Those who call the "propaganda of deed" acts of violence prove that they have not understood the meaning of this expression. The Anarchist who understands his part, instead of massacreing somebody or other, will exclusively strive to bring this person round to his opinions, and to make of him an adept who, in his turn, will make "propaganda of deed" by showing himself good and just to all those whom he may meet."[1]
We will not ask what is left of the Anarchist who has divorced himself from the tactics of "deeds."
We only ask the reader to consider the following lines: "The editor of the Sempre Avanti wrote to Elysée Reclus asking him for his true opinion of Ravachol. 'I admire his courage, his goodness of heart, his greatness of soul, the generosity with which he pardons his enemies, or rather his betrayers. I hardly know of any men who have surpassed him in nobleness of conduct. I reserve the question as to how far it is always desirable to push to extremities one's own right, and whether other considerations moved by a spirit of human solidarity ought not to prevail. Still I am none the less one of those who recognise in Ravachol a hero of a magnanimity but little common.'"[2]
This does does not at all fit in with the declaration quoted above, and it proves irrefutably that citizen Reclus fluctuates, that he does not know exactly where his "companion" ends and the bandit begins. The problem is the more difficult to solve that there are a good many individuals who are at the same time "bandits" and Anarchists. Ravochol was no exception. At the house of the Anarchists, Ortiz and Chiericotti, recently arrested at Paris, an enormous mass of stolen goods were found. Nor is it only in France that you have the combination of these two
