Chapter 21. The Trial of 1883

Several weeks after the trial at Lyon, it seemed to me that I would have been an accessory to cowardice if I did not use the liberty I was allowed—I don’t know why—to call up a new and immense International which would stretch from one end of the earth to the other.

On 9 March 1883 there was a mass demonstration at the Esplanade of les Invalides, after which Louise Michel led a number of demonstrators across Paris. For that, she was accused of rioting and looting. A massive police hunt for her in Paris and throughout Europe ensued while she remained comfortably hidden at the home of the editor of L’Intransigeant, M. Vaughan. On March 30 she surrendered herself in a farce designed to make the police look as foolish as possible.

I stayed in hiding for three weeks. While certain reporters claimed they were chatting with me in a house where I wasn’t present, others saw me at a pleasure party in the Bois de Boulogne, where I wasn’t either. I was living with the families of my friends Vaughan and Meusy, from where I made my way to my mother’s, dressed as a man. In those clothes I would have been able either to stay hidden in Paris or take my mother abroad. I would even have been able to continue to publicize the Revolution. Wearing men’s clothing, I had often gone to meetings from which women were excluded. Dressed in a National Guard’s or soldier’s uniform during the Commune, I went many times to places where people hardly expected to have to deal with a woman.

You, my friends, who gave me hospitality after the demonstration at les Invalides as if I were a family member, when you read this, remember that I was sorry to cause you so much trouble. Your true spirit was revealed when you sheltered me from the searchers, but I had to face trial. We must be implacable, especially concerning ourselves. Lies are too shameful.

Louise and Augustine, remember that you agreed, and you told me that I was right. I haven’t forgotten, and I know you will feel that same way always. If your brothers will need courage for the things they’ll see, you will need a hundred times more. Women must have dry eyes today where men might cry.

And you, you other little boys and girls, do you really believe I have forgotten you? If Paul and Marius one day become what I believe they will, they, too, will need courage. May the one who is a poet and the one who is a musician go their way in sunlight.

And you, Marie and Marguerite, you, too, my little ones, you are coming to that great moment when humanity is on the march, and you must not weaken. It will be so much the worse for you, but the better for humanity.

Let me get back to my trial. Several of our friends offered to defend me, but each one of us must explain his own thought himself. Then, too, it was impossible for me to choose between those who had already defended our friends the way free men should be defended, and Locamus, who had defended the deportees called before the colonial courts at Noumea.

So many times we saw Locamus pass by us, going away to prison in handcuffs, with his clients having been acquitted at the cost of his being sentenced for insulting the judiciary. He prized those theatrics and made the courts do it to him so that the whole process would look ridiculous. As he was being taken away, Locamus used to laugh in a way that made you laugh, too. He swaggered, just like Lisbonne in his convict’s uniform. The only difference was that Locamus, standing straight, used to shake his great curly head, and Lisbonne, striking out with his crutch, raised his head under his mane. Both of them looked like lions.

As the trial progressed, I was conscious of how bothersome it was to speak to a court when you are only one of several persons accused. You have to be very careful, because the prosecutors wait in ambush over your sentences to get them to serve, when possible, as ammunition for prosecuting the others. I hope I avoided that trap.

There were a number of young people disguised as lawyers—perhaps they were newly created lawyers—who gathered together like a classical chorus to stare at me and laugh or do other things like that. I hope that the three or four who stopped shouting insults themselves have not allowed themselves to be reenlisted in the band that insults the dead. I hope that they won’t look at things through the wrong end of their opera-glasses again, and that the names of Valles, Rigault, Vermorel, de Milliere, Delescluze, and so many others who have been students just like them will sometimes come to their minds.

At my trial I used to think of Erasmus’s Praise of Folly. The scepters of fools were missing, but the sound of the little bells that dangle from them tinkled in your ears. The obtuse jurors were bewildered by the indictment, in which they had been told that if they did not convict me their shops would not be safe. I was accused of the burlesque charge that

I had laughed on their doorsteps. Youngsters came to insult me, but some of them were pacified and left—perhaps captured by the Revolution, which blows through the courts.

It is not me, messieurs, whom you condemned. You know very well that I was not acting from motives of personal gain. It is my old mother whom you condemned to death—and she is dead now.

