Source: Proudhon, P-J (1875). Correspondances, Tome Troisieme, pp.300-301. Librairie Internationale, Paris)

This is a letter from Proudhon to Alfred Darimon, on the usbject of his non-publication in People and his thoughts about the political situation in France.

To see the original French, click here

To Mister Alfred Darimon1

June 12, 1850

My dear Darimon, I am sending you, below, a note so that you will have it to insert in tomorrow's People, on the non-publication of my work.

You may add some words of reflection saying, basically, that if collaboration with People is denied to me, you hope that the use of libraries will not be, and that if you cannot give the reader useful work, he will undoubtedly permit you to return his money.

We have therefore the declared war on the upper class by Constitutional, Order, Debates, and Public Opinion, all who secretly defended absolutism in the past. The upper class were, just like the proletariats, ostracized in Europe; one addresses to them all the attacks against the Revolution. After the socialists was the revolution of the Montagards; after the Montagards, the modern republicans; after the Republic, the entire working class; after the working class, the upper class.

Will one understand now? And those whom we have accused for the past year, those who we reproach now, in March and April, one of being modernistic, and the other of hypocrisy, do they understand that the interest of the two classes are solidary, that their concilation, their fusion, was the entire revolution?

Remind yourself of this until death: separate every day the coalition of the Jesuites and the bankers, the coalition of Robin Hoods and heads of state, of the upper class and the common people. Make one side the nation, the other the infamous minority of exploiters and parasites.

I don't tell you this at a disadvantage. The genius of the empire, of the restoration and of the corruption is unveiling itself: keep your eyes open.

I give you my hand,

P.J. PROUDHON

1. Translated from the French by Stephanie Silberstein