A:B.C. OF ANARCHI~M in political convictions ; rather in individual temperament al'ld the general feeling about violence. "You may be right about temperament," you say. "I can see that revolutionary ideas are not the cause of political acts of violence, else every revolutionist would be committing such acts. But do not such views to some extent justify those who commit such acts ? " It may seem so at first sigh_t. But if you think it over you will find that it is an entirely wrong idea. The best proof of it is that Anarchists who ho@ exactly the same views about government and the necessity of abolishing it, often disagree entirely on tlie question of violence. Thus Tolstoyan Anarchists and most Individualist Anarchists condemn· political violence, while other Anarchists approve of or at least justify it. Is it reasonable, then, to say that Anarchist views are responsible for violence or in any way influence such acts ? Moreover, many Anarchists who at one time believed in violence as a means of propaganda have changed their opinion about it and do not favour such methods any more. There was a time, for ·,jnstance, when Anarchists advocated individual acts of violence, known as " propaganda by deed." They did not expect to change government and capitalism' into Anarchism by such acts, nor did they think that the taking off of a despot would abolish despotism. No, terrorism was considered a means of avenging a popular wrong, inspiring fear in the enemy, and also calling attention to the evil against which the act of terror was directed. But most Anarchists to-day do not believe any more in " propaganda by deed " and do not favour acts of that nature. Experience has taught them that though such methods may have been justified and useful in the past, modern conditions of life make them unnecessary and' even harmful to the spread of their ideas. But their ideas remain the same, which means that it was not Anarchism which shaped their attitude to violence. It proves that it is no certain ideas or "isms" that lead to violence, but that some other causes bring it about. We must therefore look somewhere else to find the right explanation. ' As we have seen, acts of political violence have been committed not only by Anarchists, Socialists, and revolutionists of all kinds, but also by patriots and nationals, by Democrats and Republicans, by suffragettes, by conservatives and reactionaries, by monarchists and royalists, and even by religionists and devout Christians. We know now that it could not have been any particular idea or "ism" that influenced their acts, because the most varied ideas 14 Biblioteca Gino Bianco
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