Upon revolution, wage labour must be abolished immediatly in order to ensure that people can be fed
The coming revolution could render no greater service to humanity than by making wage labour, in all its forms, an impossibility, and by rendering communism, which is the negation of wage-slavery, the only possible solution. For even admitting that the collectivist modification of the present system is possible, it would become impossible in a period of revolution, when the need of feeding the hungry would the first concern. A political revolution can be accomplished without shaking the foundations of industry, but a revolution where the people sieze private property will inevitably paralyse exchange and production. The millions of public money flowing into the Treasury would not suffice for paying wages to the millions of out-of-works.
This point cannot be stressed enough; the reorganization of industry on a new basis cannot be accomplished in a few days; nor, on the other hand, will the people submit to being half starved for years in order to oblige to the theorists who uphold the wage labour system. To tide over the period of stress they will demand what they have always demanded in such cases—communization of supplies and the giving of rations. It will be in vain to preach patience. The people will be patient no longer.
References
- Kropotkin, Peter. (1892). The Conquest of Bread Chapter 5. Food (p. 103).