fear of death failed to break up the ring
or force its members to sell their corn. For it is matter of history that
the district commissaries did not scruple to guillotine those who withheld their grain from the market, and the populace of Paris strung



26

Freedom Pamphlets.

them up to the lamp-posts at the street corners. All the same the corn
was not forthcoming and the towns-folk suffered from famine.
But what was offered to the husbandman in exchange for the fruit
of his toil? Assignats, scraps of paper decreasing in value every day,
nominal ~20 notes of no real worth! A ~40 note would not purchase
a pair of boots, and the peasant, very naturally, was not anxious to
barter a year's toil for a piece of paper with which he could not even
buy a blouse.
As long as worthless paper-money-whether called assignats or labor
notes-is offered to the peasant-producer it will always be the same.
The country will withhold its produce, and the towns will suffer want,
even if the recalcitrant peasants are drowned and guillotined as before.
We must offer to the peasant in exchange for his toil not worthless
paper-money, but the manufactured articles of which he stands in
immediate need. He lacks the proper implements to till the land,
clothes to protect him properly from the inclemencies of the weather,
lamps and oil to replace his miserable rushlight or tallow dip, spades,
rakes, ploughs. All these things, under present conditions, the peasant
is forced to do without, not because he does not feel the need of them,
but because, in his life of struggle and privation, a thousand useful
things are beyond his reach; because he has no money to buy them.
Let the town apply itself, without loss of time, to manufacturing all
that the peasant needs, instead of fashioning gewgaws for the wives of
rich citizens. Let the sewing machines of Paris be set to work on
clothes for the country folk: work-a-day clothes and clothes for Sunday too, instead of making wedding outfits; let the factories and
foundries turn out agricultural implements, spades, rakes, and such
like, instead of waiting till the English send them in exchange for
Frencn wines!
Let the towns send no more inspectors to the villages with red, blue,
or rainbow-colored scarves, to convey to the peasant orders to take
his produce to this place or that, but let them send friendly embassies
to the country folk and bid them in brotherly fashion: " Bring us your
produce, and take from our stores and shops all the manufactured
articles you please." Then provisions would pour in on every side.
The peasant would only withhold what he needed for his own use, and
would send the rest into the cities, feelingfor the first time in the course
of history, that these toiling townsfolk were his comrades-his brethren,
and not his exploiters.
We shall be told, perhaps, that this would necessitate a complete
transformation of industry. Well, yes, that is true of certain depart


L4 propriation.

2v

meuts; but there are other branches which could be rapidly modified
in such a way as to furnish the peasant with clothes, watches, furniture, and the simple implements for which the towns make him pay
such exorbitant prices at the present time. Weavers, tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths, cabinet-makers, and many other trades and crafts
could easily direct their energies to the manufacture of useful and
necessary articles, and abstain from producing mere luxuries. All
that is needed is that the public mind should be thoroughly convinced
of the necessity of this transformation, and should come to look upon
it as an act of justice and of progress, and that it should no longer
allow itself to be cheated by that dream so de-ar to the theorists-the
dream of a revolution confining itself to taking possession of the profits
of indu.stry, and leaving production and commerce just as they are now.
This, then, is our view of the whole question. Cheat the peasant no
longer with scraps of paper-be the sums inscribed upon them ever so
large; but offer him in exchange for his produce the very things of
which he, the tiller of the soil, stands in need. Then the fruits of the
land will be poured into the towns. If this is not done there will be
famine in our cities, and reaction and despair will follow in its train.
X.
ALL the great towns, we have said, buy their grain, their flour, and
their meat not only from the provinces, but also from abroad. Foreign
countries send Paris spices, fish and various dainties, besides immense
quantities of corn and meat.
But when the Revolution comes we must depend on foreign countries as little as possible. If Russian wheat, Italian or Indian rice,
and Spanish or Hungarian wines abound in the markets of western
Europe, it is not that the countries which export them have a superabundance, or    that such produce grows there of itself, like the
dandelion in the meadows. In Russia, for instance, the peasant works
sixteen hours a day, and half-starves from three to six months every
year in order to export the corn with which he pays the landlord and
the State. To-day the police appears in the Russian village as soon as
the harvest is gathered in, and sells the peasant's last horse and last
cow for arrears of taxes and rent due to the landlord, unless the victim
immolates himself of his own accord by selling the corn to the exporters.  Usually, rather than part with his live stock at a disadvantage,
he keeps Only nine months' supply of grain, and sells the rest. Then,
in order to sustain life until the next harvest, he mixes birch-bark and,



