The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa (27 page)

“This seems to me rather hard to dispute. But let’s suppose someone does dispute it. Suppose someone argues that this all may be true but that the anarchist system can never be put into practice. Let’s consider that argument.

“Why wouldn’t it be possible to put the anarchist system into practice? All of us who are progressive agree not only that the present system is unjust but that it should be replaced by a more equitable one. Whoever doesn’t think this way is bourgeois, not progressive. But where does our notion of
justice
come from? It comes from what is
true and
natural
, in opposition to social fictions and the lies of convention. And what’s natural is what’s
completely
natural, not what’s half or one-quarter or one-eighth natural. Do you follow me? Now, one of two things must be true: either it’s possible to put what’s natural into social practice, or it isn’t possible. In other words, either it’s possible for a natural society to exist, or society is a pure fiction that can in no way be natural. If a natural society is possible, then an anarchist, or free, society can exist and should exist, since it would be a completely natural society. If society cannot be natural, if (no matter what the reason) it is necessarily a fiction, then let’s make the best of it. Let’s make the fiction as natural—and thereby as just—as possible. What fiction is most natural? By definition no fiction is natural per se. For our purposes, the most natural fiction will be the one that
seems
the most natural, that
feels
the most natural. And what fiction seems or feels the most natural? The fiction we’re used to. (What’s natural, you understand, is whatever is instinctive. And what seems instinctive without really being instinctive is habit. Smoking isn’t natural; it’s not an instinctive need. But if we get used to smoking, it becomes a natural act; it ends up feeling like an instinctive need.) The social fiction we’re most used to is, of course, the present system, the bourgeois system.

“And so, according to the dictates of logic, we will either advocate anarchism, if we believe that a natural society is possible, or, if we believe it to be impossible, we will defend the bourgeois regime. There’s no intermediate position. Do you follow me?”

“Perfectly. Your explanation is irrefutable.”

“Not quite.... There’s another objection of the same order that needs to be dealt with. Someone might argue that the anarchist system is indeed feasible but that it can’t be introduced overnight—that we can’t go from a bourgeois to a free society without one or more intermediate phases or regimes. This someone, while admitting that an anarchist society is a good and realistic goal, suspects that there will have to be some sort of transitional state between it and our current bourgeois society.

“Supposing this to be true, then what would the intermediate state be? It could only be one that prepares humanity for our goal, which is
an anarchist or free society. This preparation would either be material, or merely psychological. That is, it would either consist in a series of material and social changes that would help adapt humanity to the free society, or it would consist in an increasingly forceful propaganda campaign,
psychologically
preparing people to desire or at least to accept the free society.

“The first proposition—the gradual, material adaptation of humanity to the free society—is impossible. Not only impossible but absurd. You can only materially adapt to something that already exists. We could never materially adapt to the social milieu of the twenty-third century, even if we knew what it were going to be. We can’t materially adapt to the twenty-third century and its social milieu for the simple reason that they do not yet
materially
exist. We may therefore conclude that the only adaptation, evolution, or transition that can occur in passing from the bourgeois society to the free society is
psychological;
it’s the gradual adapting of people’s minds to the idea of the free society.... But in fact there’s another possibility, in the area of material adaptation, that we still haven’t considered.”

“Not another possibility!”

“Be patient, my friend. The clear-thinking man must consider and refute all possible objections before he can affirm his doctrine to be true. And besides, this is all in response to a question you raised.”

“All right, all right.”

“In the area of material adaptation, as I was saying, there’s still another possibility: namely the revolutionary dictatorship.”

“How does the revolutionary dictatorship enter into it?”

“As I’ve explained, we can’t materially adapt to something that still doesn’t materially exist. But if a violent upheaval were to bring about a social revolution, then we would have, not yet our goal of the free society (for which humanity is still not prepared), but a dictatorship of those who want to establish the free society. At this point there would already exist a material outline, or beginning, of the free society. And thus there would be something material to which humanity could adapt. This is the argument that the idiots who defend the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ would use to defend it if they knew how to argue or think. The
argument is mine, of course, not theirs. I submit it to myself as an objection. And, as I will show you, it’s false.

