The reflections that I submit to the readers of Le Mouvement socialiste on the subject of violence have been inspired by very simple observations about evident facts which play an increasingly marked role in the history of contemporary classes.

For a long time I have been struck by the fact that the normal development of strikes has included a significant number of acts of violence; but certain learned sociologists seek to disguise a phenomenon that everyone who cares to use his eyes must have noticed. Revolutionary syndicalism keeps alive the desire to strike in the masses and only prospers when important strikes, accompanied by violence, take place. Socialism tends to appear more and more as a theory of revolutionary syndicalism – or rather as a philosophy of modern history, in so far as it is under the influence of syndicalism. It follows from these incontestable data that, if we wish to discuss socialism seriously, we must first of all investigate the functions of violence in present social conditions.

I do not believe that this question has yet been approached with the attention it deserves; I hope that these reflections will lead a few thinkers to examine the problems associated with proletarian violence more closely; I cannot too strongly recommend these studies to the new school which, inspired by the principles of Marx rather than the formulas taught by the official proprietors of Marxism, is in the process of giving socialist doctrines a sense of reality and a seriousness which they have certainly lacked for several years.