Let me give myself justice here. The accusation that I laughed was only a decoy. They did not want to accuse me of anything else because a woman is killed more quickly by ridicule. Let’s get the facts straight. What people prosecute me for is my ideas. That is why I quoted the complete Manifesto of Lyon in the last chapter. I share all of the ideas written there.

This is justice. Now that I have quoted that manifesto and confessed that the ideas in it are the same as my beliefs, justice is done. I therefore have no need to worry any more about commenting on the details of my trial, although I will quote the transcript.

At my trial it was agreed that I laughed on a doorstep one day when people were asking those inside for work. I did this, although my mother had begged me to wait until she was dead before I took part in any more demonstrations.

Here is the record of the trial taken from the Gazette des tribunaux.

Superior Court of the Seine District M. Rame, Presiding Judge Session of 21 June 1883

Louise Michel, Jean-Joseph-Emile Pouget, and Eugene Mareuil are charged:

1. With having been the leaders and instigators of looting committed by a band in Paris in March 1883, the said looting having been commit¬ ted by force and the loot consisting of loaves of bread belonging to the married couple Augereau, who are bakers;

2. With having been, at the said time and place, the leaders and instigators of forceful looting committed by a band, the loot consisting of loaves of bread belonging to the married couple Bouche, who are bakers;

3. With the similar looting, the loot consisting of loaves of bread belonging to the married couple Moricet, who are bakers.

The Questioning of Louise Michel

Question: Have you ever been prosecuted?

Louise Michel: Yes, in 1871.

Question : That can’t be mentioned any more. Those deeds were covered by the amnesty. Have you been convicted since then?

Michel: I was sentenced to two weeks in prison for the Blanqui demonstration.

Question: Do you take part in every demonstration that occurs? Michel: Unfortunately, yes. I am always on the side of the wretched. Question: Because of that habit you went to the demonstration at the Esplanade of les Invalides. What result did you hope for?

Michel: A peaceful demonstration never produces results, but I thought the government would follow its usual policy and sweep the crowd with cannon fire, so it would have been cowardly of me not to go. Question: You recruited your followers for that demonstration. Did you know Pouget?

Michel: I had met Pouget at some meetings.

Question: Pouget was your secretary. He was supposed to distribute brochures propagating your ideas in the provinces. He acquired a name as one of your followers.

Michel: They are not, properly speaking, followers. Some people are curious about our ideas.

Question: You were the leader of a small demonstration that followed the general demonstration, but let’s take care of your participation in the general demonstration first. You went to les Invalides and you met Pouget there?

Michel: Yes, monsieur.

Question: Had you planned with Pouget and Mareuil to go to the Esplanade?

Michel: No, monsieur. We met by chance.

Question: Wasn’t the demonstration only for unemployed workers? Michel: Yes, monsieur.

Question: Did you think that this demonstration could provide work? Michel: I’ve already told you, no. I went there out of duty.

Question: The demonstration was dispersed. Isn’t it true that at that moment you decided to make your own little demonstration?

Michel: It wasn’t a demonstration. I wanted to make people hear the cry of the workers.

Question: You asked for a black flag?

Michel: Yes, and someone brought me a black rag.

Question: Who gave it to you?

Michel: A person I didn’t know.

Question: You don’t find a flag so easily and accidentally on the Espla¬ nade of les Invalides.

Michel: All you need to do is find a broomstick and a black rag. Question: It was easy to find because the demonstration had been prepared in advance. Who had prepared that flag?

Michel: No one. Even if somebody had, you know quite well that I wouldn’t point him out.

Question: Didn’t you leave the Esplanade with the intention of making a disturbance?

Michel: I simply put myself at the head of a group.

Question: Were Pouget and Mareuil part of it?

Michel: Yes, they were determined to protect me.

Question: What was your purpose in crossing Paris with a black flag? Did you believe you could get bread for the workers that way?

Michel: No, but I wanted to make people see that the workers didn’t have any and that they were hungry. The black flag is the flag of strikes and the flag of famines.

The judge ordered the bailiff to go to the table of exhibits and pick up a black flag, which Louise Michel identified as the one she carried on March 9.

Question: You came to the boulevard Saint-Germain. Why did you stop in front of Bouche’s bakery?

Michel: I kept on walking. The kids told me that someone was giving them bread. I didn’t bother with the details.

Question: You claim that the bakers were voluntarily giving bread away? Michel: Yes, monsieur. The kids told me they were being given bread and some small change. I was very humbled by that.

