It would seem that it’s late in the day to still talk about it, but the subject nevertheless remains current, since we’re dealing with acts and discussions that have occurred over and again in the past and that, alas, will repeat themselves in the future as well. For as long as the determining causes have not disappeared.

A few individuals stole, and in order to steal, killed; they killed at random, without discernment anyone who stood between them and the money they were after. Killed men unknown to them, workers, victims like themselves and even more than themselves of a bad social organization.

At heart there was nothing in this but the ordinary: they were the bitter fruit that ripen on the tree of privilege in the normal course of events. When all of social life is stained with fraud and violence, and when he who is born poor is condemned to all kinds of sufferings and humiliations; when money is something indispensable for the satisfaction of our needs and respect for our personality, and when for so many people it is impossible to obtain through honest and dignified labor, there is no reason to be surprised if from time to time a few unfortunates burst forth who, tired of the yoke and taking inspiration from bourgeois morality, but not able to appropriate the labor of others under the protection of the gendarmes, illegally steal under the nose of the latter. Since in order to steal they can’t organize military expeditions or sell poison in the guise of food, they murder directly with revolvers or daggers.

But the “bandits” called themselves anarchists and that gave an importance and a symbolic meaning to exploits that were far from having them on their own.

The bourgeoisie takes advantage of the impression produced on the public by such acts in order to denigrate anarchism and to consolidate its own power. The police, who are often the secret instigators of these exploits, use them to magnify their own importance and to satisfy their persecutory and murderous instincts in order to recover the cost of spilled blood in solid coin and promotions. What is more, since anarchism was being spoken of a number of our comrades felt themselves obliged not to deny what called itself anarchist. Many, fascinated by the colorfulness of the adventure, admiring the courage of the protagonists, saw in this nothing but an act of rebellion against the law, forgetting to examine the why and the how.

But it seems to me that in order to determine our conduct, and to counsel that of others, it is important to examine things calmly, to judge them in accordance with our aspirations and to not grant esthetic impressions more value than they have in reality.

To be sure these men were courageous, and courage (which is perhaps nothing else than good physical health) is without any fear of contradiction a marvelous quality. But it can be used in the service of evil as well as good. We have seen courageous men among martyrs for liberty as well as among the most odious tyrants. It can be found in revolutionaries as it can be found among camorrists, soldiers and policemen. Normally we correctly qualify as heroes those who risk their lives for the good and we treat as violent individuals or, in the most serious cases, as unfeeling and blood-thirsty brutes, those who use their courage to do ill.

I will not deny the colorfulness of these episodes and even, in a certain sense, their esthetic beauty. But the admiring poets of the “beau geste” should take the trouble to reflect a little.

An automobile going at full speed, driven by men armed with Brownings who spread terror and death in their path is more modern but no more colorful than a brigand in a feathered hat armed with a blunderbuss who assaults and robs a caravan of travelers, or the feudal baron, dressed in steel and seated on an iron-clad charger demanding his due from a commoner, and it’s not worth any more. If the Italian government had had something other than operetta generals and ignorant and thieving chiefs it would perhaps have succeeded in pulling off a beautiful military operation on Libya, but would the war have been any less criminal or morally hideous for all that?

Nevertheless these bandits weren’t, or at least were not all, vulgar criminals.

Among these “thieves” there were disoriented idealists; among these “assassins” there were heroic natures that in other circumstances, or inspired by other ideas, could have affirmed themselves as such. What is certain for whoever knew them is that these individuals were preoccupied with ideas and that, if they reacted with ferocity against their environment and sought with a beautiful frenzy to satisfy their passions and their needs, it was largely under the influence of a special concept of life and struggle.

But are these anarchist ideas?

Can these ideas, even if we grant words their widest meaning, be confused with anarchism or are they, on the contrary, in flagrant contradiction with it?

That is the question.