Property requires extremely great efforts for its protection; and in
reality all of you, our rulers, are greater slaves than we--you are
enslaved spiritually, we only physically. YOU cannot withdraw from
under the weight of your prejudices and habits, the weight which
deadens you spiritually; nothing hinders US from being inwardly free.
The poisons with which you poison us are weaker than the antidote you
unwittingly administer to our consciences. This antidote penetrates
deeper and deeper into the body of workingmen; the flames mount
higher and higher, sucking in the best forces, the spiritual powers,
the healthy elements even from among you. Look! Not one of you
can any longer fight for your power as an ideal! You have already
expended all the arguments capable of guarding you against the
pressure of historic justice. You can create nothing new in the
domain of ideas; you are spiritually barren. Our ideas grow; they
flare up ever more dazzling; they seize hold of the mass of the
people, organizing them for the war of freedom. The consciousness
of their great role unites all the workingmen of the world into
one soul. You have no means whereby to hinder this renovating
process in life except cruelty and cynicism.
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