PRODUCTION independent.. No country should have to rely on outside help to exploi! colonies for its support. That is the way of capitalism. The aim of Anarchism, on the contrary, is material independence, not o!lly for the individual, but for every community. This mean~ gradual decentralisation instead of centralisation. Even under capitalism we see the decentralisation tendency manifest itself in spite of the essentially centralisti.c character of the presentday industrial system. Co~ntries which were before entirely dependent on foreign manufactures, as Germany in the last quarter of the nineteeath century, later Italy and Japan, and now Hungary, ·Czechoslovakia, etc., are gradually emancipating themselves industrially, working their own natural resources, building their own factories and mills, andi attaining economic independence from other lands. International finance ,does not welcome this development and tries its utmost to retard its progress, because it' is more profitable for the Morgans and Rockefellers to keep such countries as Mexico, China, India, Ireland, or Egypt industr.ially backward, in order to exploit their natural resources, and at the· same time be assured of foreign markets .for " over-production " at home. The governments of the great financiers and lords of industry help them to secure those foreign natural resources and markets, even at the point of the bayonet. Thus Great Britain by force of arms compels China to permit English opium to poison the Chinese, at a good profit, and exploits every means to .dispose in that country of the greater part of _itstextile products. For the same re_ason Egypt, India, Ireland, and other dependencies· and colonies are not permitted to develop their home industries. In short, capitalism seeks centralisation. But a free country needs decentralisation, independence not only political but also industrial, economic. Russia strikingly illustrates h_owimper~tive economic indepei:idence is, particularly to the social revolution. For years follow1i:ig the October upheaval the Bol~h~ik Govern~ent concentrated its efforts on currying favour with bourgeois governmen~ for " recognition " and inviting foreign capitalists to help _exploit the resources of Russia. But capital, afraid to make large mvestmei;its under the insecure conditions of the dictatorship, failed to respond with any degree of enthusiasm. Meanwhile Russia was approaching economic breakdown. The situation finally compelled the Bolsheviki to understand that the country must depend on her own efforts for maintenance. Russia began to look around for mea~s to help herself; and thereby she acquired greater con~d~~ce_m her own abilities, learned to exercise self-reliance and m1t1at1ve, 93 B1bhoteca G no Bianco
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