Majorities & Minorities, and other essays
By Errico Malatesta
(from MALATESTA: LIFE AND IDEAS,
Verne Richards' ed.)
(London: Freedom Press, 1965)
MAJORITIES AND MINORITIES
We do not recognize the right of the majority to impose the law on
the minority, even if the will of the majority in somewhat complicated
issues could really be ascertained. The fact of having the majority on
one's side does not in any way prove that one must be right. Indeed,
humanity has always advanced through the initiative and efforts of
individuals and minorities, whereas the majority, by its very nature, is
slow, conservative, submissive to superior force and to established
privileges.
But if we do not for one moment recognize the right of majorities to
dominate minorities, we are even more opposed to domination of the
majority by a minority. It would be absurd to maintain that one is right
because one is in a minority. If at all times there have been advanced
and enlightened minorities, so too have there been minorities which were
backward and reactionary; if there are human beings who are exceptional,
and ahead of their times, there are also psychopaths, and especially are
there apathetic individuals who allow themselves to be unconsciously
carried on the tide of events.
In any case it is not a question of being right or wrong; it is a
question of freedom, freedom for all, freedom for each individual so long
as he does not violate the equal freedom of others. No one can judge with
certainty who is right and who is wrong, who is closer to the truth and
which is the best road to the greatest good for each and everyone.
Experience through freedom is the only means to arrive at the truth and
the best solutions; and there is no freedom if there is not the freedom
to be wrong.
In our opinion, therefore, it is necessary that majority and minority
should succeed in living together peacefully and profitably by mutual
agreement and compromise, by the intelligent recognition of the practical
necessities of communal life and of the usefulness of concessions which
circumstances make necessary.
As well as their reason and experience telling them that in spite of
using all the alchemy of elections and parliament one always ends up by
having laws which represent everything but the will of the majority,
anarchists do not recognize that the majority as such, even if it were
possible to establish beyond all doubt what it wanted, has the right to
impose itself on the dissident minorities by the use of force.
Apart from these considerations, there always exists the fact that in
a capitalist regime, in which society is divided into rich and poor, into
employers and employees whose next meal depends on the absolute power of
the boss, there cannot be really free elections.
REFORMISM
The fundamental error of the reformists is that of dreaming of
solidarity, a sincere collaboration, between masters and servants,
between proprietors and workers which even if it might have existed here
and there in periods of profound unconsciousness of the masses and of
ingenuous faith in religion and rewards, is utterly impossible today.
Those who envisage a society of well stuffed pigs which waddle
contentedly under the ferule of a small number of swineherd; who do not
take into account the need for freedom and the sentiment of human
dignity; who really believe in a God that orders, for his abstruse ends,
the poor to be submissive and the rich to be good and charitable-can also
imagine and aspire to a technical organisation of production which
assures abundance to all and is at the same time materially advantageous
both to the bosses and to the workers. But in reality " social peace"
based on abundance for all will remain a dream, so long as society is
divided into antogonistic classes, that is employers and employees. And
there will be neither peace nor abundance.
The antogonism is spiritual rather than material. There will never be
a sincere understanding between bosses and workers for the better
exploitation of the forces of nature in the interests of mankind, because
the bosses above all want to remain bosses and secure always more power
at the expense of the workers, as well as by competition with other
bosses, whereas the workers have had their fill of bosses and don't want
more! '
[Our good friends] are wasting their time when they tell us that a
little freedom is better than a brutal and unbridled tyranny; that n
reasonable working day, a wage that allows people to live better than
animals, and protection of women and children, are preferable to the
exploitation of human labour to the point of human exhaustion; or that
the State school, bad as it is, is always better, from the point of view
of the child's moral development, than schools run by priests and monks .
. . for we are in complete agreement. And we also agree that there may be
circumstances in which the Election results, national or local, can have
good or bad consequences and that this vote might be determined by the
anarchists' votes if the strength of the rival parties were equally balanced.
In most cases it is an illusion; when elections are tolerably free,
the only value they have is symbolic: they indicate the state of public
opinion, which would have imposed itself by more efficacious means, and
with more far reaching results, if it had not been offered the outlet of
elections. But no matter; even if some minor advances were the direct
result of an electoral victory, anarchists should not flock to the
polling booths or cease to preach their methods of struggle.
