Propaganda of the Deed The sun rose. It looked upon a world of injustice, inequalities and strife. The poor were oppressed by the rich, the employee exploited by his employer, and the servant beaten by the master. Some diverse individuals saw the need for change. They saw the world as it was. These few illuminated souls formed schools of thought, to accommodate the violent, peaceful, and all in between. Mindful of the need to avoid chaos, the schools gained a common goal; akin to the dream of Marx and Engels, yet different. Through time, in times of oppression or revolution, the anarchists were ubiquitous. "Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor". Basic Beliefs of Anarchists [Anarchism is] the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government. Harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between various groups, professional and territorial, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of civilized beings. Anarchism not simply defined. Neither are its tenets, or followers. Black, being the absence, or presence of all colour is the colour of the anarchist flag, as red is to communism. Even in the face of a corrupt world, the anarchists steadfastly maintain that man is essentially good. This is due to the fact that what is good for one man, is going to be good for his neighbour. All men require food, shelter, and water. What gives one man the right to hold it away from the next man, and then make him pay for it? The first man has created a system to oppress the other man. He has created government. The natural man requires some sort of order in his life, lest it be cut short. In primitive times, this sort of affair was needed, even desirable. Man is not the same as he was thousands of years ago. Supposedly, man is civilized. Why then does he persist in making life full of hardships for the man down the road? Why does man keep corrupt systems of government in existence? The central evil in today's society as perceived by anarchists, is government. The anarchist solution is essentially a simple one; remove government, remove the problem. Government is invariably oppressive and is used by the powerful solely to maintain the status quo. Also a key problem, is technology. Society and technology have not been allowed to progress at the same pace. Beginning with the Industrial revolution, where massive inequalities were seen, to today, with automated factories, technology has developed faster than society. Fearful of what might happen if the workers were to gain power, the rulers of the world exploit them mercilessly. Man can exist without a system of controls. Simply to exist, man must co-operate with his fellow man, or die. This the central anarchist tenet. Anarchy and Chaos Even those anarchists with the most violent of leanings, will dismiss chaos as an undesirable state. The anarchist seeks a productive world, where man can grow to his fullest potential. This is impossible if chaos exists. Chaos is barbaric, anarchy is as civilized as man can get. "Anarchy as it is commonly understood, and a well conceived form of society without government, are exceedingly different from each other."3 When one turns on the news and hears of "anarchy" in some war-torn third world country, it is not. Were it actually anarchy, I would be on a plane bound for Utopia, rather than explaining this. Chaos is very easy to achieve. Monkeys or insects can have chaos. Only a rational being, capable of independent thought, could survive in true anarchy. In chaos, "the mighty man will become tinder, his work a spark, both will burn together, with no one to quench the fire."4 The central anarchist paradox, is that anarchy cannot exist without control. To ensure that the anarchist society did not either fall into chaos, or become a tyranny, all decisions pertaining to the state would have to be worked out prior to the society being implemented. This is not to say that a set of regulations be set down in stone, simply that there be a consensus among the people. When people agree on something, of their own accord, anarchy exists. Chaos is the lack of any kind of mutual consent, order or harmony. Anarchy is the presence of these elements. Marxism and Anarchism When Karl Marx and Frederich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, they told of a classless society, where the oppression caused by a corrupt government, and technology would be abolished, and men would live together in peace. Marxism advocates the need for a government to keep order in a period of time between the removal of the old system and the birth of the new system, after which time, "the state would wither away."5 While the Marxist would use the use the government to achieve his ends, the anarchist would simply burn the government to the ground. The anarchist uses communist Russia as the best practical example to condemn Marxism. What happened in the name of Marx? Murder, spoil and villainy. The Reign of Terror. All because of trying to use an inherently corrupt system to achieve a noble end. The anarchist has no such delusions. Government is evil, its adherents are evil, and any attempt to use it, are evil. The ends of Marxism and anarchism are essentially the same a classless, peaceful state. The major difference is how this end is achieved. This difference has led Marxists and anarchists to become ideological enemies, despite the common goal. There are those anarchists however, who lean towards the writings of Marx, and hold his ideas as solemn truths. These are usually men who believe that Marx's philosophy is not inherently flawed, rather they believe it to be the fault of men like Lenin and Stalin, to have given Marxism a bad name. