234 
THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
which took place on the loth of February, 1873, tbe Anarchist 
party induced the labourers to enter into an alliance with the 
Radicals, in order to prepare for a new revolution. 
The report of the Spanish delegate, Garcia Vinas, to the 
Congress of Geneva, in September, 1873, informs us of the 
strength of the International at that time. It counted 270 
regional federations, comprising 557 trade-sections and 117 
sections of independent working men, making a total of 674 
sections with about 300,000 associates. There were several 
Socialist journals, all of which advocated Bakunin’s programme. 
Anarchy or Communalism, that is to say, the absolute inde 
pendence of each commune. Their attacks on religion were 
of extraordinary violence.* Most of them spoke of rekindling 
the flames of Paris, as may be seen in the following peroration 
taken from an article in the Petróleo :—“ And if force prevents 
us from attaining our object, which is to sit in our turn at the 
banquet of life, then the avenger, dreaded by the privileged 
classes. Petroleum, will come to our aid, not merely to accom 
plish the work of destruction, but at the same time to perform 
an act of holy and supreme justice. A levelling even with the 
ground, if need be by means of axe and fire, this is what the 
dignity of the proletariat, for so long trampled under foot, 
imperatively demands.” 
In Andalusia, in the Estremadura, and in the province of 
Badajoz the peasants made a partition of the lands. Canton- 
alist insurrections broke out. It was a counterfeit Commune of 
Paris. On the 13th of February, 1873, thirty thousand working 
men assembled at Barcelona, proclaimed the Federal Republic, 
and fixed, by authority, the duration of labour and the rate of 
wages. On the 8th of March there was a rising at Malaga, the 
* The following is an extract from the journal, Los Decamisados :— 
“ Deliver us at last from that phantom called God, who is good only for 
frightening little children. Religions are only trades intended to enable 
those mountebanks of priests, as Dupuis calls them, to grow fat at the 
people’s expense. That is our programme. Moreover, before putting ft 
into execution, there will be needed a good blood-letting, brief but copious. 
The rotten boughs must be lopped off the social tree in order that it may 
develop. Tremble, ye bourgeois who have fattened on our toil 1 Give 
place to the shirtless, the decamisados. Your tyranny is nearly done. Our 
black flag is unfurled, and it will lead us to victory.’’