Since no one can do everything in this world, one must choose one's
own line of conduct.
There is always an element of contradiction between minor
improvements, the satisfaction of immediate needs and the struggle for a
society which is really better than the existing one. Those who want to
devote themselves to the erection of public lavatories and drinking
fountains where there is a need for them, or who use their energies for
the construction of a road, or the establishment of a municipal school,
or for the passing of some minor law to protect workers or to get rid of
a brutal policeman, do well, perhaps, to use the* ballot paper in favour
of this or that influential personage. But then - since one wants to be
"practical" one must go the whole hog - so, rather than wait for the
victory of the opposition party, rather than vote for the more kindred
party, it is worth taking a short cut and support the dominant party, and
serve the government already in office, and become the agent of the
Prefect or the Mayor. And in fact the neo-converts we have in mind did
not in fact propose voting for the most " progressive " party, but for
the one that had the greater chance of being elected . . But in that case
where does it all end? . . .
In the course of human history it is generally the case that the
malcontents, the oppressed, and the rebels, before being able to conceive
and desire a radical change in the political and social institutions,
restrict their demands to partial changes, to concessions by the rulers,
and to improvements. Hopes of obtaining reforms as well as in their
efficacy, precede the conviction that in order to destroy the power of a
government or of a class, it is necessary to deny the reasons for that
power, and therefore to make a revolution.
In the order of things, reforms are then introduced or they are not,
and once introduced either consolidate the existing regime or undermine
it; assist the advent of revolution or hamper it and benefit or harm
progress in general, depending on their specific characteristic, the
spirit in which they have been granted, and above all, the spirit in
which they are asked for, claimed or seized by the people.
Governments and the privileged classes are naturally always guided by
instincts of self preservation, of consolidation and the development of
their powers and privileges; and when they consent to reforms it is
either because they consider that they will serve their ends or because
they do not feel strong enough to resist, and give in, fearing what might
otherwise be a worse alternative.
The oppressed, either ask for and welcome improvements as a benefit
graciously conceded, recognise the legitimacy of the power which is over
them, and so do more harm than good by helping to slow down, or divert
and perhaps even stop the processes of emancipation. Or instead they
demand and impose improvements by their action, and welcome them as
partial victories over the class enemy, using them as a spur to greater
achievements, and thus they are a valid help and a preparation to the
total overthrow of privilege, that is, for the revolution. A point is
reached when the demands of the dominated class cannot be acceded to by
the ruling class without compromising their power. Then the violent
conflict inevitably occurs.
It is not true to say therefore, that revolutionaries are
systematically opposed to improvements, to reforms. They oppose the
reformists on the one hand because their methods are less effective for
securing reforms from governments and employers, who only give in through
fear, and on the other hand because very often the reforms they prefer
are those which not only bring doubtful immediate benefits, but also
serve to consolidate the existing regime and to give the workers a vested
interest in its continued existence. Thus, for instance, State pensions,
insurance schemes, as well as profit sharing schemes in agricultural and
industrial enterprises, etc.
Apart from the unpleasantness of the word which has been abused and
discredited by politicians, anarchism has always been, and can never be
anything but, reformist. We prefer to say reformative in order to avoid
any possible confusion with those who are officially classified as "
reformists " and seek by means of small and often ephemeral improvements
to make the present system more bearable (and as a result help to
consolidate it); or who instead believe in good faith that it is possible
to eliminate the existing social evils by recognising and respecting, in
practice if not in theory, the basic political and economic institutions
which are the cause of. as well as the prop that supports these evils.
But in any case it is always a question of reforms, and the essential
difference lies in the kind of reform one wants and the way one thinks of
being able to achieve it. Revolution means, in the historical sense of
the word, the radical reform of institutions, achieved rapidly by the
violent insurrection of the people against existing power and privileges;
and we are revolutionaries and insurrectionists because we do not just
want to improve existing institutions but to destroy them completely,
abolishing every form of domination by man over man, and every kind of
parasitism on human labour; and because we want to achieve this as
quickly as possible, and because we believe that institutions born of
violence are maintained by violence and will not give way except to an
equivalent violence. But the revolution cannot be made just when one
likes. Should we remain inactive, waiting for the situation to mature
with time?
