Revolution and Other Essays

Revolution and Other Essays

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Title: Revolution and Other Essays
Author: Jack London
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4953] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 3, 2002]

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REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS ***

Transcribed from the 1910 Mills and Boon edition by David Price,
email [email protected].

REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS

Contents: Revolution The Somnambulists The Dignity of Dollars
Goliah The Golden Poppy The Shrinkage of the Planet The House
Beautiful The Gold Hunters of the North Foma Gordyeeff These Bones
shall Rise Again The Other Animals The Yellow Peril What Life
Means to Me

REVOLUTION

"The present is enough for common souls, Who, never looking forward,
are indeed Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age Are petrified
for ever."
I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in Arizona. It began,
"Dear Comrade." It ended, "Yours for the Revolution." I replied to the
letter, and my letter began, "Dear Comrade." It ended, "Yours for the

Revolution." In the United States there are 400,000 men, of men and
women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their letters "Dear Comrade," and
end them "Yours for the Revolution." In Germany there are 3,000,000
men who begin their letters "Dear Comrade" and end them "Yours for
the Revolution"; in France, 1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in
Belgium, 300,000 men; in Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000
men; in Switzerland, 100,000 men; in Denmark, 55,000 men; in
Sweden, 50,000 men; in Holland, 40,000 men; in Spain, 30,000
men--comrades all, and revolutionists.
These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and
Xerxes. But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the
established order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, when
the roll is called, an army of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance with
the conditions of to-day, are fighting with all their might for the
conquest of the wealth of the world and for the complete overthrow of
existing society.
There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of the
world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American
Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. Other
revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. It is
alone of its kind, the first world-revolution in a world whose history is
replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it is the first organized
movement of men to become a world movement, limited only by the
limits of the planet.
This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. It is not
sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontent, arising in a day and
dying down in a day. It is older than the present generation. It has a
history and traditions, and a martyr-roll only less extensive possibly
than the martyr-roll of Christianity. It has also a literature a myriad
times more imposing, scientific, and scholarly than the literature of any
previous revolution.
They call themselves "comrades," these men, comrades in the socialist
revolution. Nor is the word empty and meaningless, coined of mere lip
service. It knits men together as brothers, as men should be knit

together who stand shoulder to shoulder under the red banner of revolt.
This red banner, by the way, symbolizes the brotherhood of man, and
does not symbolize the incendiarism that instantly connects itself with
the red banner in the affrighted bourgeois mind. The comradeship of
the revolutionists is alive and warm. It passes over geographical lines,
transcends race prejudice, and has even proved itself mightier than the
Fourth of July, spread-eagle Americanism of our forefathers. The
French socialist working-men and the German socialist working-men