No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism by Daniel Guérin

Author:Daniel Guérin [Guérin, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1904859259
Publisher: AK Press
Published: 2005-09-06T22:00:00+00:00

VILKENS' LAST VISIT TO KROPOTKIN' (DECEMBER, 1920)

Kropotkin is seventy eight years old. In spite of his years, his thinking has retained all of its lucidity. His steps are as sprightly as ours. His memory inexhaustible. He speaks to us of the days of the Commune and rehearses tiny details, as if it had all happened just yesterday. He also relates tales of his youth, when he explored Siberia and the borders with China, with the same liveliness as a young schoolboy.

(...) Now the conversation turns to the Russian revolution. More than ever, Kropotkin is confirmed in his opinions: with their methods, the communists, instead of setting people on the road to communism, will finish up making its very name hateful to them.

Sincere they may well be: but their system prevents them in practice from introducing the slightest principle of communism. And, noting that no progress is being made in the work of the revolution, he foresees from this "that the people is not ready to endorse their decrees, that it will take time and changes of course." This is reasonable: the tale of political revolutions told all over again. The saddest thing is that they do not recognize and refuse to acknowledge their mistakes, and each passing day wrests a morsel of the conquests of the Revolution away from the masses, to be gobbled up by the centralist State.

In any event, he says, the experience of the Revolution is not wasted on the Russian people. It has awakened; it is on the move towards better prospects. Four years of revolution do more to raise a people's consciousness than a century spent vegetating.

— What is your view of the future of the Revolution, and, as you see it, what force might profitably replace the Bolsheviks?

We should not place undue emphasis upon the masses' refusing indefinitely to back the Bolsheviks. By their methods, they themselves force them to lose interest. But they have access to a mighty military machine which, in terms of discipline, plays the role of the bourgeois armies. In any case, the Bolsheviks will come to grief through their own mistakes and, through their policy, they will have helped the Entente install the reaction, which the people fears, because everybody would have something for which to answer to the Whites.

And if, through some misfortune, that were to happen, do you think that the power of the reaction would be bolstered?

I think not. At best, it might endure for a few years, but the people, momentarily beaten, would bounce back with a vengeance, and the new Revolution would have experience and would march in step with revolutionary achievements in Europe.

And what ought to be the attitude of the world proletariat with regard to the present Revolution?

Without a doubt, it should carry on defending it, not just verbally any more, but by actions: for the bourgeoisie's hostility will diminish in the face of a steadfast attitude from the working class. And for the world proletariat, it will also be a good training for revolution.

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