Errico Malatesta Archive
Written: 1922
Source: Published online by LibCom.org
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
AMBROGIO [Magistrate]: Listen, Signor Prospero, now that it is just between ourselves, all good conservatives. The other evening when you were talking to that empty head, Michele, I did not want to intervene; but, do you think that was the way to defend our institutions?
It very nearly seemed that you were the anarchist!
PROSPERO: Well, I never! Why is that?
AMBROGIO: Because, what you were saying in essence is that all of the present social organization is founded on force, thereby providing arguments for those who would like to destroy it with force. But what about the supreme principles which govern civil societies, rights, morality, religion, don't they count for anything?
PROSPERO: Of course, you always have a mouth full of rights. It is a bad habit that comes from your profession.
If tomorrow the governments should decree, let's suppose, collectivism, you would condemn the supporters of private property with the same impassiveness with which today you condemn the anarchists... and always in the name of the supreme principles of eternal and immutable rights!
You see, it is only a question of names. You say rights, I say force; but, then, what really counts are the blessed carabinieri, and whoever has them on their side is right.
AMBROGIO: Come, now, Signor Prospero! It seems impossible that your love of sophism must always stifle your conservative instincts.
You don't understand how many bad effects follow from the sight of a person such as yourself, one of the elders of the town, providing arguments for the worst enemies of order.
Believe me we should stop this bad habit of squabbling among ourselves, at least in public; let's all unite to defend our institutions which because of the wickedness of the times are receiving some brutal blows... and to look after our endangered interests.
PROSPERO: Let's unite, by all means; but if some strong measures are not taken, if you don't stop using liberal doctrines we will not resolve anything.
AMBROGIO: Oh! Yes, certainly. We need severe laws to be strictly applied.
But it is not enough. Force alone cannot keep a people subjected for long, particularly in this day and age. It is necessary to oppose propaganda with propaganda, there is a need to persuade people that we are right.
PROSPERO: You really are kidding yourself! My poor friend, in our common interest, I beg you, be careful of propaganda. It is subversive stuff even if it is carried out by conservatives; and your propaganda would always turn to the advantage of socialists, anarchists or whatever else they call themselves.
Go and persuade someone that is hungry that it is just that they don't eat, the more so when it is they who produce the food! So long as they don't think about it and continue to bless God and the boss for what little they receive, it's all right. But, from the moment they start to reflect on their position it's over: they will become an enemy with whom you will never be reconciled. Not on your life! We must avoid propaganda at all cost, stifle the printing press, with or without or perhaps, even against the law.
AMBROGIO: That's right, that's right.
PROSPERO: Prevent all meetings, dismantle all associations, send to jail all those who think…
CESARE [shopkeeper]: Easy, easy, don't let passion sweep you away. Remember that other governments, in more favorable times, adopted the measures that you are suggesting... and it precipitated their own downfall.
AMBROGIO: Hush, hush! Here comes Michele with an anarchist whom I sentenced last year to six months jail for a subversive manifesto. Actually, between ourselves, the manifesto was done in such a way that the law couldn't touch it, but, what can you do? The criminal intention was there… and, after all, society must be defended!
MICHELE: Good evening, Gentlemen. May I introduce to you an anarchist friend of mine who has accepted the challenge thrown down the other evening by Signor Prospero.
PROSPERO: But, what challenge, what challenge?! We were only having a discussion among friends to pass the time.
However, you were explaining to us what anarchism is, which is something we have never been able to understand.
GIORGIO [Anarchist]: I am not a teacher of anarchism and I have not come to give a course on the subject; but I can, when needed, defend my ideas. Besides, there is a gentleman here (referring to the magistrate, Ambrogio, in an ironic tone) who ought to know more about it than I. He has condemned many people for anarchism; and since he is for a certainty a man of conscience, he would not have done so without first of all making a profound study of the arguments involved.
CESARE: Come, come, let's not get personal... and since we must speak of anarchism, let's start on the subject immediately.
You see, I also recognize that things are going badly and that remedies need to be found. But we don't need to become utopian, and above all we must avoid violence. Certainly, the government should take the workers' cause more to heart: it should provide work for the unemployed; protect the national industries, encourage commerce. But…
GIORGIO: How many things you would like this poor government to do! But the government does not want to become concerned for the interests of the workers, and it's understandable.
CESARE: How can it be understandable? Up to now, really, the government has shown a lack of capacity and perhaps little desire to remedy the ills of the country; but, tomorrow, enlightened and conscientious ministers might do what hasn't been done up to now.
GIORGIO: No, my dear sir, it is not a question of one ministry or another. It is a question of government in general; of all governments, those of today, like those of yesterday, and those of tomorrow. The government emanates from proprietors, it needs the support of proprietors to sustain itself, its members are themselves proprietors; how can it therefore serve the interest of workers?
On the other hand the government, even if it wanted to, could not resolve the social question because this is the product of general factors, that cannot be removed by a government and which in fact themselves determine the nature and the direction of government. In order to resolve the social question we must radically change the whole system which the government has the appointed mission of defending.
You talk about giving work to the unemployed. But, what can the government do if there is no work? Must it make people do useless work, and then who would pay them? Should it gear production to provide for the unsatisfied needs of the people? But, then, the proprietors would find themselves unable to sell the products which they expropriate from workers, as a matter of fact they would have to cease to be proprietors, since, the government in order to provide work for the people would take away from them the land and the capital which they have monopolized.
This would be social revolution, the liquidation of all of the past, and you well know that if this is not carried out by the workers, peasants and the underprivileged, the government will certainly never do it.
Protect industry and commerce you say: but the government is able, at the most, to favor one industrial class to the detriment of another, to favor the traders of one region at the expense of those of another, and so, in total, nothing would be gained, only a bit of favoritism, a bit of injustice and more unproductive expenditure. As far as a government which protects all, it is an absurd idea because governments do not produce anything and therefore can only transfer the wealth produced by others.
CESARE: But what then? If the government does not want, and is not able, to do anything, what remedy is there? Even if you make the revolution you will need to create another government; and since you say that all governments are the same, after the revolution everything will be the same as before.
GIORGIO: You would be right if our revolution produced simply a change of government. But we want the complete transformation of the property regime, of the system of production and exchange; and as far as the government is concerned, a useless, harmful and parasitic organ, we don't want one at all. We believe that while there is a government, in other words a body superimposed on society, and provided with the means to impose forcibly its own will, there will not be real emancipation, there will be no peace among people.
You know that I am an anarchist and anarchy means society without government.
CESARE: But what do you mean? A society without government! How would you be able to live? Who would make the law? Who would execute it?
GIORGIO: I see that you don't have any idea of what we want. In order to avoid time wasting digressions you must allow me to explain, briefly, but methodically, our program; and then we can discuss matters to our mutual benefit.
But now it is late; we will continue next time.