28

Freedom  Pamphlets.

tares with his flour for three months, if it has been a good year, and
for six if it has been bad, while in London they are eating biscuits
made of his wheat.
But as soon as the Revolution comes the Russian peasant will keep
bread enough for himself and his children, the Italian and Hungarian
peasants will do the same, and the Hindoo, let us hope, will profit by
these good examples, as well as the workers on the Bonanza-farms of
America, if indeed these domains are not immediately disorganised by
the crisis. So it will not do to count on contributions of wheat and
maize coming from abroad.
Since all our middle-class civilisation is based on the exploitation of
inferior races and countries with less advanced industrial systems, the
Revolution will confer a boon at the very outset, by menacing that
" civilisation," and allowing so-called inferior races to free themselves.
But this great benefit will manifest itself by a steady and marked
diminution of the food supplies pouring into the great cities of western
Europe.
It is difficult to predict the course of affairs in the provinces. On
the one hand the slave of the soil will take advantage of the Revolution to straighten his bowed back. Instead of working fourteen or
fifteen hours a day, as he does at present, he will be at liberty to work
only half that time, which of course would have the effect of decreasing
the production of the principal articles of consumption, grain and meat.
But, on the other hand, there will be an increase of production as
soon as the peasant realises that he is no longer forced to support the
idle rich by his toil. New tracts of land will be cleared, new and improved machines set agoing.
" Never was the land so energetically cultivated as in 1792, when the
peasant had taken back from the landlord the soil which he had coveted
so long," Michelet tells us, speaking of the Great Revolution.
Before long, intensive culture would be within the reach of all. Improved machinery, chemical manures, and all such matters would be
common property. But everything tends to indicate that at the outset
there would be a falling off in agricultural products, in France as elsewhere.
In any case it would be wisest to count upon such a falling off of
contributions from the provinces as well as from abroad.
And how is this falling off to be made good? Why, in heaven's
name, by setting to work ourselves! No need to rack our brains for
far-fetched panaceas when the remedy lies close at hand!



Expropriation.                        2c
The large towns must undertake to till the soil, like the country districts. We must return to what biology calls "the integration of
functions ": after the division of labor the integration-that is the
plan followed all through Nature.
Besides, philosophy apart, the force of circumstances would bring
about this result. Let Paris see at the end of eight months that it is
running short of corn, and Paris will set to work to grow corn.
Is land the difficulty? That will not be wanting, for it is round the
great towns, and round Paris especially, that the parks and pleasure
grounds of the landed gentry are' to be found. These thousands of
acres only await the skilled labor of the husbandman to surround Paris
with fields infinitely more fertile and productive then the steppes of
southern Russia, where the soil is dried up by the sun. Nor will labor
be lacking. To what do you suppose will the two million citizens of
Paris turn their attention, when they are longer catering for the luxurious fads and amusements of Russian princes, Roumanian grandees,
and wives of Berlin financiers?
With all the mechanical inventions of the century, with all the
intelligence and technical skill of the workers accustomed to deal with.
complicated machinery: with inventors, chemists, botanists, the professors of the Jardin des plante and the market gardeners of Gennevilliers,.
besides the plant necessary for multiplying and improving machinery,
and, finally, with the organising spirit of the Parisian people, their
pluck and energy-with all these at its command, the agriculture of
the Anarchist Commune of Paris would be a very different thing from
the rude husbandry of the Ardennes.
Steam, electricity, the heat of the sun, and the breath of the wind,
will ere long be pressed into service. The steam harrow and the steam
plough will quickly do the rough work of preparation, and the soil thus
cleaned and enriched will only need the intelligent care of man, and of
woman even more than man, to be clothed with luxuriant vegetation,
not once but three or four times in the year.
Thus, learning the art of horticulture from experts, and trying experiments in different methods on small patches of soil reserved for the
purpose, vying with each other to obtain the best returns, finding in
physical exercise, without exhaustion or overwork, the health and
strength which so often flags in cities, men, women and children will
gladly turn to the labor of the fields, when it is no longer a slavish
drudgery, but has become a pleasure, a festival, a renewal of health
and joy.
" There are no barren lands; the earth is worth what man is worth"
--that is the last word of modern agriculture. Ask of the earth and
she will give you bread, provided that you ask aright.



