Chapter 22 : Sébastian Faure

Sébastian Faure

“My thoughts are with our friends from Spain, and particularly with García Oliver and Federica Montseny. I have in mind the recent Paris conference and what they have stated, the explanation they have offered and the information disclosed by these two representatives of the CNT-FAI. Both have had recourse to their magnificent powers of eloquence to enlighten us in certain particulars and to explain to us the range of circumstances which, they claim, have, so to speak, obliged them perforce to take up the offer of ministerial participation made to them. With the liveliest of attention I read and re-read the verbatim text of everything they said in the latest issue of Le Libertaire. However faithful and accurate it may be, the translation of their words fails to convey to the reader the undertones of ardor and honesty emanating irrepressibly from their speeches. The text is available and that is the ‘essential’ point.

It would be an injustice not to acknowledge that tragic events, dramatic circumstances and the numerous and often contradictory needs of action have obliged our friends to make extreme decisions which by means of bias that is, up to a point, only natural, has gradually, but with ever more implacable logic compelled them to assume the position which we are familiar with, to occupy the government posts we know of and to shoulder the responsibility which is consequent upon these. I am not sitting in judgment. I find the practice of judgeship repugnant and I ask the friends of the CNT-FAI who have given their approval to our comrades García Oliver and Montseny and, at the same time, I ask these two comrades also, not to construe what I am about to say as a verdict of condemnation, for this would not be justified and this would not be the place for it. Nor do I intend anything of the sort. My nature, plus my experience of beings and things incline me towards indulgence and, borrowing the words of Madame de Stael, let me say: “To understand all is to forgive all.”

I understand perfectly that, standing at the heart of the drama in Spain for a year past, beset by incessant dangers, compelled to fight on two fronts — the front of war and the front of revolution — in short, faced, in this bitter struggle and this exceedingly rough and difficult battle, with the necessity of reaching an immediate decision amid thousands of adverse circumstances… as I say, I understand how our dear comrades may have committed some error. I do not imagine that anyone is sufficiently self-assured as never to make mistakes. So I shall take great care not to cast the first stone at anyone: especially since the commission of an error does not imply the gravity of culpability; it is only human … Blame comes into it only when one persists in the error; this means that culpability begins when we cling to it, when we refuse to acknowledge the error of our ways.

Well, now, I hope that our brothers from across the Pyrenees will permit me to tell them, in an amicable, brotherly way that, as I see it, they have — thoughtlessly I am sure — committed a serious offense in not turning down the perfidious offer made them of a minister’s portfolio. This is the initial error which brought all the other errors in its wake. That painful surrender (I choose to believe that entry into the government was looked upon by them as a sacrifice forced upon them by the circumstances) was the source of all the errors which have followed. This is what I was getting at earlier when I wrote that, by means of a natural bias, our friends had accepted the posts, functions and responsibilities and were gradually caught up and were irresistibly obliged to conduct themselves in the manner of those who, upon assuming a ministerial post, turn into yet another of the essential cogs of the State.

That a politician who may belong to a political faction should agree to join a cabinet of ministers, that this should be his ambition, that he should seek this honor and pursue these advantage, is only too natural: such a man plays his card, takes his ‘chance’ and rushes headlong down the path indicated, and will take great care not to let the opportunity slip. But that an anarcho-syndicalist, that an anarchist should accept a ministerial post is a very different matter. Upon his banners in huge letters, the anarcho-syndicalist has inscribed ‘Death to the State!’ The anarchist has written on his in fiery letters ‘Death to authority!’ Both are linked by a clear and specific program founded upon clear and specific principles. Nothing and no one compels them to espouse those principles. With total independence and full knowledge of cause, and in a thoughtful way, they have subscribed to those principles; they have championed, propagated and espoused this program.

That being the case, my contention is that the anarcho-syndicalists cannot line up with those whose mission it is to guide the chariot of state, since he is convinced that this chariot, “this famed chariot” absolutely has to be destroyed. And I say that the anarchist has a duty to repudiate every authoritarian position in that he is thoroughly persuaded of the necessity of destroying all authority.

