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

Origins Of The Anarchist Movement / 75
humanitarian organism of which nothing previously could give the idea; similarly,
the resulting governmental apparatus is based in its turn, no longer on some unfathomable
fictional convention, imagined as being fo r the good of the republic and
withdrawn as soon as it is posited, but on a genuine contract wherein the sovereignty
of the contracting parties, instead of being swallowed lip by some central majesty
... serves as a positive guarantee ofthe liberty of States, communes and individuals.
So, no longer do we have the abstraction of people's sovereignty ... but an
effective sovereignty of the labouring masses which rule and govern initially in the
benevolent associations, chambers of commerce, craft and trades bodies, and workers'
companies; in the stock exchanges, the markets, the academies, the schools, agricultural
fa irs and finally in election meetings, parliamentary assemblies and
councils of State, in the national guards, and even the churches and temples. It is still
universally the same collective strength that is brought fo rth in the name of and by
virtue of the principle of mutuality: the final affirmation of the rights of Man and the
Citizen.
I declare here and now that the labouring masses are actually, positively and effectively
sovereign: how could they not be when the economic organism-labour,
capital, property and assets-belongs to them entirely; as utter masters of the organic
fu nctions, how could they not be all the more emphatically masters ofthe functions
of relation Subordination to the productive might of what was hitherto, to the
exclusion of anything else, the Government, the Powers-that-be, the State , is blown
apart by the way in which the political organism is constituted:
a. An ELECTORAL BODY, spontaneously coming together, laying down policy on
operations and reviewing and sanctioning its own acts;
b. A delegated LEGISLATIVE body or Council of State, appointed by the federal
groups and subject to re-election;
c. An executive commission selected by the people's representatives from
among their own number, and subject to recall;
d. Finally, a chairman fo r that commission, appointed by it and subject to recall.
Tell me, is this not the system of the old society turned upside down; a system in
which the country is decidedly all; where what once was described as the head of
State, the sovereign, autocrat, monarch, despot, king, emperor, czar, khan, sultan,
majesty, highness, etc., etc., definitively appears as a gentleman, the first among his
fe llow-citizens, perhaps, in terms of honorific distinction, but assuredly the least
dangerous of all public officials You may brag this time that the issue of political