(French text order) Pyotr Kropotkin asked me to write a few sentences at the beginning of his work, and although this caused me some difficulty, I complied.I cannot add a single new insight to the arguments he has set forth in this work, lest I should weaken his words by speaking.But friendship will forgive me.When the "Republicans" of France have the greatest delicacy to crawl at the feet of the "Tsar", I love to be close to those who will be scourged by him, imprisoned by him in the dungeons of the fortresses, or hanged in the fortress solitary The free man here.When I am with these friends, I forget for a moment that I was hoarse when I shouted "Freedom! Freedom!" in my youth, and now I sing "Marseillaise" and "God Save the Tsar" at the same time despicable deeds of apostates. ②

① Tsar, the title of Russian emperor. - translator ② After Kropotkin was sentenced to imprisonment in a Lyon court in 1883, prosecutors and others actually received the St. Anna Cross awarded by the Russian government, and the French government also allowed them to receive it.When this book was published, Russia and France were very close, and the "Russian-French Secret Treaty" was also brewing. - translator Kropotkin's previous book, "Words of a Rebel,"3 was particularly focused on fiercely attacking this cruel and corrupt bourgeois society, while at the same time mobilizing revolutionary forces to rebel against the state and the capitalist system.This book is the continuation of "Words of a Rebel", and its style is relatively peaceful.It speaks to those of good will who are sincerely willing to assist the cause of social reform, and points out to them in majestic style the present state of history which enables us to build upon the ruins of banks and states the human The family comes.

③The third volume of the complete works in Chinese translation, this book was edited and published by Erice Shao Kelu. The author was imprisoned in a French prison at that time, so the title of the book was also proposed by Shao Kelu. - translator For the title of this book: "Bread Picking", we should interpret it in the broadest sense, because "people don't just live by bread".At a time when virtuous and courageous men sought to make their ideals of social justice a reality, our desires were not limited to recapturing bread, or even wine and salt; Everything that is necessary or merely conducive to well-being; should enable us to secure the complete satisfaction of the wants and pleasures of all men.As long as we have not achieved this kind of "take back" (recapture), as long as "there are still poor people among us", then the current collective of human beings who hate each other and kill each other like a group of beasts locked in the Colosseum Calling it "society" is a bitter irony.

From the first chapter of this book, the author enumerates the great wealth that human beings have and the inconceivable mechanical tools obtained through collective labor.For the present, the annual produce is sufficient to supply the bread of all; if the great capital of towns, houses, arable fields, factories, transport roads, schools, etc., ceased to be privately owned, and became public property The well-being of all men is easily attainable: then the forces at our disposal will no longer be employed in futile or contradictory labor; instead they will be employed in the production of human nourishment, shelter, clothing, Everything necessary for comfort, scholarship, and artistic accomplishment.

Yet the recovery of human wealth, in short, confiscation, can only be accomplished by anarchic communism: the government should be abolished, its laws shredded, its morals abandoned, its agents ignored, and Work according to your own will, and according to your affinity, your own interests, your own ideals, and the nature of your business.This issue of confiscation is the core of this book, and it is also the most detailed issue that the author discusses very clearly and peacefully with a calm attitude and clear vision. Indispensable for the next inevitable revolution.After the abolition of the state, the group of liberated laborers no longer have to work for those monopolies and parasites, they can try their best to work freely chosen, they can cultivate the land according to scientific methods, and engage in industrial production, And there is leisure to study knowledge and carpe diem.The part of this book which deals with agricultural labor is of great interest, because the facts it narrates have been tested, and can be applied everywhere on a large scale, for the good of all, and not for a few, as is now the case. people make money.

Those who love to joke often use the words "the end of the century" to ridicule the vices and eccentricities of ordinary rich boys; but the end of a century now has a different meaning; we are now at the end of an era, the end of a historical era up.We will see the destruction of entire ancient civilizations.The right of arms and the capriciousness of might, the stern traditions of Judea and the brutal jurisprudence of Rome, have no more power over us; we proclaim a new faith, if this faith (which is also science) When the belief of all those who seek truth is realized, it will be realized in the actual world, because the first of the laws of history is: society forms its form according to its ideals.How can the adherents of such a stale order maintain it?They don't believe in anything anymore; they have neither leader nor banner, they just fight aimlessly.They still had laws and guns, and great police and artillery factories against the reformers, but none of this was an ideological rivalry, and the whole old regime of despotism and oppression was soon doomed to oblivion. .

