The Awakening, by Ricardo Flores Magón (1917)
Article from ‘Regeneración’, English Section, June 23, 1917, Los Angeles, edited by Enrique Flores Magón
Humanity awakens. Human beings begin to realize at last that their destiny is other than that of being a mere manekin [mannequin] of those that, thru cunning and violence, have declared themselves masters and lords of all that exists.
Humanity awakens. Human beings begin to realize at last that their destiny is other than that of being the eternal food for the cannon, for the prison and for the bourgeoisie.
For this awakening we are indebted to the war. The deaf masses, refractory and stupid, submissive and cowardly, looked with contempt upon those who pointed out the defects of a social order based upon inequality and advocated the establishment of a new system of social life that, based upon equality, would cause the disappearance of envy, greed, slavery and war.
But reasoning was in vain. The pictures of happiness and a liberty offered by the anarchists to the contemplation of the multitudes were the object of jeers and laughter. The people were content while submerged to the neck in their degradation; but the war, the lash, came in good time, and what the good arguments, the beautiful perspectives of fraternity of love and liberty offered by the anarchists could not obtain, has been accomplished by chastisement. When argument fails, a kick will open the eyes. Some sleepers require blows to awaken.
The patriotic orgy dissipates. The masses, drunk with patriotic zeal, are coming to their senses. The flag does not look as beautiful as before to them, and mutterings are beginning to be heard; what does that colored cloth represent? What great principle of liberty and of justice dwells in that fabric? Who are the weak protected by that tissue?
And the people think, think, think, and begin to discover that the flag is the symbol of the fatherland, of that something called fatherland and which only benefits a few who posses the earth, the machinery of production, the social wealth, all; but which exacts from all what they have received from it, every sacrifice, that of life inclusive.
Murmurs increase and discontent grows in proportion. The intensity of chastisement awakens even those who slept most soundly. For the country of the rich, millions of proletarians give their lives, leaving behind millions of widows, orphans, helpless old people; the military regime in its enforced privations, puts an end to the last vestige of liberty; hunger reigns supreme in the country as well as the cities, and the war shows no signs of coming to an end. Let the war go on, the generator of discontent!
The Revolution marches on. Discontent reigns even among the soldiers who are in the trenches.
Here is what Arthur S. Draper says in the “Times”:
“No one who has been outside of the war furnace for three years can appreciate the depression which an unending conflict has imposed on the minds and spirits of the soldiers in the trenches.”
Harry Carr, bourgeois writer, says in the “Times”:
“The war is rapidly coming to a stage where each nation involved fights two foes — one within and one without.
During the two years and a half that the checkerboard articles have appeared, the writer has stoutly maintained that the end of the war would be brought about by the revolt of the civilians of one side or the other; that the people at home would finally rise up and say, ‘Here, this is about enough.’
It seems clear to me that the conflict has arrived at a stage where something like this is very likely to happen to either side. The very smell of chaos is in the air. Great social disturbances like the Russian revolution do not walk alone.
A great social upheaval like the Russian revolution cannot be confined to its own area. Its waves ripple on distant shores. Once started, it is a fire that runs like wind-blown flame; God knows where.”
A newspaper, “L’Œuvre”, of Paris quotes the views of a prominent Swiss authority regarding the situation in Germany. He says:
“There is no lack of a way in which a popular movement is usually worked out. It always occurs in the same way. First come the fiery utterances of a handful of revolutionary leaders. There were barely two dozens of them in France in May, 1789. Then occurs the assassination or imprisonment of a few martyrs of the cause. Later follows the unloosening of a judicial persecution against the most vigorous writers, and finally, a cause for general discontent arrives, which in the case of Germany, is hunger and misery.”
In Spain the situation is so serious for the safety of exploiters and tyrants, that all constitutional guarantees have been suspended. The Spanish Ambassador at Washington received with date of March 30 the following message:
“A manifesto having been published by representatives of the labor unions, in which a call is made for a general strike, without setting any date, and with the purpose, openly revolutionary, of disturbing public order, as it could perfectly be noted at a popular meeting last night, the government has suspended the constitutional rights, after having arrested by judicial order the signers of the manifesto.”
Harry Carr, in the “Times” of the 1st of this month says:
“I believe that she, Germany, will lose the war owing to internal conditions, and in losing it, I think that the most terrible calamities will be brought upon the world in the shape of revolution?
Anybody who likes can believe all this tommyrot [nonsense] about the peaceful and beneficent conditions that have followed the revolution in Russia. I believe the fighting is still going on there. There is a very fine chance of its ending in another French Revolution. In fact, it will be amazing to me if it does not end in a debouch of blood and revel of madness.
With all Europe enduring hunger, want, sorrow and generally drinking the dregs of human misery, this upheaval will not stop at the Russian border. There is every prospect of its sweeping thru the world like a horrible pestilence. In the end, I believe that this war will be abandoned because every government engaged in it will have worse evils to fight at home.
We will not escape, I look to see the day, not very far distant, when this world will be rocked to its foundations by social disturbances spreading from the revolution in Russia, and from the hard conditions in famine and misery elsewhere in Europe. Weakened persons are easy victims for disease and so are weakened governments.”
It is natural for Harry Carr to see the revolution with horror, he is a bourgeois; but if he trembles before the catastrophe that is about to upset the world, the wretched await it with outstretched arms and our hearts filled with joy, see as centuries the days that it delays in arriving.
Count Tisza, first minister of the Hungarian cabinet, in an article written for a review of Budapest, makes the following prediction:
“The events in Russia presage similar events everywhere.”
The revolutionary agitation in Germany is so threatening, that the Kaiser, who right after the uprising in Russia promised to grant democratic reforms at the end of the war, has hastened to offer them at once, hoping in this way to palliate the excitement; but the economic situation is so strained, that the people rebel in several parts of the Empire, causing riots of some consequence in Hamburg, Mannheim, Leipzig and other cities.
In Russia, the workers accelerate their demands, and the provisional government watches closely the steps of the most advanced radicals. Threats of violence on the part of the workers cause the new democracy to think of adopting the brutal tactics of the defunct autocracy, which shows that all governments are bad, no matter what their form may be.
India prepares to fight for her liberty, and the republican government of the United States, shows its sympathy for the monarchic government of England by arresting Ram Chandra and other revolutionary hindus in San Francisco, accusing them of fomenting a libertarian movement in India.
The Brazilian government breaks its friendly relations with Germany, and the Brazilian provinces of Santa Catalina, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul rise in arms against the government.
In Zurich, Switzerland, fourteen thousand workers protest against the food shortage, and the demonstration is dissolved by force.
The Revolution is on its way. The masses awaken and the day approaches when the so-called right of private property, the origin of all the ills that make human beings wretched, shall disappear from the Earth.
Humanity retraces its steps. The hour of justice is about to strike.
RICARDO FLORES MAGON.