s30                    F1eedom Pamphlets.
A district, though it were as small as the departments of the Seine
and the Seine-et-Oise, and with so great a city as Paris to feed, would
be practically sufficient to fill the gaps which the Revolution had made
around it.
The combination of agriculture and industry, the husbandmnan a.d
the mechanic one and the same individual-this is what Anarchist
Communnism will inevitably lead us to, if it starts fair with expropriation.
Let the Revolution only get so far, and famine is not the enemy it
will have to fear. No, the danger which will menace it lies in timidity,
prejudice, and half-measures. The danger is where Danton saw it
when he cried to France: " Be bold, be bold, and yet again, be bold!"
The bold thought first, and the bold deed will not fail to follow.
XI.
THosE who have watched at all closely the growth of certain ideas among
the workers must have noticed that on one momentous question-the
housing of the people, namely-a unanimous conclusion has been
insensibly arrived at. It is a known fact that in the large towns of
France, and in many of the smaller ones also, the workers are coming
gradually to the conclusion that dwelling houses are in no sense the
property of those whom the State recognises as their owners.
This idea has evolved naturally in the minds of the people, and
nothing will ever convince them again that the " rights of property"
ought to extend to houses.
The house was not built by its owner. It was erected, decorated and
furnished by innumerable workers, in the timber yard, the brick field,
and the workshop, toiling for dear life at an inadequate wage.
The money spent by the owner was not the product of his own toil.
It was amassed, like all other riches, by paying the workers two-thirds
or only a half of what was their due.
Moreover-and it is here that the enormity of the whole proceeding
becomes most glaring-the house owes its actual value to the profit
which the owner can make out of it. Now, this profit results from
the fact that his house is built in a town     possessing  bridges,
quays and fine public buildings, and affording to its inhabitants a
thousand comforts and conveniences unknown in villages; a town paved
and lighted with gas, in regular communication with other towns, and
itself a centre of industry, commerce, science and art; a town which
the work of twenty or thirty generations has gone to render habitable,
healthy and beautiful.



Expropiation.

31

A house in certain parts of Paris may be valued at thousands of
pounds sterling, not because thousands of pounds' worth of labor have
been expended on that particular house, but because it is in Paris;
because for centuries workmen, artists, thinkers and men of learning
and letters have contributed to make Paris what it is to-day-a centre
of industry, commerce, politics, art and science; because Paris has a
past; because, thanks to literature, the names of its streets are household words in foreign countries as well as at home; because it is the
fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work of fifty generations of the
whole French nation.
Who then can appropriate to himself the tiniest plot of ground, or
the meanest building, without committing a flagrant injustice? Who
then has the right to sell to any bidder the smallest portion of the
common heritage?
On that point, as we have said, the workers are agreed. The idea of
free dwellings showed its existence very plainly during the siege of
Paris, when   the cry   was that the landlords should     remit the
rent  altogether.   It  appeared  again   durina the Commune of
1871, when the Paris workmen expected the Comm-.nal Council to
decide boldly on the abolition of rent. And when the New Revolution
comes it will be the first question with which the poor will concern
themselves.
Whether in time of Revolution or in time of peace, theworker must
be housed somehow or other: he must have some sort of roof over his
head. But, however tumble-down and squalid your dwelling may be,
there is always a landlord who can evict you. True, during the Revolution he cannot find bailiffs and police-sergeants to throw your ragsand chattels into the street, but who knows what the new government
will do to-morrow? Who can say that it will not call in the aid of
force again, and set the police pack upon you to hound you out of your
hovels?   We have seen the Commune proclaim the remission of rents
due up to the 1st of April only! * After that rent had to be paid, though
Paris was in a state of chaos and industry at a standstill, so that the
revolutionist had absolutely nothing to depend on but his allowance of
fifteen pence a day!
Now the worker must be made to see clearly that in refusing to pay
rent to a landlord or owner he is not simply profiting by the disorganisation of authority. He must understand that the abolition of rent is
a recognised principle, sanctioned, so to speak, by popular assent; that
to be housed rent-free is a right proclaimed aloud by the people.
*The decree of the 30th March: by this decree rents due up to October,
1870, and January and April, 1871, quarters were remitted.



