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There is no need to plunge into the later history of Spain. Fascism under the monarchy and Fascism under the Republic, until at last, there came the parliamentary administration, which hesitated to arm the workers against the Fascist rebellion of Franco. At least, enough has been told to prove that Anarchism is irrepressible.
In 1897 Terrade de Marmol, in his Les Inquisiteurs d'Espagne, described the terrible horrors the Anarchists endured in Spanish dungeons, form which he escaped I have these horrors listed before me as I write and have heard de Marmol dilate on them before a private audience in London. These horrors, or many of them, were repeated under the Fascist Republic.
In 1936, the martyrs won. "Germinal" was no longer a vain cry. Anarchism was on the March. Fascism, triumphing against Universal Suffrage in Germany and elsewhere, crumpled before the struggle of Anarchism. Lassalle was proven a false prophet, with his "Through Universal Suffrage to Victory." There is no such thing as the progressive conquest of the powers of democracy under Capitalism. Proudhon is right. Through Reaction to Revolution! And in Spain, inspired by Bakunin, the tide of reaction was checked. True, alien Fascism won—only that a second world war might arise, and capitalist democracy be compelled to advance the challenge made by Catalonia. Anarchist Spain promised that Fascism would be rolled back by European revolution, by the steady, unbeaten onmarch of Anarchism. Spain, once the land of darkness, became the light of the world!
History stages the question. Hitler or Bakunin? The clown-sadist or the Anarchist-revolutionist. The sadist-careerist of authority or the man of liberty. History stages the question in satire of Capitalist authority. And at last, the right answer is given: "For Bakunin and Liberty."
Fascism passes to its doom, attended by the hirelings of class authority, of statism, and oppression. An anti-militarist commonwealth of liberty, equality, and fraternity is being born
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Bibliographical Appendix
As stated in the Foreword, the manuscript of the present biography was completed in 1934. Three years after this work had been written, Professor E.H. Carr published his magnificent book, Michael Bakunin. The publishers were MacMillan & Company, of St. Martin's Street, London. The book consisted of thirty-four exhaustive chapters. Unfortunately, it was published at the impossible price, so far as the workers were concerned, of twenty-five
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