Question: And the men who were armed with clubs. Was anyone giving them bread voluntarily?

Michel: We didn’t have anyone with us armed with a club. They are not among the accused.

Question: You can’t challenge the facts. The witness Bouch6 saw you arriving at the head of a mob, and fifteen or twenty individuals moved away from it to pillage his shop. They were chanting, “Bread and work or lead.”

Michel: They weren’t with us. That was something the police staged. Question: You said during one interrogation that you didn’t look on taking bread as a crime.

Michel: Yes, I said that, but I have never taken any, and I never shall take any, even if I were dying of hunger.

Question: When you were stopped on the place Maubert, did you say to the police officer, “Don’t hurt me. We are only asking for bread”? Michel: I didn’t say, “Don’t hurt me.” Perhaps I said, “We are only asking for bread. You won’t be hurt.”

Question: In short, M. Bouchd’s bakery was completely looted.

Michel: I did not see the bakery, nor do I know M. Bouch6.

Question: The shop sticks out into the street and stares you in the face. Michel: I was thinking only about poverty; I wasn’t thinking about bakers’ shops.

Question: You then arrived in front of M. Augereau’s shop?

Michel: I don’t know M. Augereau.

Question: Did you raise your flag in front of that shop?

Michel: I could have raised and lowered it many times.

Question: Did you say “Go”?

Michel: I could have said it. I must have said “Let’s go”: or “Let’s move” many times. I don’t remember it.

Question: How many persons did you see around you?

Michel: I don’t know.

Question: To be brief, the shop of M. Augereau was completely wrecked. Michel: I didn’t know that, and I am astonished that M. Augereau is concerned with trifles like that. I have seen something else plundered and killed.

Question: Then you are absolutely indifferent to the looting of his shop? Michel: Yes, absolutely indifferent.

Question: Then you moved out into the boulevard Saint-Germain and stopped in front of Moricet’s shop?

Michel: I don’t know, and I don’t understand why you’re asking me such a question.

Question: Did you start to laugh in front of Moricet’s shop?

Michel: What could have made me laugh? Would it have been the distress of the people around me? Would it have been the sad state of things which takes us back before 1789?

Question: In short, you claim to be unacquainted with all those events I’ve mentioned.

Michel: Yes, monsieur.

Question: But those three merchants who were robbed assert that the crowd was obeying a signal.

Michel: That’s absurd. To obey a signal, it would have to be agreed upon in advance. Therefore, it would have been necessary to make it known throughout Paris that I would raise or lower a flag in front of the bakeries.

Question: Then the looting was an instinctive movement of the populace? Michel: It was the work of a few children. The reasonable people around me did not bother with it.

Question: You left the demonstration at the Place Maubert, leaving Pouget and Mareuil, who had gotten themselves arrested to save you, in the hands of the police. Then you disappeared.

Michel: My friends demanded that I not let myself be arrested at that time.

Question: Did you know about Pouget’s having distributed a brochure entitled To the People’s Army in the provinces?

Michel: At the time when the Orleanists were openly inciting people against the Republic, I wanted to incite people to support the Republic, and that brochure was distributed at my suggestion. It was a cry of anguish.

Question: Did you know about the special studies of incendiary materials to which Pouget devoted himself?

Michel: Today, everybody is interested in science. Everybody reads the Revue scientifique and tries to better the lot of the workers through the information there.

Question: We aren’t here to make theories. Were you informed about the studies Pouget was making?

Michel: I do not pay any attention to whether someone reads or does not read scientific journals.

The court then proceeded to question M. Pouget. [The account of his questioning is not included in the Gazette des tribunaux. The other witnesses were examined next.]

The Witnesses

Jules Bouch£, baker, rue de Canettes: On March 9, around one o’clock in the afternoon, a score of people invaded my bakery. They were armed with leaded canes and demanded “bread or work.” I told them, “If you want bread, take some, but don’t break anything.”

Question: Do you recognize the accused?

Bouch£: No, monsieur.

Question: Did you let them take your bread because you couldn’t do otherwise?

Bouch£: There was no way to do anything; any resistance was impossi¬ ble.

Question: Was it children who came into your shop?

Bouch£: No, sir. They were of the age of reason. (Laughter)

Louise Michel: The persons armed with leaded canes weren’t ours. I know where they came from.