52

Freedom  Pamphlets.

Are we going to wait till this measure, which is in harmony with
-every honest man's sense of justice, is taken up by the few Socialists
scattered among the middle-class elements, of which the provisionary
government will be composed? We should have to wait long-till the
return of reaction, in fact!
That is why, refusing uniforms and badges-those outward signs of
authority and servitude-and renmining people among the people, the
earnest revolutionists will work side by side with the masses that the
abolition of rent, the expropriation of houses, may become an accomplished fact. Thev will prepare the soil and encourage ideas to grow in
this direction, and when the fruit of their labors is ripe the people will
proceed to expropriate the houses without giving heed to the theories
which will certainly be thrust in their way-theories about paying
compensation to landlords, and suchlike ineptities.
On the day that the expropriation of houses takes place, on that
day, the exploited workers will have realised that the new times have
come, that they will no longer have to bear the yoke of the rich and
powerful, that Equality has been proclaimed on the house-tops in very
truth, that this revolution is a real fact, and not a theatrical makebelieve, like too many others which went before.
XII.
IF the idea of expropriation be adopted by the people it will be carried
into effect in spite of all the " unsurmountable" obstacles with which
we are menaced.
Of course the good folk in new uniforms, seated in the official armchairs of the Hotel de Ville, will be sure to busy themselves in heaping
up obstacles. They will talk of giving compensation to the landlords,
of preparing statistics, and drawing up long reports. Yes, they would
be capable of drawing up reports long enough to outlast the hopes of
the people, who, after waiting and starving in enforced idleness, and
seeing nothing come of all these official researches, would lose heart and
faith in the Revolution and abandon the field to the reactionaries. The
new bureaucracy would end by making expropriation hateful in the
eyes of all.
Here, indeed, is a rock which might shipwreck our hopes. But it
the people turn a deaf ear to the specious arguments used to dazzle
them and realise that new life needs new conditions, and if they unrdertake the task themselves, then expropriation can be effected wLthouT
any great difficulty.
" But how? How can expropriation be achieved? " you ask us.



Expro2rniation.

33

We are e alout to reply to that question, but with a reservation. We
1tave!1o inteintion of tracilng out the plans of expropriation in their
smallest details. We know beforehand t-hat all that any man, or group
of men, could suggest to-day would be far surpassed by the reality
whell it. comes. The human spirit will accomplish greater things, and
1cc(.,nllelisli them better and in a simpler way than any one could dictate
Ibeforeoland(. Tlius we are content to indicate the methods by which
Axl'ropri; tion  iyjuht be accomplished without the intervention of govern-,ment. We do not propose to go out of our way to answer those who
lecclaL'e that the thing is impossible. We confine ourselves to replying
-,hat we are not the upholders of any particular method of organisation.
We are only concerned to demonstrate that expropriation could be
eff'ected by popular initiative, and could not be effected by any other,means whatever.
It seetms very likely that, as soon as expropriation is fairly started,
gr.ouips of volunteers will spring up in every district, street, and block
of houses, and undertake to enquire into the number of flats and houses
which are empty and of those which are overcrowded, the unwholsome
sliums and the houses which are too spacioius for their occutpants, and
might well be used to house those who are stifled in swarming tenements. In a few days, these volunteers would have drawn up complete
lists for the street and the district, of all the flats, tenements, family
mansions and villa residences, all the rooms and suites of rooms, healthy
and unhealthy, small and large, fcetid dens and homes of luxury.
Freely communicating with each other, these volunteers would soon
have their statistics complete. False statistics can be manufactured in
board rooms and offices, but true and exact statistics must begin
with the individual, and mount up from the simple to the complex.
Then, without waiting for any one's leave, those citizens will probably go and find their comrades who were living in miserable garrets
and hovels and will say to them simply: " It is a real Revolution this
time, comrades, and no mistake about it. Come to such a place this,evening; all the neighborhood will be there; we are going to re-distribute the dwelling houses. If you are tired of your slum-garret come
-and choose one of the flats of five rooms that are to be disposed of, and
when you have once moved in you shall stay, never fear. The people
are up in arms, and he who would venture to evict you will have to
answer to them."
" But every one will want a fine house or a spacious flat! " we are
told. No, you are mistaken. It is not the people's way to clamour for
the moon. On the contrary, everytime we have seen them set about



