The question of method has divided the Anarchists, like the evolutionary and revolutionary socialists, into two groups, viz., the philosophical and the revolutionary anarchists. The Philosophical Anarchists, like Tolstoy, advocate peaceful and non-violent methods of education, persuasion and example to achieve their goal. The Revolutionary Anarchists, like Bakunin and Kropotkin, advocate revolutionary methods of violence, bloodshed and revolution to get rid of the state, and establish an anarchist society. But.they believe that revolution should aid evolution of the present society which is already leading it towards the anarchist society of the future.
The “current of events and facts” is already leading mankind towards the anarchists’ goal: the Anarchists needs only accelerate this flow by removing obstacles and impediments. This may need the use of force, violence, bloodshed and organised insurrection. The anarchist revolution is not like the communist revolution which would replace the capitalist State by a communist State or dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The anarchist revolution would put an end to the State as such. It would be the destruction of all political authority and law and “public order”. Rulers and officers will be removed from their seats of authority. Courts, police, jails and all other instruments of coercion and force will be demolished and men and women will be left to their own instinctive impulses and needs to reorganise a free society based on voluntary relations and association. Thus, as Kropotkin says, evolution must culminate in revolution; “a frightful storm is needed to sweep away all this rottenness, to vivify torpid souls with its breath, and to restore to humanity the devotion, self-denial, and heroism without which society becomes senile and decrepit and crumbles away.”