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, an anarchist popular with working men in turn of the century France, was a personal acquaintance of Marx. The pair could not reconcile their ideological ideas. Proudhon disavowed Marxism saying, "Whoever lays his hands on me to govern me is a usurper and a tyrant; I declare him to be my enemy."6 Marxism has more of a mainstream acceptance than does anarchism, because all his life, man is taught to believe in some grand social order. Marxism has this period of governmental control, so that people think it feasible. Has it been? Schools of Anarchist Thought Anarchists come in all kinds, as fits an ideology adhered to mainly by social outcasts. These people may hold to the work of revolutionaries like Paulino Pallas, who before being executed, said, "Vengeance will be terrible", or to the work and lives of men like Gandhi. Wether violent or peaceful, anarchists agree on the need to abolish the government. Revolutionary Anarchism Born in Russia in 1814, was Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin. He rose to become one of the founders of anarchism. Born to a noble family, he became discontent with his lot in life and joined the russian army. As a soldier he came to the conclusion that the ills of his country could only be cured by violent revolution against all forms of social authority. Bakunin believed than since man was the product of his environment, and his environment was the state, only in the removal of the state could man be a free being. No state was tolerable, "A state without slavery, open or disguised, is conceivable-that is why we are enemies of the state."7 Bakuninism is today, used as a term to describe the theory of revolutionary anarchism that would destroy all that involved with the running of society. His radical ideas served to inspire many revolutionaries in the Dresden insurrection of 1849 and the Spanish Civil War. Following in Bakunin's wake was Petr Kropotkin. Born a nobleman's son in 1842, Kropotkin was appalled by the conditions the peasants and servants were forced to live in. Like Bakunin, Kropotkin joined the army and there his lack of faith in the society they lived in was strengthened. He quit the army and began to publish anarchist propaganda, he was arrested, escaped and tried to sow his revolutionary seeds where ever he could. Petr Kropotkin died in 1921, his dream unrealized. In Italy, during the mid to late nineteenth century, there was a surge of anarchist action. Land was seized from powerful and wealthy nobles to be given to a starving peasant population. This kind of activity was quickly stopped by the police. Anarchy did not become a reality in Italy. Fascists took control as the ruling power. The Italian Anarchists served to give all anarchists an undesirable image as bomb throwing madmen and lunatics. They emphasized "Propaganda by the deed," a phrase that would be held by revolutionaries as sacred in their cause. During the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930's, anarchists tried to gain a foothold. They would burn down the buildings holding town documents and records of ownership, in an attempt to give the land to the peasantry. Unfortunately, the combined might of General Franco and his fascist allies from Germany and Italy were too much for the meagre ranks of anarchists to contend with. Even during the Russian Revolution, anarchists were present, but could not gain any large degree of acceptance. The Great Purges saw to that. The belief the anarchists held could not even begin to defy the fear which had been instilled in the people. All this in the name of a man who wanted peace. Revolutionary anarchists hold violence to be a necessity in achieving their utopian state. The only way to make the ruling class take note is with a few well placed bombs. If the anarchists can show the world that they can not be easily stopped, then perhaps, useful change can be brought about. The only way to put a bar in the way of the power of the ruling class, is to destroy it. Propaganda of the deed emphasizes action, rather than threats or just talking. If change is to occur, change must be drastic. "The world's got a cancer that's got to be cured."8 Any kind of violent action can be justified by a superior moral cause. Evidently, one can seize the moral high ground with a bomb. In the last stanza of The Mask of Anarchy, by Percy Bysshe Shelly, it is written, Rise like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number- Shake your chains to earth like dew. Which in sleep had fallen on you- Ye are many-they are few.9 What passage could better describe the spirit of revolution? Written by Shelley as a statement against tyranny, the lines have been quoted time without number by anarchists from all schools. It is the revolutionaries in general who have contributed to the image that anarchists have in today's world. What good could come of Leon Czolgosz shooting U.S. president McKinley? Czolgosz called himself an anarchist, and succeeded not in gaining any kind of anarchist victory, only the anger of a whole nation. People who kill for no reason are not anarchists, they are chaotic idiots. The Peaceful Anarchists There are those who would not be associated with the works of such violent individuals as Bakunin and Kropotkin. These men would have them selves distanced from guns, and bombs, and violence. Men such as Ferrer, Tolstoy, and Gandhi. Francisco Ferrer Guardica attempted, in 1901 to open a school in hopes of freeing children from all forms of authority, be they social, moral or religious. The Spanish church thought Ferrer to be the cohort of Satan and tried all they could to shut him down. Eventually, the school's librarian, in 1906, threw a bomb at King Alfonso. That ended the school.10 When the anarchist uprising took place in Spain several years later, Ferrer, who was not even in the country at the time, was condemned for it, and shot. Another dream unrealized. Again, we are shown the sobering existence of life in the Russian army by Leo Tolstoy. Seeing the appalling conditions by which he was surrounded, and taken aback by the senselessness of killing men he had never met, Tolstoy became disenchanted by the whole horrific military experience. He published many books dealing with the evils inherent in his society. Tolstoy was the first Christian anarchist. He believed in passive resistance, and felt that rather than violent destruction of the government, men should offer only calm resistance to unjust government actions. Man, he thought was basically a non- violent being, and that it was the government that made men brutal. Among Tolstoy's most devout disciples was Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi had grown up as the son of a merchant, under British rule. His beliefs were influenced by Tolstoy, Thoreau who wrote, "That government is best which governs not at all,"11 and by the works of the bible. Being exposed to much racial