Question: Where?

Michel: The police. (Laughter)

Mme Augereau, wife, baker, rue du Four-Saint-Germain: During the afternoon of March 9 Mme Louise Michel stopped in front of my door. Someone yelled, “Bread, bread!” These men entered my store and stole some bread and baked goods. They broke a platter and two window panes.

Question: Was it youngsters who plundered your shop?

Mme Augereau: Oh, there were more grown-ups than youngsters. Question: Where was Louise Michel while they were plundering your shop?

Mme Augereau: She was stationed exactly in the middle of the street.

Question: Did you give your bread away voluntarily? Mme Augereau: Oh, no, monsieur.

The Wife of Moricet, baker, 125, boulevard Saint Germain: Last March 9, a crowd gathered in front of my shop. At its head was Louise Michel. She stopped in front of my shop, struck the ground with her flag, and started to laugh. The crowd was asking for bread or work. I began to give them bread, but they didn’t wait for it. They took it themselves and broke up everything.

Question (to Louise Michel): What do you think of that testimony? Is it clear enough?

Louise Michel: So clear I have never seen anything like it. (Laughter) How was I able to laugh in front of her store? She dreamed all of it. Mme Moricet: I’m here to say what I saw.

Louise Michel: You are free to say what you want, but I’m free to say that you dreamed it.

Question (to the witness): You didn’t give your bread to those people freely?

Mme Moricet: No, monsieur, I did it because they were making such frightful gestures when they came in; they were yelling, “Work and bread!”

Louise Michel: Oh, they were very frightful. I, too, was frightful. These women were hallucinating from fear. They saw Louise Michel as a monster.

Cornat, a municipal police officer of the VI e Arrondissement: On last March 9 when I learned that a gang was crossing the arrondissement yelling out seditious slogans, I went in pursuit and caught up with it at the Place Maubert. The gang was led by Louise Michel, with Pouget and Mareuil at her side. I arrested the latter two, and Pouget called me a coward and a scoundrel. As for Louise Michel, she was able to slip away. All those people were yelling, “Long live the Revolution! Down with the police!”

Question: Did not Louise Michel say something to you?

Policeman Cornat: She said to me: “Don’t hurt me.”

Blanc, a policeman in the VI e Arrondissement: Last March 9 a police¬ man came to inform the municipal police officer that a bakery on the rue de Canettes was being plundered. We set off in pursuit of the gang, and we caught up with it at the Place Maubert. The municipal police officer stopped Louise Michel, who said to him, “Don’t hurt us; we’re only asking for bread.” Pouget called the municipal police officer a coward and a scoundrel. Mareuil yelled out, “Down with the police! Down with Vidocq! Long live the Social Revolution!” The assailants had leaded canes, revolvers, and knives.

Louise Michel: I never said, “Don’t hurt us,” but only, “You won’t be hurt.” Both those men were very disturbed.

Question (to Louise Michel): No one but you was showing any self-control?

Louise Michel: We have seen so much of it! For the sake of the honor of the Revolution, I protest. I surely have the right to point out discrepancies in the witnesses’ testimony. I have never prostrated myself in front of anyone, and I have never asked for mercy. You can say anything you want to about us, you can sentence us to prison, but I do not want you to dishonor us.

Session of June 22

Witnesses for the Prosecution (Continued)

Young Mlle Moricet: Last March 9, I was in the shop with my sister and mother when I saw a gang stop in front. They were led by a woman armed with a black flag. That woman stopped in front of the shop, struck the ground with her flag, and began to laugh.

Immediately the gang rushed into the shop, and took all the bread and cakes there; then they broke the platters and windows. I went quickly to get my father.

Question: You are very sure you saw Louise Michel stop in front of the shop and laugh while she struck the ground with her flag?

Young Mlle Moricet: Yes, monsieur.

Louise Michel: I would be ashamed to respond to testimony like that. If little Mile Moricet brings in her sister, her cousin, her little brother— whomever she wants—I will not hold matters up to answer charges as frivolous as those. I shall wait for the prosecution’s summation before I answer them.

Young Mlle Moricet, the sister of the preceding one: I was in the shop with my mother. Suddenly I saw a whole gang headed by a woman. It was madame. She began to laugh as she looked at the shop, and I even said to my mother, “Hey, she knows you?” At that moment all those people rushed into the shop and started to take everything.