And even after a successful insurrection, could we over night realise
all our desires and pass from a governmental and capitalist hell to a
libertarian-communist heaven which is the complete freedom of man within
the wished for community of interests with all men?
These are illusions which can take root among authoritarians who look
upon the masses as the raw material which those who have power can, by
decrees, supported by bullets and handcuffs, mold to their will. But
these illusions have not taken among anarchists. We need the people's
consensus, and therefore we must persuade by means of propaganda and
example, we must educate and seek to change the environment in such a way
that this education may reach an ever increasing number of people....
We are reformers today in so far as we seek to create the most
favourable conditions and as large a body of enlightened militants so
that an insurrection by the people would be brought to a satisfactory
conclusion. We shall be reformers tomorrow, after a triumphant
insurrection, and the achievement of freedom, in that we will seek with
all the means that freedom permits, that is by propaganda, example and
even violent resistance against anyone who should wish to restrict our
freedom in order to win over to our ideas an ever greater number of people.
But we will never recognise the institutions; we will take or win all
possible reforms with the same spirit that one tears occupied territory
from the enemy's grasp in order to go on advancing, and we will always
remain enemies of every government, whether it be that of the monarchy
today, or the republican or bolshevik governments of tomorrow.
ORGANIZATION
ORGANISATION which is, after all, only the practice of co-operation
and solidarity, is a natural and necessary condition of social life; it
is an inescapable fact which forces itself on everybody, as much on human
society in general as on any group of people who are working towards a
common objective. Since man neither wishes to, nor can, live in
isolation-indeed being unable to develop his personality, and satisfy his
physical and moral needs outside society and without the co-operation of
his fellow beings-it is inevitable that those people who have neither the
means nor a sufficiently developed social conscience to permit them to
associate freely with those of a like mind and with common interests, are
subjected to organisation by others, generally constituted in a class or
as a ruling group, with the aim of exploiting the labour of others for
their personal advantage. And the age-long oppression of the masses by a
small privileged group has always been the result of the inability of
most workers to agree among themselves to organise with others for
production, for enjoyment and for the possible needs of defence against
whoever might wish to exploit and oppress them. Anarchism exists to
remedy this state of affairs....
There are two factions among those who call themselves anarchists,
with or without adjectives: supporters and opponents of organisation. If
we cannot succeed in agreeing, let us, at least, try to understand each
other.
And first of all let us be clear about the distinctions since the
question is a triple one: organisation in general as a principle and
condition of social life today and in a future society; the organisation
of the anarchist movement; and the organisation of the popular forces and
especially of the working masses for resistance to government and
capitalism....
The basic error committed by those opposed to organisation is in
believing that organization is not possible without authority.
Now, it seems to us that organisation, that is to say, association
for a specific purpose and with the structure and means required to
attain it, is a necessary aspect of social life. A man in isolation
cannot even live the life of a beast, for he is unable to obtain
nourishment for himself except in tropical regions or when the population
is exceptionally sparse; and he is, without exception, unable to rise
much above the level of the animals. Having therefore to join with other
humans, or more accurately, finding himself united to them as a
consequence of the evolutionary antecedents of the species, he must
submit to the will of others (be enslaved} or subject others to his will
(be in authority) or live with others in fraternal agreement in the
interests of the greatest good of all (be an associate). Nobody can
escape from this necessity; and the most extreme anti-orgnisers not only
are subject to the general organisation of the society they live in, but
also in the voluntary actions in their lives, and in their rebellion
against organisation, they unite among themselves, they share out their
tasks, they organize with whom they are in agreement, and use the means
that society puts at their disposal. . .
Admitting as a possibility the existence of a community organised
without authority, that is without compulsion-and anarchists must admit
the possibility, or anarchy would have no meaning-let us pass on to
discuss the organisation of the anarchist movement.
