This book is great. Alot of the principles can be applied to our aspirations in everyday life, not just war. Definitely a good read.


CHAPTER I: GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF GUERRILLA WARFARE
1. ESSENCE OF GUERRILLA WARFARE
2. GUERRILLA STRATEGY
3. GUERRILLA TACTICS
4. WARFARE ON FAVORABLE GROUND
5. WARFARE ON UNFAVORABLE GROUND
6. SUBURBAN WARFARE
CHAPTER II: THE GUERRILLA BAND
1. THE GUERRILLA FIGHTER: SOCIAL REFORMER
2. THE GUERRILLA FIGHTER AS COMBATANT
3. ORGANIZATION OF A GUERRILLA BAND
4. THE COMBAT
5. BEGINNING, DEVELOPMENT, AND END OF A GUERRILLA WAR
CHAPTER III: ORGANIZATION OF THE GUERRILLA FRONT
1. SUPPLY
2. CIVIL ORGANIZATION
3. THE ROLE OF THE WOMAN
4. MEDICAL PROBLEMS
5. SABOTAGE
6. WAR INDUSTRY
7. PROPAGANDA
8. INTELLIGENCE
9. TRAINING AND INDOCTRINATION
10.THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE ARMY OF A REVOLUTIONARY
MOVEMENT
APPENDICES
1. ORGANIZATION IN SECRET OF THE FIRST GUERRILLA BAND
2. DEFENSE OF POWER THAT HAS BEEN WON
3. Epilogue
4. End of the book
CHAPTER I: GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF GUERRILLA
WARFARE
1. ESSENCE OF GUERRILLA WARFARE
The armed victory of the Cuban people over the Batista dictatorship was not only the triumph of
heroism as reported by the newspapers of the world; it also forced a change in the old dogmas
concerning the conduct of the popular masses of Latin America. It showed plainly the capacity of
the people to free themselves by means of guerrilla warfare from a government that oppresses them.
We consider that the Cuban Revolution contributed three fundamental lessons to the conduct of
revolutionary movements in America. They are:
(1) Popular forces can win a war against the army.
(2) It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can
create them.
(3) In underdeveloped America the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting.
Of these three propositions the first two contradict the defeatist attitude of revolutionaries or
pseudo- revolutionaries who remain inactive and take refuge in the pretext that against a
professional army nothing can be done, who sit down to wait until in some mechanical way all
necessary objective and subjective conditions are given without working to accelerate them. As
these problems were formerly a subject of discussion in Cuba, until facts settled the question, they
are probably still much discussed in America. Naturally, it is not to be thought that all conditions
for revolution are going to be created through the impulse given to them by guerrilla activity. It
must always be kept in mind that there is a necessary minimum without which the establishment
and consolidation of the first center is not practicable. People must see clearly the futility of
maintaining the fight for social goals within the framework of civil debate. When the forces of
oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered
already broken.
In these conditions popular discontent expresses itself in more active forms. An attitude of
resistance finally crystallizes in an outbreak of fighting, provoked initially by the conduct of the
authorities. Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote,
fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla
outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been
exhausted.
The third proposition is a fundamental of strategy. It ought to be noted by those who maintain
dogmatically that the struggle of the masses is centered in city movements, entirely forgetting the
immense participation of the country people in the life of all the underdeveloped parts of America.
Of course the struggles of the city masses of organized workers should not be underrated; but their
real possibilities of engaging in armed struggle must be carefully analyzed where the guarantees
which customarily adorn our constitutions are suspended or ignored. In these conditions the illegal
workers' movements face enormous dangers. They must function secretly without arms. The
situation in the open country is not so difficult. There, in places beyond the reach of the repressive
forces, the armed guerrillas can support the inhabitants. We will later make a careful analysis of
these three conclusions that stand out in the Cuban revolutionary experience. We emphasize them
now at the beginning of this work as our fundamental contribution.
Guerrilla warfare, the basis of the struggle of a people to redeem itself, has diverse characteristics,
different facets, even though the essential will for liberation remains the same. It is obvious -and
writers on the theme have said it many times-that war responds to a certain series of scientific laws;
whoever ignores them will go down to defeat. Guerrilla warfare as a phase of war must be ruled by
all of these; but besides, because of its special aspects, a series of corollary laws must also be
recognized in order to carry it forward. Though geographical and social conditions in each country
determine the mode and particular forms that guerrilla warfare will take, there are general laws that
hold for all fighting of this type.
Our task at the moment is to find the basic principles of this kind of fighting and the rules to be
followed by peoples seeking liberation; to develop theory from facts; to generalize and give
structure to our experience for the profit of others.
Let us first consider the question: who are the combatants in guerrilla warfare? On one side we have
a group composed of the oppressor and his agents, the professional army, well armed and
disciplined, in many cases receiving foreign help as well as the help of the bureaucracy in the
employ of the oppressor. On the other side are the people of the nation or region involved. It is
important to emphasize that guerrilla warfare is a war of the masses, a war of the people. The
guerrilla band is an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the people. It draws its great force from
the mass of the people themselves. The guerrilla band is not to be considered inferior to the army
against which it fights simply because it is inferior in firepower. Guerrilla warfare is used by the
side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use
in defense against oppression.
The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition.
This is clearly seen by considering the case of bandit gangs that operate in a region. They have all
the characteristics of a guerrilla army, homogeneity, respect for the leader, valor, knowledge of the
ground, and, often, even good understanding of the tactics to be employed. The only thing missing
is support of the people; and, inevitably, these gangs are captured and exterminated by the public
force.
Analyzing the mode of operation of the guerrilla band, seeing its form of struggle and
understanding its base in the masses, we can answer the question: why does the guerrilla fighter
fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that
he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he
fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and
misery. He launches himself against the conditions of the reigning institutions at a particular
moment and dedicates himself with all the vigor that circumstances permit to breaking the mold of
these institutions.
When we analyze more fully the tactic of guerrilla warfare, we will see that the guerrilla fighter
needs to have a good knowledge of the surrounding countryside, the paths of entry and escape, the
possibilities of speedy maneuver, good hiding places; naturally also, he must count on the support
of the people. All this indicates that the guerrilla fighter will carry out his action in wild places of
small population. Since in these places the struggle of the people for reforms is aimed primarily and
almost exclusively at changing the social form of land ownership, the guerrilla fighter is above all
an agrarian revolutionary. He interprets the desires of the great peasant mass to be owners of land,
owners of their means of production, of their animals, of all that which they have long yearned to
call their own, of that which constitutes their life and will also serve as their cemetery.