Indeed, no matter how important the upcoming revolution may be in human development, it is no different from previous revolutions in terms of completing "a sudden leap".This sudden jump does not occur in nature.But we can say that anarchic society has already been fully developed by countless phenomena, by countless deep changes.Wherever free thought breaks free from the dead words of dogma, where the genius of the truth-seeker breaks down the old formulas, where the human will is expressed by independent action, where the honesty of those disciplines that resist all compulsion Where men automatically associate themselves, exchange knowledge with each other, and (without chiefs and officers) collectively recapture their share of life, and have their desires fully gratified—anarchic society is Achieved.All this is anarchism, (even if it doesn't know it's anarchism, it's still the same), and it gradually reveals itself.It has its ideals, it has a valiant will, while the multitude of its enemies have lost faith, surrendered themselves to fate, and wailed "end of the century! end of the century!"; What if you don't win?

This revolution, which had already shown signs of it, was going to succeed, and our friend Kropotkin, in his right to be a historian, came out in the period of the revolution to explicate his goal of regaining the common ground accumulated by the labor of thousands of people. and call to this great revolutionary work those cowardly men who are well aware of the present injustice, but who are bound to this society by innumerable ties of interest and tradition. , so they dare not blatantly resist this society.They know that the laws are unjust and false, they know that magistrates are courtiers of the strong and tyrants of the weak, they know that the regular conduct of life and the honesty of living by labor are often not paid for a piece of bread , but the shamelessness of stock speculators and the ruthlessness of pawnbrokers are better weapons, which trump all virtues of "taking bread" and comfort; but most of them do not According to their right righteousness dictates their thoughts, resolutions, plans, and actions, but they take a sideways narrow path to avoid the danger of adopting a candid attitude.Neo-religiousists, for instance, who could no longer profess the "absurd beliefs" of their ancestors, indulged in some more original mystical teaching, without definite dogma, and lost in a cloud of confused emotions: they would become Be a seance, an alchemist, a Buddhist, a psychic, and the like.Or like those melancholic gentlemen and neurotic ladies who claim to be disciples of Sakyamuni, but do not spend a little effort to study the teachings of their patriarchs. Peace.

① Rose-Croix is ​​the fifteenth century German C. Members of a secret society founded by Rosenkreuz who practice thaumaturgy or magic. - translator But since the new religionists are constantly talking about ideals, let these "beautiful souls" be at ease.Our bodies are material, and of course we have a weakness for food, because we have never had enough food; and now our millions of Slavic brethren, the subjects of the Tsar, are short of food, and others Millions of people in other places also lack food.But beyond bread, beyond comfort and all the combined wealth which we can obtain when we get our fields in earnest, we see far ahead of us a new world in which A world in which we can love each other adequately, a lofty feeling that can satisfy this ideal (the love that those spoilers who despise the beauty of material life say that this feeling is the endless thirst of their souls!) When there is no difference between rich and poor in the world At the same time, when the hungry no longer look enviously at the warm, natural friendship can be revived among men, and the religion of solidarity (that is, association) that is suppressed and destroyed today is would take the place of the present empty religion, which is devoted to phantoms on floating clouds.

The revolution will accomplish more than he expected, it will revolutionize the fountains of life, it will cleanse us of all the dirty touch of the police, and it will free us at last from the money business that poisons our existence.At that time everyone is free to go his own way, the laborer will complete the work that suits him, the seeker of truth will study hard without any concealment, and the artist will no longer sell his ideal of beauty for the sake of living, All people will be friends in the future, and we can work together to achieve the great cause that the poets vaguely see. One must occasionally recall at this time the names of those who, by their ardent propaganda, for which they were punished with exile and imprisonment, had done too much to establish the new society.It was they who we had in mind when we published Bread: they would have felt a little refreshed when they received evidence of this common thought in prison or in a foreign land.The author must allow me to dedicate his book to all who suffer for our cause, and especially to a dear friend whose life was a long struggle for justice.I need not name him, but when he reads these words of one of his brothers, he understands his own with the beating of his heart.

Alice Shao Kelu① ① That is Pierre Martin, Kropotkin's friend, a weaver in Veyer, France, who was imprisoned together with Kropotkin in the French Conquer Central Prison. Died on June 6, 1916. - translator ① Elisee Reclus (1830-1905) French geographer, author of "Man and Land" (L'hommeetlaterre 1905-1908), "New World Geography" (Lanouvelle Geographie Universelle, 1875-1894) and so on.He was also an anarchist and a friend of Kropotkin's, and it was he who wrote the title of this book. - translator