ding a so-called revolutionary State. The only
revolution that can do any good to the people is that which utterly
annihilates every political idea. With this end in view, the People's
Tribunal has no intention of imposing on the people an organisation
coming from above. The future organisation will, without doubt,
proceed from the movement and life of the people; but that is the
business of future generations. Our task is terrible, inexorable, and
universal destruction."

The views thus expressed are quite in harmony with what Netschajew has
written about revolutionary action in the writings mentioned above.
"Words," he exclaims, "have no value for us, unless followed at once
by action. But all is not action that is so-called: for example, the
modest and too-cautious organisation of secret societies without
external announcements to outsiders is in our eyes merely ridiculous
and intolerable child's-play. By external announcements we mean a
series of actions that positively destroy something--a person, a
cause, a condition that hinders the emancipation of the people.
Without sparing our lives, we must break into the life of the people
with a series of rash, even senseless, actions, and inspire them with
a belief in their powers, awake them, unite them, and lead them on to
the triumph of their cause."

The tendency which here develops into the recommendation of violence
should be carefully noticed; outrage is no longer recommended, because
the purposes of revolution can be served thereby directly, but
indirectly, as a kind of sanguinary advertisement to the indolent
masses, who would thus have their attention drawn to the theory by
such terrible events. That is the diabolical basis of the "propaganda
of action," which was defined by another follower of Bakunin--Paul
Brousse, the man of the Jura Federation (see the chapter on "The
Spread of Anarchy"). "Deeds," says Brousse, "are talked of on all
sides; the indifferent masses inquire about their origin, and thus pay
attention to the new doctrine, and discuss it. Let men once get as far
as this, and it is not hard to win over many of them." Therefore he
recommended revolution and outrage, not in order to upset existing
society thereby, but for the purpose of the "propaganda." Brousse only
had to borrow the thought, as we see, from Netschajew; and it is not
difficult to say whence the latter got it. The opinion which ascribes
the authorship of the _Catechism of Revolution_