“A revolutionary regime, as long as it exists, and regardless of its guiding idea or main goal, is
materially
only one thing: a revolutionary regime. And a revolutionary regime means a wartime dictatorship, or, in plainer words, a despotic military regime, because a state of war is imposed on society by just one part of it—the part that took power by means of a revolution. What’s the result? Those who adapt to this regime will be adapting to what is in fact,
materially
and
immediately
, a despotic military regime. The revolutionaries’ guiding idea, their main goal, completely vanishes in the social
reality
of an exclusively warlike environment. So that the inevitable outcome of a revolutionary dictatorship—and the longer the dictatorship, the more pronounced the outcome—is a warlike, dictatorial-type society. Military despotism, in other words. That’s how it has always been and how it will always be. I don’t know much history, but what I do know bears this out, as it logically must. What came out of the political uprisings in Rome? The Roman Empire and its military despotism. What came out of the French Revolution? Napoleon and his military despotism. And you’ll see what comes out of the Russian Revolution: something that sets back the goal of a free society by decades.... But what more could we expect from a nation of mystics and illiterates? ...

“I’m getting off the track.... Have you followed my argument?”

“Perfectly.”

“Then you can understand the conclusion I reached. Goal: an anarchist or free society. Means: an abrupt passage,
with no transition
, from bourgeois society to the free society. This passage will be made possible by an intense, sweeping propaganda campaign, designed to prepare people’s minds and break down all resistance. By ‘propaganda,’ of course, I don’t mean just the written and spoken word. I mean everything that by direct or indirect action can prepare people for the free society and break down resistance to its coming. In this way, with virtually no more resistance to overcome, the social revolution, when it arrives, will be swift and easy, with no need for a revolutionary dictatorship to crush the opposition, since there won’t be any. If it can’t happen this
way, then anarchism is unattainable; and if anarchism is unattainable, then the fairest and only defensible society, as I’ve already shown, is bourgeois society.

“There you have why and how I became an anarchist, and why and how I rejected other, less radical social doctrines as false and unnatural.

“So now we can get on with the rest of my story.”

He struck a match and slowly lit his cigar. He thought for a moment, and then went on.

“There were other young men who shared my views. Most, but not all of them, were workers. All of us, in any case, were poor, and as far as I can remember there were no dummies among us. We were eager to know and learn, and we wanted to spread our ideas. For ourselves and for others—for all humanity—we wanted a new society, free from all the prejudices that make people artificially unequal by imposing on certain ones an inferiority, poverty, and suffering that Nature had no part in. The things I read confirmed me in these opinions. I read all the cheap libertarian books then available, and there were quite a few. I went to the lectures and rallies of the social idealists of the day. And each book I read, each speech I heard, convinced me all the more of the fairness and Tightness of my ideas. What I thought then—I repeat, my friend—is what I think today. The only difference is that back then I merely thought it, whereas today I think and practice it.”

“Okay. I follow you up to this point. I understand why and how you became an anarchist, and I can see that you most definitely were one. I don’t need any more proofs of that. What I want to know is how a man with your views could become a banker and not feel any contradiction.... Actually, I think I can guess—”

“Well guess again. I know what you were going to say. Given the arguments I’ve just set forth, you supposed that I found anarchism to be an unattainable goal, leaving bourgeois society as the only fair and defensible alternative. Right?”

“Yes, that’s more or less what I figured.”

“But how could that be when, ever since we started this discussion, I’ve insisted that I
am
an anarchist, that I not only was one but continue to be one? If I’d become a banker and businessman for the reason you supposed, I’d be bourgeois, not an anarchist.”

“True. But then—how on earth can ...? Go on, explain yourself.”