Louise Michel: I will repeat what I said a moment ago: It is shameful to see children reciting in this court the lessons that their parents have taught them.

[Witnesses for the Defense]

Chaussadat, a painter, quai de Louver, was heard at the request of the defense: On March 9, I was at the corner of the rue de Seine opposite the Moricet bakery. From a distance I saw the crowd arrive. Mile Louise Michel went by without stopping. Later I heard talk about the looting of the bakery, or rather I saw bread thrown about.

Question: You don’t call that plundering?

Chaussadat: I saw that bread was being thrown about, and some poor people were gathering it up.

Louise Michel: I must thank the witness for rendering homage to the truth.

[Three witnesses, Rochefort, Vaughan, and Meusy, testified concern¬ ing a sum of money in Pouget’s possession, declaring that it came from a collection taken up at the demonstration. That testimony is irrelevant to Louise Michel’s trial, and it has been omitted.]

Rouillon, a neighbor of Louise Michel’s mother: Citizen Louise Michel had absolutely no faith in the result of the demonstration. She told me that before she went to it. The citizen went only out of duty.

The witness Rouillon then went into lengthy details about the violence and threats to which Louise Michel and her family have been subjected.

Louise Michel: You can see very clearly that our families are being murdered in our homes, and the authorities are allowing it to happen.

That was the last witness for the defense. Then Avocat-g£neral Quesnay de Beaurepaire was called on. Then Maitre Balandreau, the counsel appointed for Louise Michel, declared that she intended to defend herself.

Louise Michel’s Statement

What is being done to us here is a political proceeding. It isn’t we who are being prosecuted, but the anarchist party through us. For that reason I had to refuse Maitre Balandreau’s offer to defend me and also the offer made by our friend Laguerre, who, not long ago, undertook to defend our comrades at Lyon so warmly.

M. l’Avocat-g^neral has invoked the Law of 1871 against us. I won’t bother to find out whether this Law of 1871 wasn’t made by the victors against the vanquished, made against those whom they were crushing as a millstone crushed grain. Eighteen seventy-one was the time when the National Guard was being hunted on the plains, when Gallifet was pursuing us in the catacombs, when the streets of Paris had heaps of corpses piled on either side.

What is surprising you, what is appalling you, is that a woman is daring to defend herself. People aren’t accustomed to seeing a woman who dares to think. People would rather, as Proudhon put it, see a woman as either a housewife or a courtesan.

We carried the black flag because the demonstration was to be abso¬ lutely peaceful, and the black flag is the flag of strikes and the flag of those who are hungry. Could we have carried any other flag? The red flag is nailed up in the cemeteries, and we should take it up only when we can protect it. Well, we couldn’t do that. I have told you before and now I repeat: It was an essentially peaceful demonstration.

I went to the demonstration. I had to go. Why was I arrested?

I’ve gone throughout Europe saying that I recognize no frontiers, saying that all humanity has the right to the heritage of humanity. That inheritance will not belong to us, because we are accustomed to living in slavery; it will belong to those persons in the future who will have liberty and who will know how to enjoy it.

When we are told that we are the enemies of the Republic, we have only one answer: We founded it upon thirty-five thousand of our corpses. That is how we defended the Republic.

You speak of discipline, of soldiers who fired on their officers. Do you believe, M. l’Avocat-gen6ral, that if at Sedan the soldiers had fired at their leaders, who were betraying them, they would not have been doing the right thing? If they had done that, we wouldn’t have had the filth of Sedan.

M. l’Avocat-general has talked a lot about soldiers. He has boasted about those who carried the anarchist manifestos to their superiors. How many officers, how many generals reported back the bribes of Chantilly and the manifestos of M. Bonaparte? I’m not putting [the Due d’] Orleans or M. Bonaparte on trial; we’re putting their ideas on trial. M. Bonaparte has been acquitted, and we are being prosecuted. I pardon those who commit the crime, although I do not pardon the crime. Isn’t it simply a law of might makes right which is dominating us? We want to replace it with the idea that right makes right. That is the extent of our crime.

Above the courts, beyond the twenty years in prison you can sentence us to—beyond even a life sentence—I see the dawn of liberty and equality breaking.

Knowing what is going on around you, you too are tired of it, disgusted by it. How can you remain calm when you see the proletariat constantly suffering from hunger while others are gorging themselves?

