DWELLINGS
I
Those who have closely watched the growth of Socialist ideas among the
workers must have noticed that on one momentous question--the housing of
the people--a definite conclusion is being imperceptibly arrived at. It
is a fact that in the large towns of France, and in many of the smaller
ones, the workers are coming gradually to the conclusion that
dwelling-houses are in no sense the property of those whom the State
recognizes as their owners.
This idea has evolved naturally in the minds of the people, and nothing
will ever convince them again that the "rights of property" ought to
extend to houses.
The house was not built by its owner. It was erected, decorated and
furnished by innumerable workers in the timber yard, the brick field,
and the workshop, toiling for dear life at a minimum wage.
The money spent by the owner was not the product of his own toil. It was
amassed, like all other riches, by paying the workers two-thirds or only
a half of what was their due.
Moreover--and it is here that the enormity of the whole proceeding
becomes most glaring--the house owes its actual value to the profit
which the owner can make out of it. Now, this profit results from the
fact that his house is built in a town--that is, in an agglomeration of
thousands of other houses, possessing paved streets, bridges, quays, and
fine public buildings, well lighted, and affording to its inhabitants a
thousand comforts and conveniences unknown in villages; a town in
regular communication with other towns, and itself a centre of
industry, commerce, science, and art; a town which the work of twenty or
thirty generations has made habitable, healthy, and beautiful.
A house in certain parts of Paris is valued at many thousands of pounds
sterling, not because thousands of pounds' worth of labour have been
expended on that particular house, but because it is in Paris; because
for centuries workmen, artists, thinkers, and men of learning and
letters have contributed to make Paris what it is to-day--a centre of
industry, commerce, politics, art, and science; because Paris has a
past; because, thanks to literature, the names of its streets are
household words in foreign countries as well as at home; because it is
the fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work of fifty generations
of the whole French nation.
Who, then, can appropriate to himself the tiniest plot of ground, or the
meanest building in such a city, without committing a flagrant
injustice? Who, then, has the right to sell to any bidder the smallest
portion of the common heritage?
On that point, as we have said, the workers begin to be agreed. The idea
of free dwellings showed its existence very plainly during the siege of
Paris, when the cry was for an abatement pure and simple of the terms
demanded by the landlords. It appeared again during the Commune of 1871,
when the Paris workmen expected the Council of the Commune to decide
boldly on the abolition of rent. And when the New Revolution comes, it
will be the first question with which the poor will concern themselves.
Whether in time of revolution or in time of peace, the worker must be
housed somehow or other; he must have some sort of roof over his head.
But, however tumble-down and squalid his dwelling may be, there is
always a landlord who can evict him. True, during the Revolution the
landlord cannot find bailiffs and police-sergeants to throw the
workman's rags and chattels into the street, but who knows what the new
Government will do to-morrow? Who can say that it will not call coercion
to its aid again, and set the police pack upon the tenant to hound him
out of his hovels? Have we not seen the commune of Paris proclaim the
remission of rents due up to the first of April only![5] After that,
rent had to be paid, though Paris was in a state of chaos, and industry
at a standstill; so that the "federate" who had taken arms to defend the
independence of Paris had absolutely nothing to depend upon--he and his
family--but an allowance of fifteen pence a day!
Now the worker must be made to see clearly that in refusing to pay rent
to a landlord or owner he is not simply profiting by the disorganization
of authority. He must understand that the abolition of rent is a
recognized principle, sanctioned, so to speak, by popular assent; that
to be housed rent-free is a right proclaimed aloud by the people.
Are we going to wait till this measure, which is in harmony with every
honest man's sense of justice, is taken up by the few socialists
scattered among the middle class elements, of which the Provisionary
Government will be composed? If it were so, the people should have to
wait long--till the return of reaction, in fact!
This is why, refusing uniforms and badges--those outward signs of
authority and servitude--and remaining people among the people, the
earnest revolutionists will work side by side with the masses, that the
abolition of rent, the expropriation of houses, may become an
accomplished fact. They will prepare the ground and encourage ideas to
grow in this direction; and when the fruit of their labours is ripe, the
people will proceed to expropriate the houses without giving heed to the
theories which will certainly be thrust in their way--theories about
paying compensation to landlords, and finding first the necessary funds.
On the day that the expropriation of houses takes place, on that day,
the exploited workers will have realized that new times have come, that
Labour will no longer have to bear the yoke of the rich and powerful,
that Equality has been openly proclaimed, that this Revolution is a
real fact, and not a theatrical make-believe, like so many others
preceding it.
II
If the idea of expropriation be adopted by the people it will be carried
into effect in spite of all the "insurmountable" obstacles with which we
are menaced.
