n the Revolution will have assumed a communistic
character from the first, and started on a course from which it will be
by no means easy to turn it. It will have struck a fatal blow at
individual property.

For the expropriation of dwellings contains in germ the whole social
revolution. On the manner of its accomplishment depends the character of
all that follows. Either we shall start on a good road leading straight
to anarchist communism, or we shall remain sticking in the mud of
despotic individualism.

It is easy to see the numerous objections--theoretic on the one hand,
practical on the other--with which we are sure to be met. As it will be
a question of maintaining iniquity at any price, our opponents will of
course protest "in the name of justice." "Is it not a crying shame,"
they will exclaim, "that the people of Paris should take possession of
all these fine houses, while the peasants in the country have only
tumble-down huts to live in?" But do not let us make a mistake. These
enthusiasts for justice forget, by a lapse of memory to which they are
subject, the "crying shame" which they themselves are tacitly defending.
They forget that in this same city the worker, with his wife and
children, suffocates in a noisome garret, while from his window he sees
the rich man's palace. They forget that whole generations perish in
crowded slums, starving for air and sunlight, and that to redress this
injustice ought to be the first task of the Revolution.

Do not let these disingenuous protests hold us back. We know that any
inequality which may exist between town and country in the early days of
the Revolution will be transitory and of a nature that will right itself
from day to day; for the village will not fail to improve its dwellings
as soon as the peasant has ceased to be the beast of burden of the
farmer, the merchant, the money-lender, and the State. In order to avoid
an accidental and transitory inequality, shall we stay our hand from
righting an ancient wrong?

The so-called practical objections are not very formidable either. We
are bidden to consider the hard case of some poor fellow who by dint of
privation has contrived to buy a house just large enough to hold his
family. And we are going to deprive him of his hard-earned happiness,
to turn him into the street! Certainly not. If his house is only just
large enough for his family, by all means let him stay there. Let him
work in his little garden, too; o