Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Revolutionary Ideas And Action / 63
gets for regimentation, arming and equipping, for buttering the potatoes or truffles
and fo r intoxicating grog or champagne fo r liveried retainers, ranging from trooper
to general, from prefect to town sergeant and from hangman to judge.
No more government. freeing up a million men and two million strong arms for
work and fo r production.
Toothless crone, light-fingered Shrew, snake-haired Medusa, away with you,
Authority! Make way for Freedom!
Make way fo r the people in direct possession of its sovereignty. make way fo r
the organized commune.
15. Francisco Pi y Margal/: Reaction and Revolution (1854)
In tile wake of the 1848- 1849 Revolutions il1 Europe, anarchist ideas began to spread not only in
the Frel1ch expatriate community, but il1 other parts of Europe. Anarchist ideas were introduced
into Spail1 by Francisco Pi y Margall (1824- 190 1), a writer and politician influenced by Proudhol1,
wllOm he translated into Spanish. /11 the 1850's he was an anti-authoritarian federalist associated
with the nascent workers' movement. The fo llowing excerpts are taken from his Reaction or Revolution:
Political and Social Studies (1854), translated by Paul Sharkey.
HOMO SIBI DEUS, ONE GERMAN philosopher said [FeuerbachJ: man his own reality,
his own right. his world, his purpose, his God, his all. The eternal idea made flesh and
become conscious of itself: he is the being of beings, law and law-giver, monarch and
subject. Is he searching for a starting-point fo r science He finds it, in reflection and
in the abstraction of his thinking self. Is he searching for a moral principle He finds
one in his reason which aspires to determine his actions. Is he searching for a universe
He finds one in his ideas. Is he searching fo r a godhead He finds one, in himself.
A being that encompasses everything is undoubtedly sovereign. Man, therefore,
all men, are ungovernable. All power an absurdity. Every man who lays hands upon
another man is a tyrant. More than that: he commits sacrilege.
Between two sovereign entities there is room only fo r pacts. Authority and sovereignty
are contradictions. Society based upon authority ollght. therefore. to give
way to society based upon contract. Logic demands it.
Democracy, a curious phenomenon, starts to accept the absolute sovereignty of
man. its only possible fo undation; but it still fights shy of the anarchy which is its inevitable
consequence. Like other fa ctions. it sacrifices logic to the interests of the
moment.