Carlo Cafiero: Anarchy = Communism

Carlo Cafiero

In Volume One of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, I included excerpts from Carlo Cafiero’s 1880 speech to the Jura Federation where he made the case for anarchist communism. He later expanded his speech into a lengthy essay, Revolution, which has recently been translated by Nestor McNab and published by Black Cat Press. A brief excerpt is set forth below.

Anarchy – A World Without Borders

Anarchy and Communism

Our revolutionary ideal is the age-old ideal of all those who refuse to resign themselves to oppression and exploitation; for us, as for our predecessors, it is summed up in two no less ancient terms: Freedom and Equality.

As ancient as human servitude, that is to say as humanity, this ideal has always had a limited, partial application thanks to the efforts of reactionaries, who in every age have hindered the revolution. However, despite all the past and reactions, it [the ideal] has continued to spread and is about to realize its most complete application in our revolution.

Having learnt from past history, which shows us the endless deceptions practised by the reactionaries of every sort and every age in order to diminish, corrupt and misrepresent the true value of freedom and equality, that is to say of the revolution itself, we have been forewarned and now place alongside the face value of these two oft-counterfeited coins the exact value that they truly have, in order that we may accept them as genuine.

These two precious coins must pay for the eternal redemption of humanity and the transaction will never take place until such times as the true value exactly matches their face value.

Now, we express the true value of freedom and equality with the two terms, Anarchy and Communism.

Consequently, we will not accept as true any freedom that does not correspond exactly, that is not perfectly identical and perfectly equal to anarchy — anything else will be false and mendacious for us; nor will we accept as true equality anything that does not correspond exactly, that is not perfectly identical and perfectly equal to communism — any other purported equality will be false and mendacious for us.

So if freedom for us is anarchy and equality is communism, then our revolutionary formula will be: (Revolution) = (Freedom and Equality) (Anarchy and Communism).

Anarchy and communism, like force and matter, are two terms which should form a single term, since they jointly express a single concept.

The submission of the proletarians, the vast majority of humanity, to the accumulators of the materials and means of labour, a small minority, is the prime cause of all oppression and exploitation, of all inequality, despotism and human brutality. The human community laying claim to the materials and means of labour is a claim for the freedom and equality of all men. But guarding the treasure that has been stolen from us lies the State with all its constituted authorities and its armed might, obstacles that we must throw down if we are to have our goods returned to us. And consequently, while the two terms of our revolution are twins, anarchy is destined to emerge from the womb first, to pave the way for communism.

Carlo Cafiero, 1881

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