prejudice while on a trip to South Africa, Gandhi realized that he could not reconcile the world as is was and so vowed to change it. He used a policy of passive resistance against the British Government in India, and over a salt tax, led his followers on to victory. One man, armed only with his ideals, had caused the beginning of the destruction of a government. The methods employed by Gandhi and Bakunin seem, and are, as different as are black and white. However, most importantly, the desired end is the same, a society of free men. The dreams of these men are still unrealized. Christian Anarchism Not the contradiction that most people would assume it to be, Christian anarchism is a term most closely associated with Tolstoy and his writings. As Tolstoy and Gandhi were pacifists, there are those anarchists who look to the Bible, and the life of Jesus Christ as their justification for revolution. The Old testament book of Isaiah is one particularly full of anarchist writings, provided one interprets the sub-text closely enough. The anarchist may use anyone of a number of passages form this book, almost as "anarchist prophesy". Isaiah 24:2 says It will be the same for priest as for people for master as for servant for mistress as for maid for seller as for buyer for borrower as for lender for debtor as for creditor. Upon seeing this, what can the anarchist do but suppose he is doing the work of God? As he reads Isaiah 3:11, and sees "Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be payed back for what their hands have done." These words seem to inspire the anarchist and give him a new faith in what he believes. After all, what could be better, than knowing that God has given you a mission? When the poor, exploited worker seeks to overthrow his unjust master, and free himself, all he needs to justify himself is Isaiah 3:15, "What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?". This situation is intolerable to any adherent of social change, and the anarchist in particular. Moving beyond Isaiah as the only source of God's word as it pertains to anarchy, one has only to look at the most influential man in history. Christ. Much to the dismay of many a hard-core conservative church goer, Jesus was in his own way the anarchist in history. He lived in a time when his people were ruthlessly oppressed by a terrible empire. Owing his allegiance to no man, but only to God, Jesus defied the government. He consorted mainly with those people looked down on by society, lepers, tax collectors, thieves. He resisted the temptations of the society, and did all he could to make the people see this for themselves. Jesus created dissent among the people, he had a group of followers who helped him with his work, and he died for the cause. Assuming that Christ is the son of God, he could have made people believe in him. He did not. He instead let people join him if they wanted. He did not command them to do what He wanted, He simply told them how the world was, and let them make their own conclusions. It is this passive yet momentous form of rebellion that was help to by Tolstoy and Gandhi. Nothing had power over Him, not man, not death. As the powers that controlled his land imposed their will on him, he resisted if he did not believe in it. Neither was Christ all passive resistance. In the temple, Jesus overturned the tables, and kicked out all the money changers, as he was angry at the mockery they had made of his father's house.12 Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice that any revolutionary could hope to make, he died. Even today, those calling themselves Christians, but not anarchists, hold those ideals Christ taught as dear to them. He taught us how to live. We do not know in what hour his dream will be realized. Modern Anarchism During the Sixties, anarchistic communes were experimented with, but received no great degree of acceptance. In the late 70's and early 80's was the height of the punk movement. Bands like the Sex Pistols sung about "Anarchy in the U.K.", and saw how there was "no future in England"13 and said that we should do away with the Queen. All around the world, punks, anarchists spawned by the tension and anxiety of the cold war gathered and plotted revolution. No more than perhaps a few demonstrations ever actually surfaced, but they did not care. Comprised mainly of social outcasts, all they had was their politics, and their belief in a better world. With the cold war having subsided, punk's flame seemed to have died. However, one can still find them, discussing various political systems over the top of mind-numbing music. As with all previous generations of anarchists, punks were not understood by the mass of society, and so were feared, and shunned. Even today, anarchism is debated by scholars and political scientists. Anarchism has never seen the prominence that its more centralized counterparts have. Governments are extremely reluctant to allow any sort of anarchist movement take root, as it may just undermine their power. Not having been ever tested, who is to say that anarchism would not work? There have been men through history who have tried, but were misunderstood, or misrepresented. Should not all things be at least attempted? It would be very hard, in today's world, to find a group of people willing to commit themselves to anarchy. After thousands of years of being told that we need leaders to survive, we are disinclined to simply let go of all that we know and venture into a new world. All men have a different vision of Utopia, that of the ancient philosophers, of Sir Thomas More, of Bakunin, of the Ramones, are all different in the way that their Utopia is achieved. All these men agree on one thing, and that is that in the end, all men can live together in peace. Somalia is not anarchy, it is chaos. The group of kids with green mohawks and spoons on their clothes are not all law-breaking, heroin addicted hoodlums, they may just be, the most politically aware group of people in society today. They feel the short end of society's stick, and so are inclined to want to change it. When all men are living together peacefully, the sun has gone down on a corrupt world, and the black flag has been raised, only the anarchists will get the joke. Dion Zdunic 76452,3671 "Vote with a bullet." "Vote early, vote often."