It should be noted that in current interpretations there are two different types of guerrilla warfare,
one of which-a struggle complementing great regular armies such as was the case of the Ukrainian
fighters in the Soviet Union-does not enter into this analysis. We are interested in the other type, the
case of an armed group engaged in struggle against the constituted power, whether colonial or not,
which establishes itself as the only base and which builds itself up in rural areas. In all such cases,
whatever the ideological aims that may inspire the fight, the economic aim is determined by the
aspiration toward ownership of land.
The China of Mao begins as an outbreak of worker groups in the South, which is defeated and
almost annihilated. It succeeds in establishing itself and begins its advance only when, after the long
march from Yenan, it takes up its base in rural territories and makes agrarian reform its fundamental
goal. The struggle of Ho Chi Minh is based in the rice-growing peasants, who are oppressed by the
French colonial yoke; with this force it is going forward to the defeat of the colonialists. In both
cases there is a framework of patriotic war against the Japanese invader, but the economic basis of a
fight for the land has not disappeared. In the case of Algeria, the grand idea of Arab nationalism has
its economic counterpart in the fact that a million French settlers utilize nearly all of the arable land
of Algeria. In some countries, such as Puerto Rico, where the special conditions of the island have
not permitted a guerrilla outbreak, the nationalist spirit, deeply wounded by the discrimination that
is daily practiced, has as its basis the aspiration of the peasants (even though many of them are
already a proletariat) to recover the land that the Yankee invader seized from them. This same
central idea, though in different forms, inspired the small farmers, peasants, and slaves of the
eastern estates of Cuba to close ranks and defend together the right to possess land during the thirtyyear
war of liberation.
Taking account of the possibilities of development of guerrilla warfare, which is transformed with
the increase in the operating potential of the guerrilla band into a war of positions, this type of
warfare, despite its special character, is to be considered as an embryo, a prelude, of the other. The
possibilities of growth of the guerrilla band and of changes in the mode of fight until conventional
warfare is reached, are as great as the possibilities of defeating the enemy in each of the different
battles, combats, or skirmishes that take place. Therefore, the fundamental principle is that no
battle, combat, or skirmish is to be fought unless it will be won. There is a malevolent definition
that says: _The guerrilla fighter is the Jesuit of warfare._ By this is indicated a quality of
secretiveness, of treachery, of surprise that is obviously an essential element of guerrilla warfare. It
is a special kind of Jesuitism, naturally prompted by circumstances, which necessitates acting at
certain moments in ways different from the romantic and sporting conceptions with which we are
taught to believe war is fought.
War is always a struggle in which each contender tries to annihilate the other. Besides using force,
they will have recourse to all possible tricks and stratagems in order to achieve the goal.
Military strategy and tactics are a representation by analysis of the objectives of the
groups and of the means of achieving these objectives. These means contemplate taking
advantage of all the weak points of the enemy. The fighting action of each individual platoon in a
large army in a war of positions will present the same characteristics as those of the guerrilla band.
It uses secretiveness, treachery, and surprise; and when these are not present, it is because vigilance
on the other side prevents surprise. But since the guerrilla band is a division unto itself, and since
there are large zones of territory not controlled by the enemy, it is always possible to carry out
guerrilla attacks in such a way as to assure surprise; and it is the duty of the guerrilla fighter to do
so. _Hit and run_ some call this scornfully, and this is accurate. Hit and run, wait, lie in ambush,
again hit and run, and thus repeatedly, without giving any rest to the enemy. There is in all this, it
would appear, a negative quality, an attitude of retreat, of avoiding frontal fights. However, this is
consequent upon the general strategy of guerrilla warfare, which is the same in its ultimate end as is
any warfare: to win, to annihilate the enemy.
Thus it is clear that guerrilla warfare is a phase that does not afford in itself opportunities to arrive
at complete victory. It is one of the initial phases of warfare and will develop continuously until the
guerrilla army in its steady growth acquires the characteristics of a regular army. At that moment it
will be ready to deal final blows to the enemy and to achieve victory. Triumph will always be the
product of a regular army, even though its origins are in a guerrilla army.
Just as the general of a division in a modern war does not have to die in front of his soldiers, the
guerrilla fighter, who is general of himself, need not die in every battle. He is ready to give his life,
but the positive quality of this guerrilla warfare is precisely that each one of the guerrilla fighters is
ready to die, not to defend an ideal, but rather to convert it into reality. This is the basis, the essence
of guerrilla fighting. Miraculously, a small band of men, the armed vanguard of the great popular
force that supports them, goes beyond the immediate tactical objective, goes on decisively to
achieve an ideal, to establish a new society, to break the old molds of the outdated, and to achieve,
finally, the social justice for which they fight.
Considered thus, all these disparaged qualities acquire a true nobility, the nobility of the end at
which they aim; and it becomes clear that we are not speaking of distorted means of reaching an
end. This fighting attitude, this attitude of not being dismayed at any time, this inflexibility when
confronting the great problems in the final objective is also the nobility of the guerrilla fighter.
2. GUERRILLA STRATEGY
In guerrilla terminology, strategy is understood as the analysis of the objectives to be achieved in
the light of the total military situation and the overall ways of reaching these objectives.
To have a correct strategic appreciation from the point of view of the guerrilla band, it is necessary
to analyze fundamentally what will be the enemy's mode of action. If the final objective is always
the complete destruction of the opposite force, the enemy is confronted in the case of a civil war of
this kind with the standard task: he will have to achieve the total destruction of each one of the
components of the guerrilla band. The guerrilla fighter, on the other hand, must analyze the
resources which the enemy has for trying to achieve that outcome: the means in men, in mobility, in
popular support, in armaments, in capacity of leadership on which he can count. We must make our
own strategy adequate on the basis of these studies, keeping in mind always the final objective of
defeating the enemy army.
There are fundamental aspects to be studied: the armament, for example, and the manner of using
this armament. The value of a tank, of an airplane in a fight of this type must be weighed. The arms
of the enemy, his ammunition, his habits must be considered; because the principal source of
provision for the guerrilla force is precisely in enemy armaments. If there is a possibility of choice,
we should prefer the same type as that used by the enemy, since the greatest problem of the
guerrilla band is the lack of ammunition, which the opponent must provide.
After the objectives have been fixed and analyzed, it is necessary to study the order of the steps
leading to the achievement of the final objective. This should be planned in advance, even though it
will be modified and adjusted as the fighting develops and unforeseen circumstances arise.
At the outset, the essential task of the guerrilla fighter is to keep himself from being destroyed.
