Chapter 2 Preface

(Russian text sequence) The original title of this book is "Bread Picking", which was written and published in French. In this book, I want to describe as much as possible the beginning period of the anarcho-communist revolution. To criticize the current social system from the political and economic aspects, and to analyze and criticize the stereotypes of representative system, law and power, etc., I wrote in "The Words of a Rebel" (the title of the Russian translation is "The Collapse of the Current Social System") or a rebel") has already done it.The conclusion of the book is: Confiscation should be implemented, that is, all land and accumulated property must be used for human production and life, so what is now privately owned must be owned by the society.The original text of this book was published consecutively in the editorial column of The Rebel ①, but after I was arrested and imprisoned in France, I did not have the opportunity to publish such texts.

①The semi-monthly "Rebel" was first published in Geneva, Switzerland in February 1879, and later moved to Paris for publication. Due to the oppression of propagating anti-armamentism, it was renamed "Resistance" in September 1887. - translator I got out of prison three years later and continued to publish these kinds of articles in The Defiant.At that time, the newspaper had moved to Paris and was renamed "Resistance" due to the interference of the French government. If we want to explain how to implement socialism according to our opinions, I think it is best not to describe ideals, but to prove with facts what direction the social revolution should be carried out, so that we can break away from the current social system and achieve anarchy. communism.Either following the natural progression of such an environment and manipulating it to realize the trends of this society, or because the old society is deeply rooted and prejudices have not been completely abandoned, we can only continue to follow the path of slavery and cannot practice communism. ——This also awaits the explanation of the facts.

I use Paris as an example for the following reasons: Regardless of any civilized country, it is by no means a complete whole with the same level of culture.In fact its parts always stand on different levels. Although France has gone through the revolutions of 1789, 1793 and 1848, and its domestic material civilization developed in the nineteenth century (unlike Britain, which relied on its outward aggressive policy to extract the interests of India and other colonies, accounting for its half of the total income of the country), and a movement of ideas in accordance with the political currents of the last century, but it remains the same as before, local public life is not connected, and its northwestern provinces are at least half behind the eastern provinces. century.The great revolution of the peasant movement abolished the serf ransom.The land occupied by the landlords and the church for two or three hundred years was also taken back by the peasants.The riots of the urban laborers attempted to abolish the semi-slavery in the cities and break away from the shackles of the monarchy's dictatorship.At that time, this kind of popular movement was limited to the east and southeast of France. As for the northwest and west, it was the pillar of the nobility and the king. republic.But the distinction between French and Western has continued to this day.After the founding of the present-day French Republic①, when electing members (363 members of Congress), the Republican Party competed with the Royal Party and others. It is said that the election sites of the two factions, as far as I know, are exactly the same as those of the peasants in 1789 and 1792. Same location as the citizen riot.Only after the founding of what is now the French Republic, democratic ideas had to be introduced to the peasants of the Northwest and West.

① That is, the Third Republic. - translator The eastern and western parts of France, the south-west, the north-east, the central plateau and the Rhone valley, are like separate worlds.This difference is not only among the peasants of the provinces (the artisans of the villages of Jura and the peasants of Breton are of a different nationality), but also among the townspeople.Only Gao Sai or Sheng Detian and Rouen are still under the power of the priests, and they are superstitious about monarchy! Although France has been ruled by a centralized government for centuries, in fact the life of the country, apart from the superficial unity of bureaucratic policies, the provinces are still independent parts.Even more so in Italy and Spain.Because the Latin countries (including France) are unionist countries.But German nationalists and Jacobins often confuse their much-hated provincial independence (occurring in the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Empire) with the popular unionism of the provinces and metropolises. .

① Partikularismus generally refers to the German states trying to maintain their inherent legal system when they merged with Prussia after the war in 1866. - translator ②The Principality of Sachsen-Koburg-Gotha is located in central Germany. It is a constitutional monarchy formed by the union of two independent principalities, Koburg and Gotha.Now two republics in the German Confederation. - translator Therefore, I am convinced that the social revolution in France, no matter what its orientation, cannot be separated from the nature of local communes, and it is by no means a Jacobin country.Any Frenchman who understands the situation in his country is not deluded by the totalitarianism of the Jacobins, and he knows (as the Spanish P. Y. Magal3) that any revolution in France must be the freedom of 1871. The Commune, proclaimed at Paris and Saint-Tokuro, was attempted by the Bakunin faction at Marseilles and Lyons.A social revolution, therefore, must never be prescribed in the sessions of the French Parliament, and the cities will not submit to the Congress, any more than Paris, in 1792 and 1793, would submit to the strict Congress.

③PiYMargall (1824-1901) He was the leader of the Spanish unionists and a follower of Proudhon.He was Spain's leading scholar, and a great, broad-minded philosopher whose writings had a great influence on the development of Spanish liberal thought. (For a quote from Rocker, see his pamphlet The Truth About Spain). - translator ①That is, Bakunin and his friends and followers. Michal Bakunin (1814-1876) was a famous Russian anarchist revolutionary.This refers to the riots that Bakunin and his friends launched in Lyon in 1870.Bakunin went to Marseilles again after the failure of the insurrection. - translator

Presumably, the revolutionary situation in various places also varies according to local conditions and needs. Generally speaking, those who declare free communes will automatically solve the social problems of the twentieth century.In other words, if a social revolution occurs in a Latin country, it must have a local character.Chierry was very precise.This is the direction of the urban revolution of the twentieth century.England will not be immune to this, and most cities in Spain and Holland will be like this.I firmly believe that the various ministries of Russia should take the initiative of the cities, such as not taking the land and factories into public ownership, organizing agricultural farming groups, and turning the industry into social public management (that is, taking the production tools into public ownership).I am afraid that socialism will fail.

②A． Thierry (1795-1856), a French historian. - translator I published an article on "The Rebel" for French workers, so I took Paris as an example, because Paris is the city with the highest culture in France.I want to describe how a social revolution in France and its environs can be sustained even under the attacks of various reactionaries, as the republic was in 1793. The problem discussed at the end of this book, that is, "how to produce", I want to explain it in the English version of "Pastoral Factory and Handicraft Factory".