We knew that the demonstration at les Invalides would come to nothing, and yet it was necessary to go there. At this time in history we are very badly off. We do not call the regime that rules us a republic. A republic is a form of government which makes progress, where there is justice, where there is bread for all. How does the republic you have made differ from the Empire? What is this talk about liberty in the courts when five years of prison waits at the end?

I do not want the cry of the workers to be lost. You will do with me what you wish, but it’s a question of more than me alone. It’s a matter that concerns a large part of France, a large part of the world, for people are becoming more and more anarchistic. People are sickened when they see power used the way it was under M. Bonaparte. The people have already led many revolutions. Sedan relieved us of M. Bonaparte and the people revolted again on the eighteenth of March.

There is no doubt that you will see still more revolutions, and for that we will march confidently toward the future.

When one person alone no longer has authority, there will be light, truth, and justice. Authority vested in one person is a crime. What we want is authority vested in everyone. M. l’Advocat-g6neral has accused me of wanting to be a leader; I have too much pride for that, for to be a leader is to lower oneself, and I do not know how to lower myself that way.

Here we are very far from M. Moricet’s bakery, and it is difficult for me to return to those details. Do we have to talk about the breadcrumbs distributed to children? It wasn’t bread that we needed; it was work that we were asking for. How can you think that reasonable men trifled by taking a few loaves of bread? Some youngsters were gathering up crumbs, yes, but it is difficult for me to discuss things that are so trivial. I would prefer to return to serious ideas. Young persons should work instead of going to cafes, and they will learn to fight to ease the plight of the unfortunate and to prepare for the future.

People recognize homelands only to make them a foyer for war. People recognize frontiers only to make them an object of intrigue. We conceive homelands and family in a much broader sense. There are our crimes.

We live in an age of anxiety. Everybody is trying to find his own way, but we say anyhow that whatever happens, if liberty is realized and equality achieved, we shall be happy.

The session adjourned at five o’clock and the proceedings were continued the next day.

Session of June 23

The presiding judge asked the accused if they had anything to add in their defense.

Louise Michel spoke as follows:

I wish to say only a word. This trial is a political trial. It is a political trial you are going to have to judge.

As for me, you have given me the role of the primary person accused. I accept it. Yes, I am the only person responsible. I sacrificed myself a long time ago, and what is pleasant or unpleasant to me is no longer a standard to judge by. I see nothing more than the Revolution, and it is the ideal I shall always serve. It is the Revolution I salute. May it rise up over men instead of rising up over ruins.

At two forty-five, the jury withdrew into a room for its deliberations. It came back at four-fifteen.

The foreman of the jury read the verdict. It was ‘guilty,’ but mitigated by extenuating circumstances as far as Louise Michel, Pouget, and Moreau (alias Gareau) were concerned. The other accused were found ‘not guilty.’

After deliberating half an hour, the court passed a sentence by which the two accused who had been tried in absentia, Gourget and Thierry, were condemned to two years in prison. Louise Michel was sentenced to six years of solitary confinement, Pouget to eight years of solitary confinement, and Moreau (alias Gareau) to one year in prison.

Louise Michel and Pouget were also to be placed under police supervision for ten years.

The Judge: Those of you found guilty have three days to petition for reversal of the sentences just passed.

Louise Michel: Never! You are too good an imitator of the Empire’s magistrates.

From the back of the room violent protests greeted the sentencing of the accused. A few cries of “Long live Louise Michel!” were heard, and the session was adjourned in the midst of noise and the most varied outcries.

The tumult continued outside the courtroom and citizen Lisbonne, who called attention to himself by the vehemence of his protests, was expelled from the Palais de Justice. The crowd continued to stand for some time on the Place Dauphine. [Here ends the account taken from the Gazette des tribunaux .]

Note

Since I am speaking to the crowd today, I shall say what I did not think was necessary to say in front of the prosecutor because we were not trying to move our judges. It would have been a useless effort because we were judged in advance.

I did not start laughing stupidly in front of some door—and having just left my mother who was begging me to wait until she was no longer alive before going to demonstrations, I did not feel much like laughing.

As for choosing Moricet’s bakery to be the target of a revolutionary movement, I do not need to defend myself against such an absurdity.

It is not a question of breadcrumbs. What is at stake is the harvest of an entire world, a harvest necessary to the whole future human race, one without exploiters and without exploited.