A.B.C. OF ANARCHISM government or a dictatorship, a republic or an autocracy-those in authority will fight desperately to retain it as long as they can hope for the least chance of success. And the more aid they get from the slower-thinking majority the better the fight they can put up. Hence the fury of revolt and revolution. The desperation of the masses, their hatred of those responsible for their misery, and the determination of the lords of life to hold on to their privileges and rule combine to produce the violence of popular uprisings and rebellions. But blind rebellion without definite object and purpose is not revolution. Revolution is rebellion become conscious of its aims. Revolution is social when it strives for a fundamental change.. As the foundation of life is economics, the social revolution means the re-organisation of the industrial, economic life of the country and consequently also of the entire structure of society. But we have seen that the· social structure rests on the basis of ideas, which implies that changing of the structure presupposes changed ideas. In other words, social ideas must change first before ;i. new social structure can be built. The social revolution, therefore, is not an accident, not a sudden happening. There is nothing sudden about it, for ideas don't changt suddenly. They grow slowly, gradually, like. the plant or flower. Hence the social revolution is a result, a development, which means that it is revolutionary. It develops to the point when considerable numbers of people have embraced the new ideas and are determined to put them into practice. When they attempt to do so and meet with opposition, then the slow, quiet, and peaceful'social evolution becomes quick, militant, and violent. Evolution becomes revolution. Bear in mind, then, that evolution and revolution are not two separate and distinct things. Still less are they opposites as some people wrongly believe. Revolution is·merely the boiling point of evolution. Because revolution is evolution at its boiling point you cannot "make" a real revolution any more than you can hasten the boiling of a tea kettle. It is the fire underneath that makes it boil: how quickly it will come to the boiling point will depend on how strong the fire is. , The economic and political conditions of a country are the fire under the evolutionary pot. The worse the oppn;ssion, the greater the dissatisfaction of the people, the stronger the flame. This explains why the fires of social revolution swept Russia, the most -tyrannous and backward country, instead of America, where indusBiblioteca Gino Bianco 48
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