incontinently
possess himself of my field, without having any need to appeal to the
principal of "solidarity;" the principle of "liberty" will sufficiently
answer his purpose. A very pleasant "equalisation of individuals"!

"It is certain," Bakounine admits, "that at first things won't work in
an absolutely peaceful manner; there will be struggles; public order,
that arch saint of the bourgeois, will be disturbed, and the just deeds
which will result from such a state of things may constitute what one is
agreed to call a civil war. But do you prefer to hand over France to the
Prussians?... Moreover, do you fear that the peasants will devour one
another; even if they tried to do so in the beginning, they would soon
be convinced of the material impossibility of persisting in this course,
and then we may be sure they would try to arrive at some understanding,
to come to terms, to organise among themselves. The necessity of eating,
of providing for their families, and the necessity therefore of
safeguarding their houses, their families, and their own lives against
unforeseen attacks, all this would soon force them individually to enter
into mutual arrangements. And do not believe, either, that in these
arrangements, _arrived at outside all official tutelage_" (italicised by
Bakounine), "by the mere force of events, the strongest, the richest,
will exercise a predominant influence. The wealth of the wealthy, no
longer guaranteed by juridical institutions, will cease to be a
power.... As to the most cunning, the strongest, they will be rendered
innocuous by the collective strength of the mass of the small, and very
small peasants, as well as by the agricultural proletarians, a mass of
men to-day reduced to silent suffering, but whom the revolutionary
movement will arm with an irresistible power. Please note that I do not
contend that the agricultural districts which will thus reorganise
themselves, from below upwards, will immediately create an ideal
organisation, agreeing at all points with the one of which we dream.
What I am convinced of is that this will be a _living_ organisation, and
as such, one a thousand times superior to what exists now. Moreover,
this new organisation being always open to the propaganda of the towns,
as it can no longer be held down, so to say petrified by the juridical
sanction of the State, it will progress freely, developing and
perfecting itself indefinitely, but always living and free, never