Little by little it will be easier for the members of the guerrilla band or bands to adapt themselves to
their form of life and to make flight and escape from the forces that are on the offensive an easy
task, because it is performed daily. When this condition is reached, the guerrilla, having taken up
inaccessible positions out of reach of the enemy, or having assembled forces that deter the enemy
from attacking, ought to proceed to the gradual weakening of the enemy. This will be carried out at
first at those points nearest to the points of active warfare against the guerrilla band and later will be
taken deeper into enemy territory, attacking his communications, later attacking or harassing his
bases of operations and his central bases, tormenting him on all sides to the full extent of the
capabilities of the guerrilla forces.
The blows should be continuous. The enemy soldier in a zone of operations ought not to be allowed
to sleep; his outposts ought to be attacked and liquidated systematically. At every moment the
impression ought to be created that he is surrounded by a complete circle. In wooded and broken
areas this effort should be maintained both day and night; in open zones that are easily penetrated
by enemy patrols, at night only. In order to do all this the absolute cooperation of the people and a
perfect knowledge of the ground is necessary. These two necessities affect every minute of the life
of the guerrilla fighter. Therefore, along with centers for study of present and future zones of
operations, intensive popular work must be undertaken to explain the motives of the revolution, its
ends, and to spread the incontrovertible truth that victory of the enemy against the people is finally
impossible. Whoever does not feel this undoubted truth cannot be a guerrilla fighter.
This popular work should at first be aimed at securing secrecy; that is, each peasant, each member
of the society in which action is taking place, will be asked not to mention what he sees and hears;
later, help will be sought from inhabitants whose loyalty to the revolution offers greater guarantees;
still later, use will be made of these persons in missions of contact, for transporting goods or arms,
as guides in the zones familiar to them; still later, it is possible to arrive at organized mass action in
the centers of work, of which the final result will be the general strike.
The strike is a most important factor in civil war, but in order to reach it a series of complementary
conditions are necessary which do not always exist and which very rarely come to exist
spontaneously. It is necessary to create these essential conditions, basically by explaining the
purposes of the revolution and by demonstrating the forces of the people and their possibilities.
• It is also possible to have recourse to certain very homogeneous groups, which must have
shown their efficacy previously in less dangerous tasks, in order to make use of another of
the terrible arms of the guerrilla band, sabotage. It is possible to paralyze entire armies, to
suspend the industrial life of a zone, leaving the inhabitants of a city without factories,
without light, without water, without communications of any kind, without being able to risk
travel by highway except at certain hours. If all this is achieved, the morale of the enemy
falls, the morale of his combatant units weakens, and the fruit ripens for plucking at a
precise moment.
All this presupposes an increase in the territory included within the guerrilla action, but an
excessive in- crease of this territory is to be avoided. It is essential always to preserve a
strong base of operations and to continue strengthening it during the course of the war.
Within this territory, measures of indoctrination of the inhabitants of the zone should be
utilized; measures of quarantine should be taken against the irreconcilable enemies of the
revolution; all the purely defensive measures, such as trenches, mines, and communications,
should be perfected.
When the guerrilla band has reached a respectable power in arms and in number of
combatants, it ought to proceed to the formation of new columns. This is an act similar to
that of the beehive when at a given moment it releases a new queen, who goes to another
region with a part of the swarm. The mother hive with the most notable guerrilla chief will
stay in the less dangerous places, while the new columns will penetrate other enemy
territories following the cycle already described.
A moment will arrive in which the territory occupied by the columns is too small for them;
and in the advance toward regions solidly defended by the enemy, it will be necessary to
confront powerful forces. At that instant the columns join, they offer a compact, fighting
front, and a war of positions is reached, a war carried on by regular armies. However, the
former guerrilla army cannot cut itself off from its base, and it should create new guerrilla
bands behind the enemy acting in the same way as the original bands operated earlier,
proceeding thus to penetrate enemy territory until it is dominated.
It is thus that guerrillas reach the stage of attack, of the encirclement of fortified bases, of
the defeat of reinforcements, of mass action, ever more ardent, in the whole national
territory, arriving finally at the objective of the war: victory.
3. GUERRILLA TACTICS
[Che smoking his pipe in the mountains of Bolivia] In military language, tactics are the practical
methods of achieving the grand strategic objectives.
In one sense they complement strategy and in an-other they are more specific rules within it. As
means, tactics are much more variable, much more flexible than the final objectives, and they
should be adjusted continually during the struggle. There are tactical objectives that remain constant
throughout a war and others that vary. The first thing to be considered is the adjusting of guerrilla
action to the action of the enemy.
The fundamental characteristic of a guerrilla band is mobility. This permits it in a few minutes to
move far from a specific theater and in a few hours far even from the region, if that becomes
necessary; permits it constantly to change front and avoid any type of encirclement. As the
circumstances of the war require, the guerrilla band can dedicate itself exclusively to fleeing from
an encirclement which is the enemy's only way of forcing the band into a decisive fight that could
be unfavorable; it can also change the battle into a counter-encirclement (small bands of men are
presumably surrounded by the enemy when suddenly the enemy is surrounded by stronger
contingents; or men located in a safe place serve as a lure, leading to the encirclement and
annihilation of the entire troops and supply of an attacking force). Characteristic of this war of
mobility is the so-called minuet, named from the analogy with the dance: the guerrilla bands
encircle an enemy position, an advancing column, for example; they encircle it completely from the
four points of the compass, with five or six men in each place, far enough away to avoid being
encircled themselves; the fight is started at any one of the points, and the army moves toward it; the
guerrilla band then retreats, always maintaining visual contact, and initiates its attack from another
point. The army will repeat its action and the guerrilla band the same. Thus, successively, it is
possible to keep an enemy column immobilized, forcing it to expend large quantities of ammunition
and weakening the morale of its troops without incurring great dangers.
This same tactic can be applied at nighttime, closing in more and showing greater aggressiveness,
because in these conditions counter-encirclement is much more difficult. Movement by night is
another important characteristic of the guerrilla band, enabling it to advance into position for an
attack and, where the danger of betrayal exists, to mobilize in new territory. The numerical
inferiority of the guerrilla makes it necessary that attacks always be carried out by surprise; this
great advantage is what permits the guerrilla fighter to inflict losses on the enemy without suffering
losses. In a fight between a hundred men on one side and ten on the other, losses are not equal
where there is one casualty on each side. The enemy loss is always reparable; it amounts to only
one percent of his effectiveness. The loss of the guerrilla band requires more time to be repaired
because it involves a soldier of high specialization and is ten percent of the operating forces.
A dead soldier of the guerrillas ought never to be left with his arms and his ammunition. The duty
of every guerrilla soldier whenever a companion falls is to recover immediately these extremely
precious elements of the fight. In fact, the care which must be taken of ammunition and the method
of using it are further characteristics of guerrilla warfare. In any combat between a regular force and
a guerrilla band it is always possible to know one from the other by their different manner of fire: a
great amount of firing on the part of the regular army, sporadic and accurate shots on the part of the
guerrillas.