In this case too, organisation seems useful and necessary. If
movement means the whole-individuals with a common objective which they
exert themselves to attain-it is natural that they should agree among
themselves, join forces, share out the tasks and take all those steps
which they think will lead to the achievement of those objectives. To
remain isolated, each individual acting or seeking to act on his own
without co-ordination, without preparation, without joining his modest
efforts to a strong group, means condemning oneself to impotence, wasting
one's efforts in small ineffectual action, and to lose faith very soon in
one's aims and possibly being reduced to complete inactivity....
A mathematician, a chemist, a psychologist or a sociologist may say
they have no programme or are concerned only with establishing the truth.
They seek knowledge, they are not seeking to do something. But anarchy
and socialism are not sciences; they are proposals, projects, that
anarchists and socialists seek to realise and which, therefore need to be
formulated as definite programmes....
If it is true that [organisation creates leaders]; if it is true that
anarchists are unable to come together and arrive at agreement without
submitting themselves to an authority, this means that they are not yet
very good anarchists, and before thinking of establishing anarchy in the
world they must think of making themselves able to live anarchistically.
The remedy does not lie in the abolition of organisation but in the
growing consciousness of each individual member.... In small as well as
large societies, apart from brute force, of which it cannot be a question
for us, the origin and justification for authority lies in social
disorganisation.
When a community has needs and its members do not know how to
organise spontaneously to provide them, someone comes forward, an
authority who satisfies those needs by utilising the services of all and
directing them to his liking. If the roads are unsafe and the people do
not know what measures to take, a police force emerges which in return
for whatever services it renders expects to be supported and paid, as
well as imposing itself and throwing its weight around; if some article
is needed, and the community does not know how to arrange with the
distant producers to supply it in exchange for goods produced locally,
the merchant will appear who will profit by dealing with the needs of one
section to sell and of the other to buy, and impose his own prices both
on the producer and the consumer. This is what has happened in our midst;
the less organised we have been the more prone are we to be imposed on by
a few individuals. And this is understandable.
So much so that organisation, far from creating authority, is the
only cure for it and the only means whereby each one of us will get used
to taking an active and conscious part in collective work, and cease
being passive instruments in the hands of leaders....
But an organisation, it is argued, presupposes an obligation to
co-ordinate one's own activities with those of others; thus it violates
liberty and fetters initiative. As we see it, what really takes away
liberty and makes initiative impossible is the isolation which renders
one powerless. Freedom is not an abstract right but the possibility of
acting: this is true among ourselves as well as in society as a whole.
And it is by co-operation with his fellows that man finds the means to
express his activity and his power of initiatives
An anarchist organisation must, in my opinion [allow for] complete
autonomy, and independence, and therefore full responsibility, to
individuals and groups; free agreement between those who think it useful
to come together for co-operative action, for common aims; a moral duty
to fulfill one's pledges and to take no action which is contrary to the
accepted programme. On such bases one then introduces practical forms and
the suitable instruments to give real life to the organisation. Thus the
groups, the federation of groups, the federations of federations,
meetings, congresses, correspondence committees and so on. But this also
must be done freely, in such a way as not to restrict the thought and the
initiative of individual members, but only to give greater scope to the
efforts which in isolation would be impossible or ineffective. Thus for
an anarchist organisation congresses, in spite of all the disadvantages
from which they suffer as representative bodies . . . are free from
authoritarianism in any shape or form because they do not legislate and
do not impose their deliberations on others. They serve to maintain and
increase personal contacts among the most active comrades, to summarise
and encourage programmatic studies on the ways and means for action; to
acquaint everybody with the situation in the regions and the kind of
action most urgently needed; to summarise the various currents of
anarchist opinions at the time and to prepare some kind of statistics
therefrom. And their decisions are not binding but simply suggestions,
advice and proposals to submit to all concerned, and they do not become
binding and executive except for those who accept them and for as long as
they accept them. The administrative organs they nominate -
Correspondence Commissions, etc.-have no directive powers, do not take
initiatives except for those who specifically solicit and approve of
them, and have no authority to impose their own views, which they can
certainly hold and propagate as groups of comrades, but which cannot be
presented as the official views of the organisation. They publish the
resolutions of the congresses and the opinions and proposals communicated
to them by groups and individuals; and they act for those who want to
make use of them, to facilitate relations between groups, and
co-operation between those who are in agreement on various initiatives;
each is free to correspond with whoever he likes direct, or to make use
of other committees nominated by specific groupings
In an anarchist organisation individual members can express any
opinion and use every tactic which is not in contradiction with the
accepted principles and does not interfere with the activities of others.