34

Freedom Pampi)lets.

repairing a wrong we have been struck by the good sense and instinct
for justice which animate the masses. Have we ever known them
demand the impossible?  Have we ever seen the people of Paris fighting among themselves while waiting for their rations of breaa or
firewood during the two sieges?  The patience and resignation whicn
prevailed among them was constantly held up to admiration by the
foreign Press correspondents, and yet these patient waiters knew full
well that the last comers would have to pass the day without food or
fire.
We do not deny that there are plenty of egoistic instincts in isolated
individuals in our societies. We are quite aware of it. But we contend that the very way to revive and nourish these instincts would be
to confine such questions as the housing of the people to any board or
committee, fn fact to the tender mercies of officialism in any shape or
form. Then indeed all the evil passions spring up, and it becomes a
case of who is the most influential person on the board. The least
inquality causes wranglings and recriminations, If the smallest advatage is given to any one a tremendous hue and cry is raised-and not
without reason!
But if the people themselves, organised by streets, districts and
parishes, undertake to move the inhabitants of the slums into the halfempty dwellings of the middle classes, the trifling inconveniences, the little
inequalities will be easily tided over. Rarely has appeal been made to
the good instincts of the masses-only as a last resort, to save the sinking ship in times of revolution-but never has such an appeal been
made in vain; the heroism, the self devotion, of the toiler has never
failed to respond to it. And thus it will be in the coming Revolution.
But when all is said and done, some inequalities, some inevitable
injustices will remain. There are individuals in our societies whom no
great crisis can lift out of the deep ruts of egoism in which they are
sunk. The question, however, is not whether there will be injustices
or no, but rather how to limit the number of them.
Now all history, all the experience of the human race, and all social
psychology, unite in showing that the best and fairest way is to trust
the decision to those whom it concerns most nearly. It is they alone
who can consider and allow for the hundred and one details which
must necessarily be overlooked in any merely official redistribution.



Expropriation.

35

XIII.
MOREOVER, it is by no means necessary to make straightway an absolutely equal redistribution of all the dwellings. There will no doubt b,
-some inconveniences at first, but matters will soon be righted in a society
which has adopted expropriation.
When the masons, and carpenters, and all who are concerned in house
building, know that their daily bread is secured to them, they will ask
nothing better than to work at their old trades a few hours a day.
They will adapt the fine houses which absorbed the time of a whole staff
of servants, and in a few months homes will have sprung up, infinitely
healthier and more conveniently arranged than those of to-day. And
to those who are not yet comfortably housed the Anarchist Commune
will be able to say: " Patience comrades! Palaces fairer and finer than
any the capitalists built for themselves will spring from the ground of
our enfranchised city. They will belong to those who have most need
of them. The Anarchist Commune does not build with an eye to
revenues. These monuments erected to its citizens, products of the
collective spirit, will serve as models to all humanity, they will be yours."
If the people of the Revolution expropriate the houses and proclaim
free lodgings, the   communalising of houses and the right of
each family to a decent dwelling, then the Revolution will have
assumed a Communistic character from the first, and started on a course
from which it will be by no means easy to turn it. It will have struck
a fatal blow at individual property.
For the expropriation of dwellings contains in germ the whole social
revolution. On the manner of its accomplishment depends the character of all that follows. Either we shall start on a good road leading
straight to Anarchist Communism or we shall remain sticking in the
mud of despotic individualism.
It is easy to see the numerous objections, theoretic on the one hand,
practical on the other, with which we are sure to be met. As it will
be a question of maintaining iniquity at any price, our opponents will of
course protest "in the name of justice."  "Is it not a crying shame,"
they will exclaim, " that the people of Paris should take possession of
all these fine houses, while the peasants in the country have only tumbledown huts to live in?" But do not let us make a mistake. These
enthusiasts for justice forget, by a lapse of memory to which they are
subject, the " crying shame" which they themselves are tacitly defending. They forget that in this same Paris the worker, with his wife
and children, suffocates in a noisome garret, while from his window he



36

Freedom Pamphlets.