Of course, the good folk in new uniforms, seated in the official
arm-chairs of the Hôtel de Ville, will be sure to busy themselves in
heaping up obstacles. They will talk of giving compensation to the
landlords, of preparing statistics, and drawing up long reports. Yes,
they would be capable of drawing up reports long enough to outlast the
hopes of the people, who, after waiting and starving in enforced
idleness, and seeing nothing come of all these official researches,
would lose heart and faith in the Revolution and abandon the field to
the reactionaries. The new bureaucracy would end by making expropriation
hateful in the eyes of all.
Here, indeed, is a rock which might shipwreck our hopes. But if the
people turn a deaf ear to the specious arguments used to dazzle them,
and realize that new life needs new conditions, and if they undertake
the task themselves, then expropriation can be effected without any
great difficulty.
"But how? How can it be done?" you ask us. We shall try to reply to this
question, but with a reservation. We have no intention of tracing out
the plans of expropriation in their smallest details. We know beforehand
that all that any man, or group of men, could suggest to-day would be
far surpassed by the reality when it comes. Man will accomplish greater
things, and accomplish them better and by simpler methods than those
dictated to him beforehand. Thus we shall merely indicate the manner by
which expropriation _might_ be accomplished without the intervention of
Government. We do not propose to go out of our way to answer those who
declare that the thing is impossible. We confine ourselves to replying
that we are not the upholders of any particular method of organization.
We are only concerned to demonstrate that expropriation _could_ be
effected by popular initiative, and _could not_ be effected by any other
means whatever.
It seems very likely that, as soon as expropriation is fairly started,
groups of volunteers will spring up in every district, street, and block
of houses, and undertake to inquire into the number of flats and houses
which are empty and of those which are overcrowded, the unwholesome
slums, and the houses which are too spacious for their occupants and
might well be used to house those who are stifled in swarming tenements.
In a few days these volunteers would have drawn up complete lists for
the street and the district of all the flats, tenements, family mansions
and villa residences, all the rooms and suites of rooms, healthy and
unhealthy, small and large, foetid dens and homes of luxury.
Freely communicating with each other, these volunteers would soon have
their statistics complete. False statistics can be manufactured in board
rooms and offices, but true and exact statistics must begin with the
individual and mount up from the simple to the complex.
Then, without waiting for anyone's leave, those citizens will probably
go and find their comrades who were living in miserable garrets and
hovels and will say to them simply: "It is a real Revolution this time,
comrades, and no mistake about it. Come to such a place this evening;
all the neighbourhood will be there; we are going to redistribute the
dwelling-houses. If you are tired of your slum-garret, come and choose
one of the flats of five rooms that are to be disposed of, and when you
have once moved in you shall stay, never fear. The people are up in
arms, and he who would venture to evict you will have to answer to
them."
"But every one will want a fine house or a spacious flat!" we are
told.--No, you are quite mistaken. It is not the people's way to clamour
for the moon. On the contrary, every time we have seen them set about
repairing a wrong we have been struck by the good sense and instinct for
justice which animates the masses. Have we ever known them demand the
impossible? Have we ever seen the people of Paris fighting among
themselves while waiting for their rations of bread or firewood during
the two sieges or during the terrible years of 1792-1794? The patience
and resignation which prevailed among them in 1871 was constantly
presented for admiration by the foreign Press correspondents; and yet
these patient waiters knew full well that the last comers would have to
pass the day without food or fire.
We do not deny that there are plenty of egotistic instincts in isolated
individuals. We are quite aware of it. But we contend that the very way
to revive and nourish these instincts would be to confine such questions
as the housing of the people to any board or committee, in fact, to the
tender mercies of officialism in any shape or form. Then indeed all the
evil passions spring up, and it becomes a case of who is the most
influential person on the board. The least inequality causes wranglings
and recriminations. If the smallest advantage is given to any one, a
tremendous hue and cry is raised--and not without reason.
But if the people themselves, organized by streets, districts, and
parishes, undertake to move the inhabitants of the slums into the
half-empty dwellings of the middle classes, the trifling inconveniences,
the little inequalities will be easily tided over. Rarely has appeal
been made to the good instincts of the masses--only as a last resort, to
save the sinking ship in times of revolution--but never has such an
appeal been made in vain; the heroism, the self-devotion of the toiler
has never failed to respond to it. And thus it will be in the coming
Revolution.
But, when all is said and done, some inequalities, some inevitable
injustices, undoubtedly will remain. There are individuals in our
societies whom no great crisis can lift out of the deep mire of egoism
in which they are sunk. The question, however, is not whether there will
be injustices or no, but rather how to limit the number of them.
