, and revolutionary. And the small number who, up
to the present, have remained on the outside--the dupes of intrigues and
lies--are all beginning to enter our organization. We do not refer to a
small group who, influenced by personal considerations and reactionary
ends, are trying to establish a propaganda which they call 'gradual and
peaceful.' These have already been judged in the opinion of the Italian
socialists and represent nothing but themselves.

"The Italian Federation believes that the _insurrectionary deed_,
destined to affirm socialist principles by acts, is the most efficacious
means of propaganda."[3] The next year Paul Brousse originated the
famous phrase, the Propaganda of the Deed. He reviews in the _Bulletin_
the various methods of propaganda which had previously been employed.
"Propaganda from individual to individual, propaganda by mass meeting or
conference, propaganda by newspaper, pamphlet, or book--these means," he
declares, "are adapted only to theoretical propaganda. Besides, they
become more and more difficult to employ in any efficacious fashion in
the presence of those means possessed by the bourgeoisie, with its
orators, trained at the bar and knowing how to wheedle the popular
assemblies, and with its venal press which calumniates and disguises
everything."[4] In the opinion of Brousse, the workers, "laboring most
of the time eleven and twelve hours a day ... return home so exhausted
by fatigue that they have little desire to read socialist books and
newspapers."[5] Rejecting thus all other methods of propaganda, Brousse
concludes that "the Propaganda of the Deed is a powerful means of
awakening the popular conscience."[6]

Kropotkin was even more enthusiastic over this new method of education.
"A single deed," he declared, "makes more propaganda in a few days than
a thousand pamphlets. The government defends itself, it rages
pitilessly; but by this it only causes further deeds to be committed by
one or more persons, and drives the insurgents to heroism. One deed
brings forth another; opponents join the mutiny; the government splits
into factions; harshness intensifies the conflict; concessions come too
late; the revolution breaks out."[7] Here at last is the famous
Propaganda of the Deed, destined to such tragic ends. It owes its
inspiration, of course, to the teachings of Bakounin, and we find among
these youths the same contempt for words and theories that Bakounin
himself had, and th