PRODUCTION Equally important to the social ri:volution as independence from foreign lands is dece_ntralisation within the country itself. Internal decentralisation means ma.king the larger regions, even every community, so far as possible, self-supporting. In his very illuminating .and suggestive work, Fields, Factories, <llld Workshops, Peter Kropotkin has convincingly' shown how a city like Paris even, now .almost exclusively commercial, could raise enough food in its own .environs to support its population abundantly. By using modem agricultural machinery and intensiye cultivation London and New ·York could subsist upon the prodttcts raised in their 9wn immedi<1;t~ ·vicinity. It is a fact that "our means of obtaining from the soil whatever we want under any climate and upon any soil, have 'lately been improved at such a rate that we cannot foresee yet what is the limit of productivity of a .few acres. of land. The limit vanishes in proportion to our better study of the subject, and every year makes it vanish further and furthet 'from our sight." When the social revolution begins in any land, its .foreign commerce stops : the importation of raw materials and finished ·products is suspended. The country may even be blockaded by -the bourgeois governments, as was the case with Russia. Thus the revolution is eiompelled to become self-supporting' and provide for its own wants. Even various parts of the same country may have to face such an eventuality. • They would have to produce what -they need within their own ·area, by their own efforts. Only decentralisation could solve this problem. The country would have to re-organise its activities irt such a manner as to be able to feed itself. It would have to resort to production on a small scale, to home industry, and to intensive agriculture and horticulture. Man's initiative freed by the revolution and his wits sharpened by necessity will rise to the situation. It must therefore be clearly understood that it would be disastrous to the inte_restsof the revolution to suppress or interfere with the small scale industries which are even now practiced to such a great extent in various European countries. Numerous articles of every-day use are produced by the peasants of Continental Europe during their leisure winter hours. Those home manufactures total up tremendous figures to fill a great need. It would be most harmful to the revolution to destroy them, as Russia so foolishly did in her mad Bolshevik passion for centralisation. When a country in revolution is attacked by foreign governments, when it is blockaded and deprived of imports, when its large-scale industries threaten to break down or the railways attually do break down, then it is just the small home industries which become the vital 95 Biblloteca G•no Bianco
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