Carlo Cafiero (1846-1892) - "Let the learned gentlemen not shrug their shoulders so much, as if they had to support the whole world: they did not invent the revolutionary idea. It was the oppressed who, through their often unconscious attempts to shake off the yoke of the oppressors, drew the attention of scholars to social morality; and it was only later that a few rare thinkers were willing to find it insufficient, and later still, others consented to recognize it as completely false.
Yes, it was the blood shed by the people that finally forced ideas into their heads. Ideas flow from facts, and not the other way around," Carlo Pisacane said in his political testament, and he spoke the truth. It is the people who bring about progress, as well as revolution: both the restorative and the destructive aspects. It is they who are sacrificed daily to maintain universal production, and it is they again who fuel with their blood the torch illuminating human destinies.
And when a thinker, having thoroughly studied the book of human suffering, articulates the formula of a popular aspiration, conservatives and reactionaries of every kind throughout the world begin to cry out at the top of their lungs: "Scandal!"
Yes, scandal indeed: we need scandal; for it is through scandal that the revolutionary idea has made its way. What a scandal Proudhon stirred up when he exclaimed: "Property is theft!" But today there is not a person of sound judgment and compassion who does not think that the capitalist is the worst scoundrel among thieves. More than that-the true thief. Armed with the most terrible instrument of torture, hunger, he torments his victim, not for a moment, but for his entire life: he tortures not only his victim, but also the wife and children of the man he holds in his grasp. The thief risks his freedom and often his life, but he, the capitalist, or the thief par excellence, risks nothing, and when he steals, he seizes not only a part, but all of the worker's property.
But it is not enough to find the theoretical formula. Since the fact gave rise to the revolutionary idea, it is still the fact that must intervene to ensure its generalization.
At the first congresses of the International, of the French proletariat, there were only a few workers who accepted the idea of collective ownership. It took the full light cast upon the world by the fires of the Commune to reinvigorate and spread the revolutionary idea and to bring us to the Congress of Le Havre, which, through the voices of forty-eight representatives of French workers, recognized libertarian communism as its goal. And yet, we still remember how certain authoritarian ideologues, full of gravity and wisdom, repeated, only a few years ago, that the Commune had halted the socialist movement, giving rise to the most disastrous of reactions. Events have demonstrated the profound insight of these "scientific socialists" (most of whom possess no scientific knowledge whatsoever) who sought to implant the infamous "politics of results" among socialists.
Therefore, what we need is action, action, and always more action. By taking action, we work simultaneously for theory and for practice, for it is action that generates ideas and it is action that also spreads them throughout the world.
But what action shall we take?
Should we go, or send our people, to the Parliaments? Or to the City Councils?
No, a thousand times no! We have nothing to do with the machinations of the bourgeoisie. We must not get involved in the games of our oppressors if we do not wish to participate in their oppression. "Going to parliament is to negotiate; negotiating is to make a pact," said a former German revolutionary who, since then, has done a great deal of negotiating himself.
Our action must be one of permanent revolt, through words, writing, the dagger, the rifle, dynamite, and even, sometimes, through the ballot box, when it comes to voting for the ineligible Blanqui or Trinquet. We are consistent and we use any weapon when it comes to striking as rebels. Anything that isn't legal is fair game for us.
"But when should we launch our action, our attack?" friends sometimes ask. "Shouldn't we wait until our forces are organized? To attack before we're ready is to risk being defeated."
"Dear friends, if we always wait until we are strong to attack, we will never attack, and we will be like that good man who swore never to throw himself into the sea again before learning to swim. It is precisely revolutionary action that develops our strength, just as gymnastics develops the strength of our muscles. Certainly, at first, our blows will not be lethal; perhaps we will even make the serious and wise socialists laugh, but we can always reply to them: 'You laugh at us because you are just as foolish as those who laugh at a child who falls while taking its first steps. You like to call us children? Well, yes, we are, since the development of our strength is still in its infancy.'" But by trying to march, we prove by that very act that we are striving to become men, that is, a complete, healthy, and robust organism, capable of making a revolution, and not mere scribblers, prematurely aged, eternally rehashing a science that is never digested and forever preparing, in infinite time and space, a revolution that is lost in the clouds.
? How to begin the action?
Simply seek the opportunity: it will not be long in coming. Wherever there is a whiff of revolt and gunpowder, we must be there. Let us not wait, before taking part in a movement, for it to appear with the label of official socialism. Every popular movement already contains within itself the seeds of revolutionary socialism; we must therefore take part in it to give it further development. A clear and precise ideal of the revolution is formulated by only a tiny minority, and if we wait, before participating in the struggle, for it to present itself exactly as we have conceived it in our hearts-we will wait forever. Let us not imitate the doctrinaires who demand the formula above all else: the people carry the living revolution within them, and we must fight and die with them.
And when the proponents of legal or parliamentary action come to reproach us for not mingling with the people when they go to vote, we will answer them:-Certainly, we refuse to mingle with the people when they are on their knees before their god, before their king, or before their master; but we will always be with them when they stand against their powerful enemies. For us, abstaining from politics is not abstaining from revolution: our refusal to participate in any parliamentary, legal, or reactionary action is devotion to the violent and anarchist revolution, to the true revolution of the rabble and the barefoot.
Carlo Cafiero, The Rebel, December 25, 1880
https://www.socialisme-libertaire.fr/2025/12/carlo-cafiero-l-action.html
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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