Now all history, all the experience of the human race, and all social
psychology, unite in showing that the best and fairest way is to trust
the decision to those whom it concerns most nearly. It is they alone who
can consider and allow for the hundred and one details which must
necessarily be overlooked in any merely official redistribution.
III
Moreover, it is by no means necessary to make straightway an absolutely
equal redistribution of all the dwellings. There will no doubt be some
inconveniences at first, but matters will soon be righted in a society
which has adopted expropriation.
When the masons, and carpenters, and all who are concerned in house
building, know that their daily bread is secured to them, they will ask
nothing better than to work at their old trades a few hours a day. They
will adapt the fine houses, which absorbed the time of a whole staff of
servants, for giving shelter to several families, and in a few months
homes will have sprung up, infinitely healthier and more conveniently
arranged than those of to-day. And to those who are not yet comfortably
housed the anarchist Commune will be able to say: "Patience, comrades!
Palaces fairer and finer than any the capitalists built for themselves
will spring from the ground of our enfranchised city. They will belong
to those who have most need of them. The anarchist Commune does not
build with an eye to revenues. These monuments erected to its citizens,
products of the collective spirit, will serve as models to all humanity;
they will be yours."
If the people of the Revolution expropriate the houses and proclaim free
lodgings--the communalizing of houses and the right of each family to a
decent dwelling--then 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; our "boys" will not hinder him--nay,
they will lend him a helping hand if need be. But suppose he lets
lodgings, suppose he has empty rooms in his house; then the people will
make the lodger understand that he need not pay his former landlord any
more rent. Stay where you are, but rent free. No more duns and
collectors; Socialism has abolished all that!
Or again, suppose that the landlord has a score of rooms all to himself,
and some poor woman lives near by with five children in one room. In
that case the people would see whether, with some alterations, these
empty rooms could not be converted into a suitable home for the poor
woman and her five children. Would not that be more just and fair than
to leave the mother and her five little ones languishing in a garret,
while Sir Gorgeous Midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion? Besides,
good Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord; his
wife will be delighted to be freed from half her big, unwieldy house
when there is no longer a staff of servants to keep it in order.
"So you are going to turn everything upside down," say the defenders of
law and order. "There will be no end to the evictions and removals.
Would it not be better to start fresh by turning everybody out of doors
and redistributing the houses by lot?" Thus our critics; but we are
firmly persuaded that if no Government interferes in the matter, if all
the changes are entrusted to these free groups which have sprung up to
undertake the work, the evictions and removals will be less numerous
than those which take place in one year under the present system, owing
to the rapacity of landlords.
In the first place, there are in all large towns almost enough empty
houses and flats to lodge all the inhabitants of the slums. As to the
palaces and suites of fine apartments, many working people would not
live in them if they could. One could not "keep up" such houses without
a large staff of servants. Their occupants would soon find themselves
forced to seek less luxurious dwellings. The fine ladies would find that
palaces were not well adapted to self-help in the kitchen. Gradually
people would shake down. There would be no need to conduct Dives to a
garret at the bayonet's point, or install Lazarus in Dives's palace by
the help of an armed escort. People would shake down amicably into the
available dwellings with the least possible friction and disturbance.
Have we not the example of the village communes redistributing fields
and disturbing the owners of the allotments so little that one can only
praise the intelligence and good sense of the methods they employ? Fewer
fields change hands under the management of the Russian Commune than
where personal property holds sway, and is for ever carrying its
quarrels into courts of law. And are we to believe that the inhabitants
of a great European city would be less intelligent and less capable of
organization than Russian or Hindoo peasants?
Moreover, we must not blink at the fact that every revolution means a
certain disturbance to everyday life, and those who expect this
tremendous climb out of the old grooves to be accomplished without so
much as jarring the dishes on their dinner tables will find themselves
mistaken. It is true that Governments can change without disturbing
worthy citizens at dinner, but the crimes of society towards those who
have nourished and supported it are not to be redressed by any such
political sleight of parties.
Undoubtedly there will be a disturbance, but it must not be one of pure
loss; it must be minimized. And again--it is impossible to lay too much
stress on this maxim--it will be by addressing ourselves to the
interested parties, and not to boards and committees, that we shall best
succeed in reducing the sum of inconveniences for everybody.
The people commit blunder on blunder when they have to choose by ballot
some hare-brained candidate who solicits the honour of representing
them, and takes upon himself to know all, to do all, and to organize
all. But when they take upon themselves to organize what they know, what
touches them directly, they do it better than all the "talking-shops"
put together. Is not the Paris Commune an instance in point? and the
great dockers' strike? and have we not constant evidence of this fact in
every village commune?
FOOTNOTE:
[5] The decree of the 30 March: by this decree rents due up to the terms
of October, 1870, and January and April, 1871, were annulled.