Once one of our heroes, now dead, had to employ his machine guns for nearly five minutes, burst
after burst, in order to slow up the advance of enemy soldiers. This fact caused considerable
confusion in our forces, because they assumed from the rhythm of fire that key position must have
been taken by the enemy, since this was one of the rare occasions where departure from the rule of
saving fire had been called for because of the importance of the point being defended.
Another fundamental characteristic of the guerrilla soldier is his flexibility, his ability to adapt
himself to all circumstances, and to convert to his service all of the accidents of the action. Against
the rigidity of classical methods of fighting, the guerrilla fighter invents his own tactics at every
minute of the fight and constantly surprises the enemy.
In the first place, there are only elastic positions, specific places that the enemy cannot pass, and
places of diverting him. Frequently the enemy, after easily overcoming difficulties in a gradual
advance, is surprised to find himself suddenly and solidly detained without possibilities of moving
forward. This is due to the fact that the guerrilla-defended positions, when they have been selected
on the basis of a careful study of the ground, are invulnerable. It is not the number of attacking
soldiers that counts, but the number of defending soldiers. Once that number has been placed there,
it can nearly always hold off a battalion with success. It is a major task of the chiefs to choose well
the moment and the place for defending a position without retreat.
The form of attack of a guerrilla army is also different; starting with surprise and fury, irresistible, it
suddenly converts itself into total passivity.
The surviving enemy, resting, believes that the attacker has departed; he begins to relax, to return to
the routine life of the camp or of the fortress, when suddenly a new attack bursts forth in another
place, with the same characteristics, while the main body of the guerrilla band lies in wait to
intercept reinforcements. At other times an outpost defending the camp will be suddenly attacked
by the guerrilla, dominated, and captured. The fundamental thing is surprise and rapidity of attack.
Acts of sabotage are very important. It is necessary to distinguish clearly between sabotage, a
revolutionary and highly effective method of warfare, and terrorism, a measure that is generally
ineffective and in-discriminate in its results, since it often makes victims of innocent people and
destroys a large number of lives that would be valuable to the revolution. Terrorism should be
considered a valuable tactic when it is used to put to death some noted leader of the oppressing
forces well known for his cruelty, his efficiency in repression, or other quality that makes his
elimination useful. But the killing of persons of small importance is never advisable, since it brings
on an increase of reprisals, including deaths.
There is one point very much in controversy in Opinions about terrorism. Many consider that its
use, by provoking police oppression, hinders all more or less legal or semiclandestine contact with
the masses and makes impossible unification for actions that will be necessary at a critical moment.
This is correct; but it also happens that in a civil war the repression by the governmental power in
certain towns is already so great that, in fact, every type of legal action is suppressed already, and
any action of the masses that is not supported by arms is impossible. It is therefore necessary to be
circumspect in adopting methods of this type and to consider the consequences that they may bring
for the revolution. At any rate, well-managed sabotage is always a very effective arm, though it
should not be employed to put means of production out of action, leaving a sector of the population
paralyzed (and thus without work) unless this paralysis affects the normal life of the society. It is
ridiculous to carry out sabotage against a soft-drink factory, but it is absolutely correct and
advisable to carry out sabotage against a power plant. In the first case, a certain number of workers
are put out of a job but nothing is done to modify the rhythm of industrial life; in the second case,
there will again be displaced workers, but this is entirely justified by the paralysis of the life of the
region. We will return to the technique of sabotage later.
One of the favorite arms of the enemy army, supposed to be decisive in modern times, is aviation.
Nevertheless, this has no use whatsoever during the period that guerrilla warfare is in its first stages,
with small concentrations of men in rugged places. The utility of aviation lies in the systematic
destruction of visible and organized defenses; and for this there must be large concentrations of men
who construct these defenses, something that does not exist in this type of warfare. Planes are also
potent against marches by columns through level places or places without cover; however, this
latter danger is easily avoided by carrying out the marches at night.
One of the weakest points of the enemy is transportation by road and railroad. It is virtually
impossible to maintain a vigil yard by yard over a transport line, a road, or a railroad. At any point a
considerable amount of explosive charge can be planted that will make the road impassable; or by
exploding it at the moment that a vehicle passes, a consider-able loss in lives and materiel to the
enemy is caused at the same time that the road is cut.
The sources of explosives are varied. They can be brought from other zones; or use can be made of
bombs seized from the dictatorship, though these do not always work; or they can be manufactured
in secret laboratories within the guerrilla zone. The technique of setting them off is quite varied;
their manufacture also depends upon the conditions of the guerrilla band.
In our laboratory we made powder which we used as a cap, and we invented various devices for
exploding the mines at the desired moment. The ones that gave the best results were electric. The
first mine that we exploded was a bomb dropped from an aircraft of the dictatorship. We adapted it
by inserting various caps and adding a gun with the trigger pulled by a cord. At the moment that an
enemy truck passed, the weapon was fired to set off the explosion.
These techniques can be developed to a high degree. We have information that in Algeria, for
example, tele-explosive mines, that is, mines exploded by radio at great distances from the point
where they are located, are being used today against the French colonial power.
The technique of lying in ambush along roads in order to explode mines and annihilate survivors is
one of the most remunerative in point of ammunition and arms. The surprised enemy does not use
his ammunition and has no time to flee; so with a small expenditure of ammunition large results are
achieved. As blows are dealt the enemy, he also changes his tactics, and in place of isolated trucks,
veritable motorized columns move. However, by choosing the ground well, the same result can be
produced by breaking the column and concentrating forces on one vehicle. In these cases the
essential elements of guerrilla tactics must always be kept in mind. These are: perfect knowledge of
the ground; surveillance and foresight as to the lines of escape; vigilance over all the secondary
roads that can bring support to the point of attack; intimacy with people in the zone so as to have
sure help from them in respect to supplies, transport, and temporary or permanent hiding places if it
becomes necessary to leave wounded companions behind; numerical superiority at a chosen point
of action; total mobility; and the possibility of counting on reserves.
If all these tactical requisites are fulfilled, surprise attack along the lines of communication of the
enemy yields notable dividends.
