Anarchists Who Are All Talk?

*Artemio Rodriguez, Adelitas from Estampas de la Revolución Mexicana, 2010. Linocut.*

Translated from the Spanish of the original article that appeared in Regeneración, Numero 228, 4 de Marzo de 1916

As the liberated persons who inhabit these old lands, we would be crazy if we believed that the realization of our adored anarchist ideals, their implementation, is easy to achieve by means of evolution, without any unrest.

The anarchist idea, in my humble view, can never be accepted by the ruling classes, by the privileged classes in general.

One or another isolated individuals representing one of these satisfied classes, may accept and may even devote his entire life to it, but considered as a whole, the parasitic class is not the one that will evolve along with the working masses (taking into account the possibility that all workers in general will evolve, even if it is thousands of years from now).

With such an impossibility, which I do not believe it is right to hold up as the truth, what should liberated workers do? Cross their arms? Wait until our masters, our tyrants and the robe-wearing vultures have the kindness to suppress themselves and leave the countryside free for us, or until they have the generosity to divest themselves of their property, their privileges and their power, for our benefit?

We are not crazy enough to believe it.

The terrible experiences that the proletarian class has suffered for so long, must convince all proletarians, if we ourselves haven’t, that to liberate ourselves there is no other recourse than violence.

It is for this reason that we work for the armed revolution, in all parts of the world where we find ourselves, not precisely to make the revolution ourselves, because we anarchists are convinced that revolutions are not made by individuals, but by circumstances, by the prevailing conditions that force the individual to become enraged and to take up a gun and go out into the street.

When we work for the revolution, what we are really doing is preparing the ground so that when the revolution arrives, the individual who takes to the streets knows what he must fight for. The more the human being can precipitate the awakening of the proletariat, the sooner will discomfort be felt and the closer the beautiful day of the Revolution will approach, within which our duty is to strive, to do whatever we can to direct this popular movement to a noble goal: freedom, the liberation of the poor and the disinherited.

The latter, I believe, is the duty of all men and women who consider themselves liberated.

That is why I am surprised that now that there is an armed revolution in México, (whether or not it is social or economic or agrarian or only political), very few anarchists from other nations are interested in putting it on the path, or helping to put it on the path to Anarchy.

Almost all the efforts towards that end are made only by us Mexican anarchists, who have been awakened by Regeneración and now seek to awaken others.

Why don’t the anarchists of other regions do their duty? Have they renounced their duty of solidarity? Or are they nothing more than anarchists of words and convenience? Or are they afraid?

Estela Arteaga

No More Charades!

Translated from the Spanish of the original article that appeared in Regeneración, Numero 228, 4 de Marzo de 1916

Yes; no more charades! Let’s shake off the hypnotic state we have been imprisoned in for so long under the present system!

Let us decide to assert our dignity, lending all our strength to action, to acquire our complete liberation.

The bourgeoisie, owner of the power of murder, of forced humiliation, of creating ignorance and corrupting consciences; with their courts, their prisons, their soldiers and all their faithful henchmen dogs, with their churches and their complete control of the means of production, is strong because of all this.

And when there are those who, obeying the duty of a dignified man, uproot these evils, they come to suffocate him, using their own victims, the slaves, to do so.

Because the President is so much a slave of the bourgeoisie that, in order to keep his position, he tramples even the “Fatherland”, to take care of the interests of the bourgeoisie in foreign countries. Even the unhappy stowaway, to get a bone by doing his job as a sad dog, chases his class brothers, faithfully obeying the orders of his master.

When the bourgeoisie is seeing that the efforts of fighters have already echoed in the hearts of the people, destroying superstitions, with the people now preferring death with glory in the liberatory struggle to the servility of serving the exploiters; can we then doubt the origin of the persecutions of those who incited all of this, the anarchists?

Will we now allow them to be wiped-out, without so much as an exclamation of sympathy? Shall we flee at the advance of the enemy, leaving these redeemers alone in their clutches, or shall we all form a united force?

The bourgeoisie is powerful because we ourselves, the disinherited, are its support. Get it off our shoulders and it will fall to the ground, broken into a thousand pieces.

Let’s be dignified, let’s not allow more outrages.

Respond!

Lucia Norman

An Archive

Anarchists Who Are All Talk? – Estela Arteaga / No More Charades! – Lucia Norman (1916)