sees the rich man's palace. They forget that whole generations perish
in crowded slums, starving for air and sunlight, and that to redress this
injustice ought to be the first task of the Revolution.
Do not let these disingenuous protests hold us back. We know that
any inequality which may exist between town and country in the early
days of the Revolution will be transitory and of a nature to right itself
from day to day; for the village will not fail to improve its dwellings
as soon as the peasant has ceased to be the beast of burden of the
farmer, the merchant, the money-lender and the State. In order to
avoid an accidental and transitory inequality, shall we stay our hand
from righting an ancient wrong?
The so-called practical objections are not very formidable either. We
are bidden to consider the hard case of some poor fellow who by dint of
privation has contrived to buy a house just large enough to hold his
family. And we are going to deprive him of his hard-earned happiness
to turn him into the street! Certainly not. If his house is only ju;st
large enough for his family, by all means let him stay there. Let him
work in his little garden too; our " boys" will not hinder him--nay,
they will lend him a helping hand if need be. But suppose he lets
lodgings, suppose he has empty rooms in his house, the people will
make the lodger understand that he is not to pay his former
landlord any more rent. Stay where you are, but rent free. No
more duns and collectors,Socialism has abolished all that!
Or egain, suppose that the landlord has a score of rooms all to himself and some poor woman lives near by with five children in one room.
In that case the people would see whether, with some alterations, these
empty rooms could not be converted into a suitable home for the poor
woman and her five children. Would not that be more just and fair
than to leave the mother and her five little one languishing in a garret,
while Sir Gorgeous Midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion? Besides,
good Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord;
his wife will be delighted to be freed from half her big unwieldy house
when there is no longer a staff of servants to keep it in order.
" So you are going to turn everything upside down, it seems, and set
everybody by the ears. There will be no end to the evictions and flittings. Would it not be better to start fresh by turning everybody out
of doors and redistributing the houses by lot? "  Thus our critics; but
we answer we are firmly persuaded that if only there is no sort of
government interference in the matter, if all the changes are entrusted
to those free groups which have sprung up to undertake the work, the
evictions and removals will be less numerous than those which take place



Expropriation.

37

in one year under the present system, owing to the rapacity of landlords.
In the first place, there are in all large towns almost enough empty houses
and flats to lodge all the inhabitants of the slums. As to the palaces
and suites of fine apartments, many workitig people would not live in
them if they could. One could not "keep up " such houses without a
large staff of servants. Their occupants would soon find themselves
forced to seek less luxurious dwellings. The fine ladies would find that
palaces were not well adapted to self-help in the kitchen. Gradually
people would shake down. There would be no need to conduct Dives
to a garret at the bayonet's point, or install Lazarus in Dives's palace by
the help of an armed escort. People would shake down amicably into
the available dwellings with the least possible friction and disturbance.
Have we not the example of the village communes redistributing fields
and  disturbing  the owners of the allotments so little that one
can only praise the intelligence and good sense of the methods they
employ.   Fewer fields change hands under the management of the
Russian Commune than where personal property holds sway and is for
ever carrying its quarrels into courts of law. And are we to believe
that the inhabitants of a great European city would be less intelligent
and less capable of organisation than Russian or Hindoo peasants?
Moreover, we must not blink the fact that every Revolution means
a certain disturbance to every-day life, and those who expect this tremendous lift out of the old grooves to be accomplished without so much
as jarring the dishes on their dinner tables will find themselves mistaken.
It is true that governments can change without disturbing worthy
citizens at dinner, but the crimes of society towards those who have
nourished and supported it are not to be redressed by any such political
sleight of parties.
Undoubtedly there will be a disturbance, but it must not be of pure destruction; it must be minimised. And again-it is impossible to lay too much
stress on this maxim-it will be by addressing ourselves to the interested
parties, and not to boards and committees, that we shall best succeed
in reducing the sum of iuconveniences for everybody.
The people commit blunder on blunder when they have to choose by
ballot some hare-brained candidate who solicits the honor of representing them, and takes upon himself to know all, to do all, and to organise
all. But when they take upon themselves to organise what they know,
what touches them directly, they do it better than all the "talkingshops " put together. Is not the Paris Commune an instance in point,
and the last London strike, and have we not constant evidence of this
fact in every village commune?



38

Freedom PamphAm.