A fundamental part of guerrilla tactics is the treatment accorded the people of the zone. Even the
treatment accorded the enemy is important; the norm to be followed should be an absolute
inflexibility at the time of attack, an absolute inflexibility toward all the despicable elements that
resort to informing and assassination, and clemency as absolute as possible to-ward the enemy
soldiers who go into the fight performing or believing that they perform a military duty. It is a good
policy, so long as there are no considerable bases of operations and invulnerable places, to take no
prisoners. Survivors ought to be set free. The wounded should be cared for with all possible
resources at the time of the action. Conduct toward the civil population ought to be regulated by a
large respect for all the rules and traditions of the people of the zone, in order to demonstrate
effectively, with deeds, the moral superiority of the guerrilla fighter over the oppressing soldier.
Except in special situations, there ought to be no execution of justice without giving the criminal an
opportunity to clear himself.
4. WARFARE ON FAVORABLE GROUND
[Che Guevara addressing the United Nations in New York City] As we have already said, guerrilla
fighting will not always take place in country most favorable to the employment of its tactics; but
when it does, that is, when the guerrilla band is located in zones difficult to reach, either because of
dense forests, steep mountains, impassable deserts or marshes, the general tactics, based on the
fundamental postulates of guerrilla warfare, must always be the same. An important point to
consider is the moment for making contact with the enemy. If the zone is so thick, so difficult that
an organized army can never reach it, the guerrilla band should advance to the regions where the
army can arrive and where there will be a possibility of combat.
As soon as the survival of the guerrilla band has been assured, it should fight; it must constantly go
out from its refuge to fight. Its mobility does not have to be as great as in those cases where the
ground is unfavorable; it must adjust itself to the capabilities of the enemy, but it is not necessary to
be able to move as quickly as in places where the enemy can concentrate a large number of men in a
few minutes. Neither is the nocturnal character of this warfare so important; it will be possible in
many cases to carry out daytime operations, especially mobilizations by day, though subjected to
enemy observation by land and air. It is also possible to persist in a military action for a much
longer time, above all in the mountains; it is possible to undertake battles of long duration with very
few men, and it is very probable that the arrival of enemy reinforcements at the scene of the fight
can be prevented.
A close watch over the points of access is, however, an axiom never to be forgotten by the guerrilla
fighter. His aggressiveness (on account of the difficulties that the enemy faces in bringing up
reinforcements) can he greater, he can approach the enemy more closely, fight much more directly,
more frontally and for a longer time, though these rules may be qualified by various circumstances,
such, for example, as the amount of ammunition.
Fighting on favorable ground and particularly in the mountains presents many advantages but also
the inconvenience that it is difficult to capture in a single operation a considerable quantity of arms
and ammunition, owing to the precautions that the enemy takes in these regions. (The guerrilla
soldier must never forget the fact that it is the enemy that must serve as his source of supply of
ammunition and arms.) But much more rapidly than in unfavorable ground the guerrilla band will
here be able to "dig in," that is, to form a base capable of engaging in a war of positions, where
small industries may be in-stalled as they are needed, as well as hospitals, centers for education and
training, storage facilities, organs of propaganda, etc., adequately protected from aviation or from
long-range artillery.
The guerrilla band in these conditions can number many more personnel; there will be
noncombatants and perhaps even a system of training in the use of the arms that eventually are to
fall into the power of the guerrilla army.
The number of men that a guerrilla band can have is a matter of extremely flexible calculation
adapted to the territory, to the means available of acquiring supplies, to the mass flights of
oppressed people from other zones, to the arms available, to the necessities of organization. But, in
any case, it is much more practicable to establish a base and expand with the support of new
combatant elements. The radius of action of a guerrilla band of this type can be as wide as
conditions or the operations of other bands in adjacent territory permit. The range will be limited by
the time that it takes to arrive at a zone of security from the zone of operation; assuming that
marches must be made at night, it will not be possible to operate more than five or six hours away
from a point of maximum security. Small guerrilla bands that work constantly at weakening a
territory can go farther away from the zone of security.
The arms preferable for this type of warfare are long-range weapons requiring small expenditure of
bullets, supported by a group of automatic or semi-automatic arms. Of the rifles and machine guns
that exist in the markets of the United States, one of the best is the M-1 rifle, called the Garand.
However, only people with some experience should use this, since it has the disadvantage of
expending too much ammunition. Medium-heavy arms, such as tripod machine guns, can be used
on favorable ground, affording a greater margin of security for the weapon and its personnel, but
they ought always to be a means of repelling an enemy and not for attack.
An ideal composition for a guerrilla band of 25 men would be: 10 to 15 single-shot rifles and about
10 automatic arms between Garands and hand machine guns, including light and easily portable
automatic arms, such as the Browning or the more modern Belgian FAL and M-14 automatic rifles.
Among the hand machine-guns the best are those of nine millimeters, which permit a larger
transport of ammunition. The simpler its construction the better, because this increases the case of
switching parts. All this must be adjusted to the armament that the enemy uses, Since the
ammunition that he employs is what we are going to use when his arms fall into our hands. It is
practically impossible for heavy arms to be used. Aircraft cannot see anything and cease to operate;
tanks and cannons cannot do much owing to the difficulties of advancing in these zones.
A very important consideration is supply. In general, the zones of difficult access for this very
reason present special problems, since there are few peasants, and therefore animal and food
supplies are scarce. It is necessary to maintain stable lines of communication in order to be able
always to count on a minimum of food, stockpiled, in the event of any disagreeable development. In
this kind of zone of operations the possibilities of sabotage on a large scale are generally not
present; with the inaccessibility goes a lack of constructions, telephone lines, aqueducts, etc., that
could be damaged by direct action.
For supply purposes it is important to have animals, among which the mule is the best in rough
country. Adequate pasturage permitting good nutrition is essential. The mule can pass through
extremely hilly country impossible for other animals. In the most difficult situations it is necessary
to resort to transport by men. Each individual can carry twenty-five kilograms for many hours daily
and for many days.
The lines of communication with the exterior should include a series of intermediate points manned
by people of complete reliability, where products can be stored and where contacts can go to hide
themselves at critical times. Internal lines of communication can also be created. Their extension
will be determined by the stage of development reached by the guerrilla band. In some zones of
operations in the recent Cuban war, telephone lines of many kilometers of length were established,
roads were built, and a messenger service maintained sufficient to cover all zones in a minimum of
time.
There are also other possible means of communication, not used in the Cuban war but perfectly
applicable, such as smoke signals, signals with sunshine reflected by mirrors, and carrier pigeons.
The vital necessities of the guerrillas are to maintain their arms in good condition, to capture
ammunition, and, above everything else, to have adequate shoes. The first manufacturing efforts
should therefore be directed toward these objectives. Shoe factories can initially be cobbler
installations that replace halfsoles on old shoes, expanding afterwards into a series of organized
factories with a good average daily production of shoes. The manufacture of powder is fairly
simple; and much can be accomplished by having a small laboratory and bringing in the necessary
materials from outside. Mined areas constitute a grave danger for the enemy; large areas can be
mined for simultaneous explosion, destroying up to hundreds of men.
