Patrik Ouredník - The Opportune Moment, 1855

The wish is father to the thought? Perhaps. I admit that I have never been a good prophet. But as long as woman is different from man, my hope persists. Man has fizzled at everything he has ever undertaken; let us give a chance to woman.

And before all else: let us abolish marriage! Freed of its tyranny — pedantic or condescending, cruel or feeble, indifferent or loving — woman will acquire consciousness of herself. Marriage! Rousseau is right a hundred times over! If I could rid humanity of a single plague (locusts, religion, cholera, pestilence, private property, wars, government, parliaments, or national revivalists), I would choose marriage — font of unfreedom, hypocrisy, and stupidity.

Free man is dangerous. At least so believe the police, the courts, and the lackeys of society. I have been followed and spied on. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Why? What do I write? Why? The first search of my home produced nothing: a few manuscripts of unfinished articles. But have I called in my articles for the overthrow of the government? Not at all, Your Graciousness, I am against all forms of violence. The second search was more thorough: a scalpel was discovered in my veterinary bag. What’s this? You are against all forms of violence and you secrete weapons in your apartment? Three months’ imprisonment and a liberating verdict with qualification: henceforth I am required to report to the police any and all journeys beyond the city borders. My guardian angels go round to the local farmers and breeders: if we were you, we would entrust our animals to more qualified hands. You never know what to expect from an anarchist. I am practically without work, money is dwindling.

I have been accused of rabble-rousing, subversion of the state — but also of reactionism and conservatism! As gradually there was more and more talk about the Fraternitas settlement, the attacks in the press increased, from irony and bourgeois sarcasm in the pro-government dailies to charges of cowardice and fatalism on the part of self-styled revolutionaries. “When the throat of the proletariat is gripped by hunger, when revolution is a matter of life and death, those who leave on the eve of the battle are cowards and deserters.” I have never responded to such attacks: why try to explain that if I belong to no army and I am my own commander, then to speak of desertion is meaningless? Let the communists sacrifice themselves on the altar of the proletariat, if they believe that they will liberate man by doing so; I shall try to liberate man without regard for the proletariat. The working class is but one more idol, the proletariat merely a crippled progeny whose fore-bears are called hatred, vengefulness, and lack of imagination, the spore of bourgeois thinking, from which they allegedly seek to be emancipated. Program? The dictatorship of some to the detriment of others. The communists are simply continuing the work of the puritans: Proletarians of all countries, unite , workers against bourgeoisie, conscious against unconscious, believers against unbelievers, healthy against sickly, obedient against disobedient. Along with the nationalists and the puritans, the communists are the fiercest enemies of the human race and the greatest threat of the new century; I thank nature that I will not be in it long. Mark my words: sooner or later they will all begin to exterminate one another, for they have the same goal, to destroy man in the name of the organization of humanity, in the name of a new arrangement , in the name of a final order . Babeuf! Blanqui! Once upon a time hatred for man was a reflection of hatred for humanity. Today we are more progressive: there has been born a new hatred, a hatred out of love for humanity. The happiness of man is not a right but a requirement — the communists teach us that. You do not want to be happy with us? Die! Serve God, serve the nation, serve humanity, the desire of all who are inferior is to serve —anything but freedom. A free man is inscrutable; he might refuse our services. You do not want me to serve you? Die!

I know that even among anarchists there are today many who perceive hatred as the reflection of a more lively, just, and generous love of life, who believe that there can be no love of freedom without hatred of those who rob us of it. I have never shared this view: the freedom of society leads through the freedom of the individual; I do not believe that man can attain freedom at the cost of killing, even if it is a matter of doing away with tyrants.

If someone should want to murder me, I shall defend myself. First I shall attempt to dispose of him without greater violence; but should he be stronger than I, I shall attempt to kill him. My life as a peace-loving man is more valuable than the life of a murderer. Individual defense is permissible, as it corresponds to the laws of nature. However, defense through aggression in the name of “higher interests” submits to the same logic as war, returning us to the civilization we seek to overcome. Hence I have always been against anarchistic violence, whatever form it may take: violence and war are one and the same.

Yes, I deny the necessity of any form of war, both aggressive and so-called defensive, or, as they say nowadays, patriotic. A free man has no patrie . A free man, apart from his freedom, has nothing of his own . My pacifism has nothing in common with God and with all those who appeal to Thou shalt not kill . I do not believe in a higher order which would forbid me to kill. And if I did think God existed, I would have to come to the conclusion that he wants war — because it goes on. Which would give me sufficient reason to damn him, instead of bowing to him. And due to my peace-loving nature — forgive me this cheap irony — I would end up in hell. But the injunction of respect for one’s neighbor is human, not divine. And should we forget respect, there remains common sense. Wars waged “for rational reasons” are either the greatest hypocrisy or the ultimate idiocy. Were people to have a little more rationality in them, war today would be a forgotten word.

The attacks in the press at least had the advantage that they also spread information about my project. People, it seems, do not have great trust in journalists: in spite of the criticism and ridicule, the project began to attract many more people than I had originally anticipated. In Piemont, Tuscany, Liguri, Lombardi, and Savoy in France, there suddenly sprang up groups of activists who organized lectures, charitable markets, and raffles. The oddest assortment of objects began coming in to the editor’s office: tawdry trinkets, books, quilts, clocks, hunting arms, armchairs, pictures; someone arrived in a wagon loaded with boards and netting; countryfolk sent hens, hares, geese, pigs, goats. For the most part they were people who had no intention of leaving; they wanted merely to express their sympathies and help the settlers.

But the number of true prospects was increasing also, and not only among workers and craftsmen. Among the candidates were an Austrian officer, an agricultural engineer, a Siennese pharmacist, scions of the finest families in France were applying…but also pimps offering “women accustomed to men in great quantities”(!). In the first year, while I was still considering an appropriate place to establish the settlement, I received more than four hundred applications, roughly a quarter of which came from married couples or families with children: all told, nearly seven hundred settlers! The Society for the Establishment and Development of the Fraternitas Free Settlement was created in Lyons, followed by the Society for a New Life, which eventually took over all the bookkeeping; the Society for Free Socialism was created in Genoa, and branches of an association called Far From the Capital in Le Havre and Paris.