"Terrorism is tempting with its tremendous possibilities. It offers a mechanical solution, as it were, in hopeless situations. … the principles of terrorism unavoidably rebound to the fatal injury of liberty and revolution. Absolute power corrupts and defeats its partisans no less than its opponents. A people that knows not liberty becomes accustomed to dictatorship: fighting despotism and counter-revolution, terrorism itself becomes their efficient school. Once on the road of terrorism, the State necessarily becomes estranged from the people."
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Activists from the United StatesAnarchists from the United StatesAtheists from the United StatesRevolutionariesAnti-war activists
Original Language: English
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Sources
"The Bolshevik Myth" in Anarchism : A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Vol. 1 (2005) edited by Robert Graham, p. 312.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Berkman
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Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870 – June 28, 1936) was a prominent Lithuanian Jewish anarchist, and a close associate of Emma Goldman. His adult life was largely spent in the United States, Germany and France.
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