5. WARFARE ON UNFAVORABLE GROUND
In order to carry on warfare in country that is not very hilly, lacks forests, and has many roads, all
the fundamental requisites of guerrilla warfare must be observed; only the forms will be altered.
The quantity, not the quality, of guerrilla warfare will change. For example, following the same
order as before, the mobility of this type of guerrilla should be extraordinary; strikes should be
made preferably at night; they should be extremely rapid but the guerrilla should move to places
different from the starting point, the farthest possible from the scene of action, assuming that there
is no place secure from the repressive forces that the guerrilla can use as its garrison.
A man can walk between 30 and 50 kilometers during the night hours; it is possible also to march
during the first hours of daylight, unless the zones of operation are closely watched or there is
danger that people in the vicinity, seeing the passing troops, will notify the pursuing army of the
location of the guerrilla band and its route. It is always preferable in these cases to operate at night
with the greatest possible silence both before and after the action; the first hours of night are best.
Here too there are exceptions to the general rule, since at times the dawn hours will be preferable. It
is never wise to habituate the enemy to a certain form of warfare; it is necessary to vary constantly
the places, the hours, and the forms of operation.
We have already said that the action cannot endure for long, but must be rapid; it must be of a high
degree of effectiveness, last a few minutes, and be followed by an immediate withdrawal. The arms
employed here will not be the same as in the case of actions on favorable ground; a large quantity of
automatic weapons is to be preferred. In night attacks marksmanship is not the determining factor,
but rather concentration of fire; the more automatic arms firing at short distance, the more
possibilities there are of annihilating the enemy.
Also, the use of mines in roads and the destruction of bridges are tactics of great importance.
Attacks by the guerrilla will be less aggressive so far as the persistence and continuation are
concerned, but they can be very violent, and they can utilize different arms, such as mines and the
shotgun. Against open vehicles heavily loaded with men, which is the usual method of transporting
troops, and even against closed vehicles that do not have special defenses- against buses, for
example-the shotgun is a tremendous weapon. A shotgun loaded with large shot is the most
effective. This is not a secret of guerrilla fighters; it is used also in big wars. The Americans used
shotgun platoons armed with high-quality weapons and bayonets for assaulting machine-gun nests.
There is an important problem to explain, that of ammunition; this will almost always be taken from
the enemy. It is therefore necessary to strike blows where there will be the absolute assurance of
restoring the ammunition expended, unless there are large reserves in secure places. In other words,
an annihilating attack against a group of men is not to be under-taken at the risk of expending all
ammunition without being able to replace it. Always in guerrilla tactics it is necessary to keep in
mind the grave problem of procuring the war materiel necessary for continuing the fight. For this
reason guerrilla arms ought to be the same as those used by the enemy, except for weapons such as
revolvers and shotguns, for which the ammunition can be obtained in the zone itself or in the cities.
The number of men that a guerrilla band of this type should include does not exceed ten to fifteen.
In forming a single combat unit it is of great importance always to consider the limitations on
numbers: ten, twelve, fifteen men can hide anywhere and at the same time can help each other in
putting up a powerful resistance to the enemy. Four or five would perhaps be too small a number,
but when the number exceeds ten the possibility that the enemy will discover them in their camp or
on the march is much greater.
Remember that the velocity of the guerrilla band on the march is equal to the velocity of its slowest
man. It is more difficult to find uniformity of marching speed with twenty, thirty, or forty men than
with ten. And the guerrilla fighter on the plain must be fundamentally a runner. Here the practice of
hitting and running acquires its maximum use. The guerrilla bands on the plain suffer the enormous
inconvenience of being subject to a rapid encirclement and of not having sure places where they can
set up a firm resistance; therefore they must live in conditions of absolute secrecy for a long time,
since it would be dangerous to trust any neighbor whose fidelity is not perfectly established. The
reprisals of the enemy are so violent, usually so brutal, inflicted not only on the head of the family
but frequently on the women and children as well, that pressure on individuals lacking firmness
may result at any moment in their giving way and revealing information as to where the guerrilla
band is located and how it is operating. This would immediately produce an encirclement with
consequences always disagreeable, although not necessarily fatal. When conditions, the quantity of
arms, and the state of insurrection of the people call for an increase in the number of men, the
guerrilla band should be divided. If it is necessary, all can rejoin at a given moment to deal a blow,
but in such a way that immediately afterwards they can disperse toward separate zones, a gain
divided into small groups of ten, twelve, or fifteen men.
It is entirely feasible to organize whole armies under a single command and to assure respect and
obedience to this command without the necessity of being in a single group. Therefore the election
of the guerrilla chiefs and the certainty that they coordinate ideologically and personally with the
overall chief of the zone are very important.
The bazooka is a heavy weapon that can be used by the guerrilla band because of its easy portability
and operation. Today the rifle-fired anti-tank grenade can replace it. Naturally, it will be a weapon
taken from the enemy. The bazooka is ideal for firing on armored vehicles, and even on unarmored
vehicles that are loaded with troops, and for taking small military bases of few men in a short time;
but it is important to point out that not more than three shells per man can be carried, and this only
with considerable exertion.
As for the utilization of heavy arms taken from the enemy, nothing is to be scorned. But there are
weapons such as the tripod machine gun, the heavy fifty-millimeter machine gun3 etc., that, when
captured, can be utilized with a willingness to lose them again. In other words, in the unfavorable
conditions that we are now analyzing, a battle to defend a heavy machine gun or other weapon of
this type cannot be allowed; they are simply to be used until the tactical moment when they must be
abandoned. In our Cuban war of liberation, to abandon a weapon constituted a grave offense, and
there was never any case where the necessity arose. Nevertheless, we mention this case in order to
explain clearly the only situation in which abandonment would not constitute an occasion for
reproaches. On unfavorable ground, the guerrilla weapon is the personal weapon of rapid fire.
Easy access to the zone usually means that it will be habitable and that there will be a peasant
population in these places. This facilitates supply enormously. Having trustworthy people and
making contact with establishments that provide supplies to the population, it is possible to
maintain a guerrilla band perfectly well without having to devote time or money to long and
dangerous lines of communication. Also it is well to reiterate that the smaller the number of men the
easier it will be to procure food for them. Essential supplies such as bedding, waterproof material,
mosquito netting, shoes, medicines, and food will be found directly in the zone, since they are
things of daily use by its inhabitants.
