The whole economy must be expropriated simultanuosly to ensure the success of the revolution
There are established relations which it is practically impossible to modify if one attacks only them specifically. Our economic organization is so complex and interdependent that no one part can be modified without disturbing the whole. This becomes clear as soon as an attempt is made to expropriate anything.
Let us suppose that in a certain country only a limited form of expropriation is effected. For example, only the property of landlords is socialized, while the factories are left untouched; or that house property is taken over by the commune, but everything else is left to private ownership; or that, in some manufacturing centre, the factories are communalized, but the land is not interfered with. The same result would follow in each case—a terrible shattering of the industrial system, without the means of reorganizing it on new lines. Industry and finance would be at a deadlock, yet a return to the first principles of justice would not have been achieved, and society would find itself powerless to construct a harmonious whole.
Everything is interdependent in society, and it is impossible to reform any one thing without altering the whole. Therefore, on the day private property is attacked, under any one of its forms, it will be obliged to attack them all. The very success of the revolution will require it.
References
- Kropotkin, Peter. (1892). The Conquest of Bread Chapter 4. Expropriation (p. 90).