XIV.
WHEN the houses have become the common heritage of the citizens, and
when each man has his daily rations of food, another forward step will
have to be taken. The question of clothing will of course demand consideration next, and again the only possible solution will be to take
possession, in the name of the people, of all the shops and warehouses
where clothing is sold or stored, and to throw open the doors to all, so
that each can take what he needs. The communalisation of clothingthe right of each to take what he needs from the communal stores, or
to have it made for him at the tailors and outfitters-is a necessary
corollary of the communalisation of houses and food.
Obviously, we shall not need, for that, to despoil all citizens of their
coats, to put all the garments in a heap and draw lots for them, as our
critics, with equal wit and ingenuity, suggest. Let him who has a coat
keep it still--nay, if he have ten coats it is highly improbable that any
one will want to deprive him of them, for most folk would prefer a new
coat to one that has already graced the shoulders of some fat bourgeois:
and there will be enough new garments and to spare without having
recourse to second-hand wardrobes.
If we were to take an inventory of all the clothes and stuff for clothiig accumulated in the shops and stores of the large towns, we should
find probably that in Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Marseilles there was
enough to enable the commune to offer garments to all the citizens, of
both sexes; and if all were not suited at once the communal outfitters
would soon make good these shortcomings. We know how rapidly our
great tailoring and dressmaking establishmnents work now-a-days, provided as they are with machinery specially adapted for production on a
large scale.
"But every one will want a sable-lined coat or a velvet gown 1"
exclaim our adversaries.
Frankly, we do not believe it. Every woman does not dote on velvet,
nor does every man dream of sable linings. Even now, if we were to
ask each woman to choose her gown, we should find some to prefer a
simple, practical garment to all the fantastic trimmings the fashionable
world affects.
Tastes change with the times, and the fashions in vogue at the time
of the Revolution will certainly make for simplicity. Societies, like
individuals, have their hours of cowardice, but also their heroic moments;
and though the society of to-day cuts a very poor figure sunk in the
puisuit of narrow personal interests and second-rate ideas, it wears a
different air when great crises come. It has its moments of greatness
and enthusiasm. Men of generous nature will gain the power which



Expropriation.

39

to-day is in the hand of jobbers. Self-devotion will spring up, and
noble deeds beget their like; even the egoists will think shame to hang
back, and will be drawn in self's despite to admire, if not to imitate,
the generous and brave.
The great Revolution of 1793 abounds in examples of this kind, and
it is ever during such times of spiritual revival-as natural to societies
as to individuals-that the spring-tide of enthusiasm sweeps humanity
onwards.
We do not wish to exaggerate the part played by such noble passions,
nor is it upon them that we would found our ideal of society. But we
are not asking too much if we expect their aid in tiding over the first
and most difficult moments. We cannot hope that our daily life will
be continuously inspired by such exalted enthusiasms, but we may
expect their aid at the first, and that is all we need.
It is just to wash the earth clean, to sweep away the shards and
refuse accumulated by centuries of slavery and oppression, that the new
Anarchist society will have need of this wave of brotherly love. Later
on it can exist without appealing to the spirit of self-sacrifice, because
it will have eliminated oppression and thus created a new world, instinct
with all the feelings of solidarity.
Besides, should the character of the Revolution be such as we have
sketched here, the free initiative of individuals would find an extensive
field of action in thwarting the efforts of the egoists. Groups would
spring up in every street and quarter to undertake the charge of the
clothing. They would make inventories of all that the city possessed,
and would find out approximately what were the resources at their disposal. It is more than likely that in the matter of clothing the citizens
wouid adopt the same principle as in the matter of provisions-that is
to say, they would offer freely from the common store everything which
was to be found in abundance, and dole out whatever was limited in
quantity.
Not being able to offer to each man a sable-lined coat, and to every
woman a velvet gown, society would probably distinguish between the
superflous and the necessary, and, provisonally at least, class sable and
velvet among the superfluities of life, ready to let time prove whether
what is a luxury to-day may not become common to all to-morrow.
While the necessary clothing would be guaranteed to each inhabitant
of the Anarchist city, it would be left to private beneficence to provide
for the sick and feeble those things provisionally considered as luxuries,
to procure for the less robust such special articles as would not enter
into the daily consumption of ordinary citizens.



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