Communications will be much easier in the sense of being able to count on a larger number of men
and more roads; but they will be more difficult as a problem of security for messages between
distant points, since it will be necessary to rely on a series of contacts that have to be trusted. There
will be the danger of an eventual capture of one of the messengers, who are constantly crossing
enemy zones. If the messages are of small importance, they should be oral; if of great importance,
code writing should be used. Experience shows that transmission by word of mouth greatly distorts
any communication.
For these same reasons manufacture will have much less importance, at the same time that it would
be much more difficult to carry it out. It will not be possible to have factories making shoes or arms.
Practically speaking, manufacture will have to be limited to small shops, carefully hidden, where
shotgun shells can be recharged and mines, simple grenades, and other minimum necessities of the
moment manufactured. On the other hand, it is possible to make use of all the friendly shops of the
zone for such work as is necessary.
This brings us to two consequences that flow logically from what has been said. One of them is that
the favorable conditions for establishing a permanent camp in guerrilla warfare are inverse to the
degree of productive development of a place. All favorable conditions, all facilities of life normally
induce men to settle; but for the guerrilla band the opposite is the case. The more facilities there are
for social life, the more nomadic, the more uncertain the life of the guerrilla fighter. These really are
the results of one and the same principle. The title of this section is "War on Unfavorable Ground,"
because everything that is favorable to human life, communications, urban and semi-urban
concentrations of large numbers of people, land easily worked by machine, all these place the
guerrilla fighter in a disadvantageous situation.
The second conclusion is that if guerrilla fighting must include me extremely important faction of
work on the masses, this work is even more important in the unfavorable zones, where a single
enemy attack can produce a catastrophe. Indoctrination should be continuous, and so should be the
struggle for unity of the workers, of the peasants, and of other social classes that live in the zone, in
order to achieve toward the guerrilla fighters a maximum homogeneity of attitude. This task with
the masses, this constant work at the huge problem of relations of the guerrilla band with the
inhabitants of the zone, must also govern the attitude to be taken toward the case of an individual
recalcitrant enemy soldier: he should be eliminated without hesitation when he is dangerous. In this
respect the guerrilla band must be drastic. Enemies cannot be permitted to exist within the zone of
operations in places that offer no security.
6. SUBURBAN WARFARE
If during the war the guerrilla bands close in on cities and penetrate the surrounding country in such
a way as to be able to establish themselves in conditions of some security, it will be necessary to
give these suburban bands a special education, or rather, a special organization.
It is fundamental to recognize that a suburban guerrilla band can never spring up of its own accord.
It will be born only after certain conditions necessary for its survival have been created. Therefore,
the suburban guerrilla will always be under the direct orders of chiefs located in another zone. The
function of this guerrilla band will not be to carry out independent actions but to coordinate its
activities with overall strategic plans in such a way as to support the action of larger groups situated
in another area, contributing specifically to the success of a fixed tactical objective, without the
operational freedom of guerrilla bands of the other types. For example, a suburban band will not be
able to choose among the operations of destroying telephone lines, moving to make attacks in
another locality, and surprising a patrol of soldiers on a distant road; it will do exactly what it is
told. If its function is to cut down telephone poles or electric wires, to destroy sewers, railroads, or
water mains, it will limit itself to carrying out these tasks efficiently.
It ought not to number more than four or five men. The limitation on numbers is important, because
the suburban guerrilla must be considered as situated in exceptionally unfavorable ground, where
the vigilance of the enemy will be much greater and the possibilities of reprisals as well as of
betrayal are increased enormously. Another aggravating circumstance is that the suburban guerrilla
band cannot depart far from the places where it is going to operate. To speed of action and
withdrawal there must be added a limitation on the distance of withdrawal from the scene of action
and the need to remain totally hidden during the daytime. This is a nocturnal guerrilla band in the
extreme, without possibilities of changing its manner of operating until the insurrection is so far
advanced that it can take part as an active combatant in the siege of the city.
The essential qualities of the guerrilla fighter in this situation are discipline (perhaps in the highest
degree of all) and discretion. He cannot count on more than two or three friendly houses that will
provide food; it is almost certain that an encirclement in these conditions will be equivalent to
death. Weapons, furthermore, will not be of the same kind as those of the other groups. They will
be for personal defense, of the type that do not hinder a rapid flight or betray a secure hiding place.
As their armament the band ought to have not more than one carbine or one sawed-off shotgun, or
perhaps two, with pistols for the other members.
They will concentrate their action on prescribed sabotage and never carry out armed attacks, except
by surprising one or two members or agents of the enemy troops.
For sabotage they need a full set of instruments. The guerrilla fighter must have good saws, large
quantities of dynamite, picks and shovels, apparatus for lifting rails, and, in general, adequate
mechanical equipment for the work to be carried out. This should be hidden in places that are secure
but easily accessible to the hands that will need to use it.
If there is more than one guerrilla band, they will all be under a single chief who will give orders as
to the necessary tasks through contacts of proven trustworthiness who live openly as ordinary
citizens. In certain cases the guerrilla fighter will be able to maintain his peacetime work, but this is
very difficult. Practically speaking, the suburban guerrilla band is a group of men who are already
outside the law, in a condition of war, situated as unfavorably as we have described.
The importance of a suburban struggle has usually been underestimated; it is really very great. A
good operation of this type extended over a wide area paralyzes almost completely the commercial
and industrial life of the sector and places the entire population in a situation of unrest, of anguish,
almost of impatience for the development of violent events that will relieve the period of suspense.
If from the first moment of the war, thought is taken for the future possibility of this type of fight
and an organization of specialists started, a much more rapid action will be assured, and with it a
saving of lives and of the priceless time of the nation.
CHAPTER II: THE GUERRILLA BAND
1. THE GUERRILLA FIGHTER: SOCIAL REFORMER
[Che Guevara with Chile's president Salvador Allende] We have already described the guerrilla
fighter as one who shares the longing of the people for liberation and who, once peaceful means are
exhausted, initiates the fight and converts himself into an armed vanguard of the fighting people.
From the very beginning of the struggle he has the intention of destroying an unjust order and
therefore an intention, more or less hidden, to replace the old with something new.
We have also already said that in the conditions that prevail, at least in America and in almost all
countries with deficient economic development, it is the countryside that offers ideal conditions for
the fight. Therefore the foundation of the social structure that the guerrilla fighter will build begins
with changes in the ownership of agrarian property.
The banner of the fight throughout this period will be agrarian reform. At first this goal may or may
not be completely delineated in its extent and limits; it may simply refer to the age-old hunger of the
peasant for the land on which he works or wishes to work.
