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Not official revolutionary commissars in any sort of sashes, but rather revolutionary propagandists are to be dispatched into all the provinces and communes and particularly among the peasants who cannot be revolutionised by principles, nor by the decrees of any dictatorship, but only by the act of revolution itself, that is to say, by the consequences that will inevitably ensure in every commune from complete cessation of the legal and official existence of the state.

Mikhail Bakunin#10

RevolutionState powerPropaganda

About this quote

What does it mean?
Revolutionaries should act as propagandists spreading through provinces to ignite change via actual revolutionary acts rather than decrees. The collapse of state authority itself will convince the peasants.
In plain terms
Change comes from direct action and the fall of the state, not from rules or speeches.
What can you take from it?
Action convinces where principles fail.

Where it applies

  • organizing a revolution
  • communicating with peasants
  • dismantling state structures

Putting it to work

  • deploy grassroots organizers
  • focus on direct action

Questions to consider

  • How does one inspire change without force?
  • Is the end of the state enough?

Another view

This assumes people will accept chaos as a path to freedom.

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