There will be no shortage of people who may protest that, in reasoning thus, I am taking account only of principles and that, many a time, circumstances, the facts, which is to say that which is vulgarly described as ‘reality’ contradicts principles and makes it necessary for those who take love and respect for principles to lengths of religiosity to set aside temporarily, prepared to revert to their former standpoint just as soon as fresh ‘realities’ may make such a reversion possible. I understand the objection and this is my reply.

First. One or two things. If reality contradicts principles, then those principles must be mistaken in which case we should lose no time abandoning them; we should be honest to admit their falseness in public and we should have the integrity to devote as much ardor in combating than and being as active in refuting them as formerly we defended them. Similarly, we should strive forthwith to seek more solid, more just and less fallible principles.

If, on the other hand, the principles upon which our ideology and tactics rest still hold, regardless of the circumstances, and are as valid today as they were yesterday, then we should keep faith with them. To depart, even for a short time and in exceptional circumstances from the line our principles indicate we should adopt, is to commit a grave error, a dangerous error of judgment. To persist in this error is to commit a grievous mistake, the consequences of which lead on gradually to the temporary jettisoning of principles and, through concession after concession, to the absolute, final abandonment of principle. Once again, this is the mechanism, the slippery slope which can lead us far astray.

Second. It is my belief that the experiment attempted by our comrades of Catalonia, so far from compromising the firmness of our principles and weakening and destroying the correctness of them, may and ought to result (if we can but draw the precious lessons contained within this experiment and put them to good use), in a demonstration of the correctness of our principles and their robustness. The CNT and FAI are still powerful in Spain. They still enjoy considerable prestige and an influence over the proletariat of city and countryside, the power of which no one would reasonably dispute.

Do our friends from Spain and abroad believe that the ministerial experience of which I speak has bolstered this power, this prestige, this influence? Or do they take the contrary view, that this prestige and strength have been undermined?

For the sake of impartiality, let us set aside everything which does not come under the heading of the facts: and let us stick, insofar as this may be possible, solely to the objective reality; let us open our eyes and, above every other consideration, let us look no further than reality. For my own part (and I know, having been told as much, that there are many who share my view) I have to say that the CNT and FAI have not profited by one iota from this experiment with ministerial portfolios; indeed, to my mind, they have lost much. Let us not indulge in exaggeration. Let us not speak of renegades and betrayals; it is not a question of these, but rather a tactic and a deed whose practical consequences we are examining. So let us proceed by way of looking at the evidence.

To begin with, it is beyond question that, whereas effective participation in central authority has had the approval of the majority within the unions and in the groups affiliated to the FAI, that decision has in many places encountered the opposition of a fairly substantial minority, since there has been no unanimity. The internal unity which obtained in each of these organizations has not broken down, nor has there been any split, but it is shaky. The close bond which has united the CNT-FAI for years past has not snapped, but it has been loosened. Two schools of thought have come into existence and the moral authority, not to say the material vigor of the great union confederation and the Anarchist Federation alike, has incontrovertibly borne the brunt of the clash between those two contending schools of thought.

Secondly, and conversely, those political parties called upon to act in a ministerial capacity alongside the delegates from the masses of workers and peasants have palpably increased their influence: they have strengthened the positions they previously held and captured new ones. And on the basis of official implementation of the reformist and collaborationist techniques which are second nature to them, they have countered and gradually threatened the spirit of revolutionary class struggle and the methods of direct action which logically derive from that spirit.

Thirdly, the mentality and usages to which the federalist organization of the CNT and FAI had logically directed and automatically acclimated the laboring masses have been noticeably impaired as a result of the introduction of their most prominent representatives into the essentially centralized councils of government.

The axis of the action to be carried into effect, the axis of the battle to be fought and the decisions to be taken and imposed, and even the responsibilities to be asserted, has ipso facto and logically and automatically been dislocated. The impulse no longer emanates from the base but from the upper echelons; guidelines do not emanate from the masses but from the leadership.