“I’ve always been basically clear thinking, as I told you, and I’ve always been a man of action. These are natural qualities. They weren’t given to me in the cradle (if I even had a cradle); I had them when I came into the world. Due to these qualities, I couldn’t stand to be a passive anarchist, to just go and listen to speeches and to talk about anarchism with friends. No: I had to do something! I wanted to work and to fight on behalf of the oppressed and the victims of social conventions! Having decided to do whatever I could do, I thought about how I could be useful to the libertarian cause. I started to lay out my plan of action.

“What does the anarchist want? Freedom. Freedom for himself and for others. Freedom for all humanity. He wants to be free from the influence and pressure of social fictions. He wants to be just as free as when he came into the world and as he has every right still to be. And he wants this freedom for everyone. People are not equal in their natural gifts: some are born tall, others short; some strong, others weak; some more intelligent than others.... But we can all be equal from that point on. Social fictions are the only hindrance. They, I realized, were what had to be destroyed.

“They had to be destroyed, but only—I thought to myself—on one condition: they had to be destroyed
in order to promote freedom
, and for the ultimate goal of a free society. For if the destruction of social fictions can create freedom or pave the way to freedom, it can also clear the way for new social fictions—equally bad because equally fictitious—to take their place. So it was necessary to proceed with caution. It was necessary to conceive a plan of action, however violent or nonviolent (everything is permitted in the fight against social injustice), that would help destroy social fictions without, at the same time, hindering the
creation of future freedom. The best plan would create, if possible, some of that future freedom right now.

“It goes without saying that, besides not obstructing the freedom of the future, we should be careful not to hinder the freedom of those oppressed by social fictions. We obviously needn’t worry about hindering the ‘freedom’ of the powerful and the privileged, of all those who represent social fictions and profit from them. What they have isn’t true freedom but the freedom to oppress, which is freedom’s opposite, and this we should actively try to hinder and fight. I think all of this is clear enough....”

“Perfectly clear. Go on....”

“Who does the anarchist want freedom for? For all humanity. How achieve freedom for all humanity? By completely destroying all social fictions. How destroy all social fictions? I already hinted at the explanation when, in answer to your question, I discussed other advanced social theories and explained why I was an anarchist. Do you remember my conclusion?”

“I do.”

“A swift, sudden, and overwhelming social revolution that will cause society to pass, in a single leap, from the bourgeois regime to the free society. ... A social revolution that will be preceded by an intense work of preparation—relying on direct and indirect action—to make people’s minds receptive to the coming of a free society and to reduce bourgeois resistance to a state of coma. I won’t bother to reiterate the reasons that inevitably lead, within anarchism, to this conclusion. I think you understood them the first time.”

“Yes.”

“This revolution would ideally be worldwide, occurring simultaneously in all points, or at least in all key points around the world; or, if this weren’t possible, then quickly spreading from one point to another and being, in every point and every nation, a complete and categorical revolution.

“Now what could I do to make this happen? By myself I could never bring about complete social revolution in the country where I was living, much less around the whole world. What I could do was work,
to the utmost of my capacity, to prepare for this revolution. I’ve already explained how: by using all means available to fight against social fictions; by making sure that this fight and my propaganda on behalf of the free society would never hinder the freedom of the future or the limited freedom already possible for the oppressed; and by creating, if possible, something of that future freedom.”

He puffed on his cigar, paused a moment, and went on.

“It was at this point, my friend, that I put my clear thinking into action. To work for the future is fine, I thought, and to work for the freedom of others is good. But what about me? Don’t I count? If I were a Christian, I’d cheerfully work for other people’s future, because I’d have my reward in heaven. But if I were a Christian, I wouldn’t be an anarchist, since the social inequalities of our brief life on earth wouldn’t matter; they would merely be part of God’s testing, to be compensated by eternal life. But I wasn’t, and am not, a Christian, and so I had to ask: just who am I sacrificing myself for? And
why
am I going to sacrifice myself?