In every case a particular organisation lasts so long as the reasons for
union are superior to those for dissension: otherwise it disbands and
makes way for other, more homogenous groupings.
Certainly the life and permanence of an organisation is a condition
for success in the long struggle before us, and besides, it is natural
that every institution should by instinct aim at lasting indefinitely.
But the duration of a libertarian organisation must be the result of the
spiritual affinity of its members and of the adaptability of its
constitution to the continually changing circumstances. When it can no
longer serve a useful purpose it is better that it should die.
We would certainly be happy if we could all get along well together
and unite all the forces of anarchism in a strong movement; but we do not
believe in the solidity of organisations which are built up on
concessions and assumptions and in which there is no real agreement and
sympathy between members.
Better disunited than badly united. But we would wish that each
individual joined his friends and that there should be no isolated
forces, or lost forces.
It remains for us to speak of the organisation of the working masses
for resistance against both the government and the employers.
. . . Workers will never be able to emancipate themselves so long as
they do not find in union the moral, economic and physical strength that
is needed to subdue the organised might of the oppressors.
There have been anarchists, and there are still some, who while
recognising the need to organise today for propaganda and action, are
hostile to all organisations which do not have anarchism as their goal or
which do not follow anarchist methods of struggle.... To those comrades
it seemed that all organised forces for an objective less than radically
revolutionary, were forces that the revolution was being deprived of. It
seems to us instead, and experience has surely already confirmed our
view, that their approach would condemn the anarchist movement to a state
of perpetual sterility. To make propaganda we must be amongst the people,
and it is in the workers' associations that workers find their comrades
and especially those who are most disposed to understand and accept our
ideas. But even when it were possible to do as much propaganda as we
wished outside the associations, this could not have a noticeable effect
on the working masses. Apart from a small number of individuals more
educated and capable of abstract thought and theoretical enthusiasms, the
worker cannot arrive at anarchism in one leap. To become a convinced
anarchist, and not in name only, he must begin to feel the solidarity
that joins him to his comrades, and to learn to cooperate with others in
the defence of common interests and that, by struggling against the
bosses and against the government which supports them, should realise
that bosses and governments are useless parasites and that the workers
could manage the domestic economy by their own efforts. And when the
worker has understood this, he is an anarchist even if he does not call
himself such.
Furthermore, to encourage popular organisations of all kinds is the
logical consequence of our basic ideas, and should therefore be an
integral part of our programme.
An authoritarian party, which aims at capturing power to impose its
ideas, has an interest in the people remaining an amorphous mass, unable
to act for themselves and therefore always easily dominated. And it
follows, logically, that it cannot desire more than that much
organisation, and of the kind it needs to attain power: Electoral
organisations if it hopes to achieve it by legal means; Military
organisation if it relies on violent action.
But we anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the
people to emancipate themselves. We do not believe in the good that comes
from above and imposed by force; we want the new way of life to emerge
from the body of the people and correspond to the state of their
development and advance as they advance. It matters to us therefore that
all interests and opinions should find their expression in a conscious
organisation and should influence communal life in proportion to their
importance.
We have undertaken the task of struggling against existing social
organisation, and of overcoming the obstacles to the advent of a new
society in which freedom and well being would be assured to everybody. To
achieve this objective we organise ourselves in a party and seek to
become as numerous and as strong as possible. But if it were only our
party that was organised; if the workers were to remain isolated like so
many units unconcerned about each other and only linked by the common
chain; if we ourselves besides being organised as anarchists in a party,
were not as workers organised with other workers, we could achieve
nothing at all, or at most, we might be able to impose ourselves . . .
and then it would not be the triumph of anarchy but our triumph. We could
then go on calling ourselves anarchists, but in reality we should simply
be rulers, and as impotent as all rulers are where the general good is
concerned.'