I think that these facts cannot be denied and that they are enough, more than enough, to show that, far from having been of advantage to the Spanish Libertarian Movement, participation at ministerial level has worked to its detriment in every respect. Again, let me say that I am not questioning the personal intentions of friends who, under the lash of dramatic circumstances (the exceptional nature of which is not unknown to me), have sought to be of service to the cause to which they have given body and soul. I cast no aspersions upon their integrity, but I shall demonstrate, by means of the very error into which they have fallen and of the consequences thereof, the intangible robustness of the principles upon which our ideology and our tactics are founded. I want, further, to bring to the attention of anarcho-syndicalists and anarchists everywhere the viability of those principles, the necessity of keeping faith with them, and the many grave perils implicit in departure from them whatever the circumstances may be.

In short, and above all, believe that from the foregoing observations, we have to draw the precious lessons destined to spare us the false maneuvers whose upshot would be to slow and to impair our progress towards our desired end and even to induce us to turn our backs upon our goal.

Anarchists have waged a resolute battle, without quarter, against everything and against everybody; they are resolved to press on with it, unstinting, until victory is achieved. The struggle implies, on the one hand, what needs doing, come what may; and on the other, that which ought never to have been done, under any circumstances. I am not unaware that it is not always feasible to do what it would be necessary should be done; but I know that there are things which it is absolutely essential ought never to be done.

The Spanish experiment can and ought to be a lesson to us. This experiment ought to put us on our guard against the danger of concessions and alliances even though these may be strictly conditional and of limited duration to boot. To say that all concessions weaken those who make them and strengthen those who are on the receiving end of them is to speak an incontrovertible truth. To claim that any compact, even a temporary one, agreed by anarchists with a political party which is, theoretically and in practice, anti-anarchist is a snare of which the anarchists are always the victims is a truth borne out by experience, by history and by simple logic. In the course of their dalliance with authoritarians, the loyalty and integrity of the anarchists are continually fouled by the perfidy and wiles of their temporary and circumstantial allies.

Does this mean that I am advocating the ivory tower? or complete isolation? Not at all! How come? Because anarchism long ago ceased to be a purely idealist movement of merely philosophical and sheerly sentimental speculation. Anarchism is a social and historical movement with deep roots in the soil of reality. Its growth and dynamism are closely bound up with the contingencies surrounding it …and it ought to have its contribution to make to their development, so that it may forge us as far ahead as possible with its own progress and its own gains.

The objectives of anarchism are the right ones: its principles are rigid and inflexible; its sphere of action is immense and by virtue of its very plasticity it can and ought to take account of the various requirements imposed by the sinuous course of events.

None of this ivory tower nonsense, then. No isolation. Instead, vigilance, circumspection, extreme caution before setting foot, no matter who the company may be, upon a path which may not strictly be ours.

I do not want to conclude these observations without stressing the high regard and friendship which I still retain, in spite of everything, for our brothers of the CNT and FAI. As I see it, the best way of proving this profound esteem to them and this unalterable affection is not to keep a gag upon our misgivings and our reservations: much less should we prove our friendship by giving them our approval and cur applause without faithfully and frankly giving expression to, what we think, eschewing both attenuation and exaggeration. And this is what I have done. It could not be otherwise. Shall I overlook the prodigious effort made by cur friends and the wondrous achievements due to their bold initiative and their steadfast and energetic action? Shall I forget the heroic militants, known and unknown, fallen on the soil of Iberia in the name of the revolution and of liberty? Shall I forget the furious attacks, infamous accusations and countless unspeakable persecutions of which they were the victims? Am I to forget the debt owed to them by the international libertarian movement?

Comrades. Let us not forget these splendid examples of daring initiatives, of dangers braved, of intrepid action and heroic struggle which the CNT and FAI have set before us. Let us not forget that for the past 12 months they have been fighting for our liberation. Let us cherish them, let us stand by them and let them, in this exceptional hour, feel the support, backing, defense and encouragement of our ardor and affection!”