action of his "Alliance;" he preached riots.[64] But the more the class
consciousness of the proletariat develops, the more it inclines towards
political action, and gives up the "riots," so common during its
infancy. It is more difficult to induce the working men of Western
Europe, who have attained a certain degree of political development, to
riot, than, for example, the credulous and ignorant Russian peasants. As
the proletariat has shown no taste for the tactics of "riot," the
companions have been forced to replace it by "individual action." It was
especially after the attempted insurrection at Benevento in Italy in
1877 that the Bakounists began to glorify the "propaganda of deed." But
if we glance back at the period that separates us from the attempt of
Benevento, we shall see that this propaganda too assumed a special form:
very few "riots," and these quite insignificant, a great many personal
attempts against public edifices, against individuals, and even against
property--"individually hereditary," of course. It could not be
otherwise.

"We have already seen numerous revolts by people who wished to obtain
urgent reforms," says Louise Michel, in an interview with a
correspondent of the _Matin_, on the occasion of the Vaillant attempt.
"What was the result? The people were shot down. Well, we think the
people has been sufficiently bled; it is better large-hearted people
should sacrifice themselves, and, at their own risk, commit acts of
violence whose object is to terrorise the Government and the
bourgeois."[65]

This is exactly what we have said--only in slightly different words.
Louise Michel has forgotten to say that revolts, causing the bloodshed
of the people, figured at the head of the Anarchists' programme, until
the Anarchists became convinced, not that these partial risings in no
way serve the cause of the workers, but that the workers, for the most
part, will not have anything to do with these risings.

Error has its logic as well as truth. Once you reject the political
action of the working-class, you are fatally driven--provided you do not
wish to serve the bourgeois politicians--to accept the tactics of the
Vaillants and the Henrys. The so-called "Independent" (Unabhaengige)
members of the German Socialist Party have proved this in their own
persons. They began by attacking "Parliamentarism," and to the
"reformist" tactics of the "old" members they opposed--on paper, of
course--the "revolutionar