The conditions in which the agrarian reform will be realized depend upon the conditions which
existed before the struggle began, and on the social depth of the struggle. But the guerrilla fighter,
as a person conscious of a role in the vanguard of the people, must have a moral conduct that shows
him to be a true priest of the reform to which he aspires. To the stoicism imposed by the difficult
conditions of warfare should be added an austerity born of rigid self-control that will prevent a
single excess, a single slip, whatever the circumstances. The guerrilla soldier should be an ascetic.
As for social relations, these will vary with the development of the war. At the beginning it will not
be possible to attempt any changes in the social order.
Merchandise that cannot be paid for in cash will be paid for with bonds; and these should be
redeemed at the first opportunity.
The peasant must always be helped technically, economically, morally, and culturally. The guerrilla
fighter will be a sort of guiding angel who has fallen into the zone, helping the poor always and
bothering the rich as little as possible in the first phases of the war. But this war will continue on its
course; contradictions will continuously become sharper; the moment will arrive when many of
those who regarded the revolution with a certain sympathy at the outset will place themselves in a
position diametrically opposed; and they will take the first step into battle against the popular
forces. At that moment the guerrilla fighter should act to make himself into the standard bearer of
the cause of the people, punishing every betrayal with justice. Private property should acquire in the
war zones its social function. For example, excess land and livestock not essential for the
maintenance of a wealthy family should pass into the hands of the people and be distributed
equitably and justly.
The right of the owners to receive payment for possessions used for the social good ought always to
be respected; but this payment will be made in bonds ("bonds of hope," as they were called by our
teacher, General Bayo,3 referring to the common interest that is thereby established between debtor
and creditor). The land and property of notorious and active enemies of the revolution should pass
immediately into the hands of the revolutionary forces, Furthermore, taking advantage of the heat of
the war-those moments in which human fraternity reaches its highest intensity-all kinds of
cooperative work, as much as the mentality of the inhabitants will permit, ought to be stimulated.
The guerrilla fighter as a social reformer should not only provide an example in his own life but he
ought also constantly to give orientation in ideological problems, explaining what he knows and
what he wishes to do at the right time. He will also make use of what he learns as the months or
years of the war strengthen his revolutionary convictions, making him more radical as the potency
of arms is demonstrated, as the outlook of the inhabitants becomes a part of his spirit and of his own
life, and as he understands the justice and the vital necessity of a series of changes, of which the
theoretical importance appeared to him be-fore, but devoid of practical urgency.
This development occurs very often, because the initiators of guerrilla warfare or rather the
directors of guerrilla warfare, are not men who have bent their backs day after day over the furrow.
They are men who understand the necessity for changes in the social treatment accorded peasants,
without having suffered in the usual case this bitter treatment in their own persons. It happens then
(I am drawing on the Cuban experience and enlarging it) that a genuine interaction is produced
between these leaders, who with their acts teach the people the fundamental importance of the
armed fight, and the people themselves who rise in rebellion and teach the leaders these practical
necessities of which we speak. Thus, as a product of this interaction between the guerrilla fighter
and his people, a progressive radicalization appears which further accentuates the revolutionary
characteristics of the movement and gives it a national scope.
2 THE GUERRILLA FIGHTER AS COMBATANT
The life and activities of the guerrilla fighter, sketched thus in their general lines, call for a series of
physical, mental, and moral qualities needed for adapting oneself to prevailing conditions and for
fulfilling completely any mission assigned.
To the question as to what the guerrilla soldier should be like, the first answer is that he should
preferably be an inhabitant of the zone. If this is the case, he will have friends who will help him; if
he belongs to the zone itself, he will know it (and this knowledge of the ground is one of the most
important factors in guerrilla warfare); and since he will be habituated to local peculiarities he will
be able to do better work, not to mention that he will add to all this the enthusiasm that arises from
defending his own people and fighting to change a social regime that hurts his own world.
The guerrilla combatant is a night combatant; to say this is to say at the same time that he must have
all the special qualities that such fighting requires. He must be cunning and able to march to the
place of attack across plains or mountains without anybody noticing him, and then to fall upon the
enemy, taking advantage of the factor of surprise which deserves to be emphasized again as
important in this type of fight. After causing panic by this surprise, he should launch himself into
the fight implacably without permitting a single weakness in his companions and taking advantage
of every sign of weakness on the part of the enemy. Striking like a tornado, destroying all, giving no
quarter unless the tactical circumstances call for it, judging those who must be judged, sowing panic
among the enemy combatants, he nevertheless treats defenseless prisoners benevolently and shows
respect for the dead.
A wounded enemy should be treated with care and respect unless his former life has made him
liable to a death penalty, in which case he will be treated in accordance with his deserts. What can
never be done is to keep prisoners, unless a secure base of operations, invulnerable to the enemy,
has been established. Otherwise, the prisoner will become a dangerous menace to the security of the
inhabitants of the region or to the guerrilla band itself because of the information that he can give
upon rejoining the enemy army. If he has not been a notorious criminal, he should be set free after
receiving a lecture.
The guerrilla combatant ought to risk his life whenever necessary and be ready to die without the
least sign of doubt; but, at the same time, he ought to be cautious and never expose himself
unnecessarily. All possible precautions ought to be taken to avoid a defeat or an annihilation. For
this reason it is extremely important in every fight to maintain vigilance over all the points from
which enemy reinforcements may arrive and to take precautions against an encirclement, the
consequences of which are usually not physically disastrous but which damages morale by causing
a loss of faith in the prospects of the struggle.
However, he ought to be audacious, and, after carefully analyzing the dangers and possibilities in an
action, always ready to take an optimistic attitude toward circumstances and to see reasons for a
favorable decision even in moments when the analysis of the adverse and favorable conditions does
not show an appreciable positive balance.
To be able to survive in the midst of these conditions of life and enemy action, the guerrilla fighter
must have a degree of adaptability that will permit him to identify himself with the environment in
which he lives, to become a part of it, and to take advantage of it as his ally to the maximum
possible extent. He also needs a faculty of rapid comprehension and an instantaneous inventiveness
that will permit him to change his tactics according to the dominant course of the action.
These faculties of adaptability and inventiveness in popular armies are what ruin the statistics of the
warlords and cause them to waver.
The guerrilla fighter must never for any reason leave a wounded companion at the mercy of the
enemy troops, because this would be leaving him to an almost certain death. At whatever cost he
must be removed from the zone of combat to a secure place. The greatest exertions and the greatest
risks must be taken in this task. The guerrilla soldier must be an extraordinary companion.
At the same time he ought to be closemouthed. Everything that is said and done before him should
be kept strictly in his own mind. He ought never to permit himself a single useless word, even with
his own comrades in arms, since the enemy will always try to introduce spies into the ranks of the
guerrilla band in order to discover its plans, location, and means of life.
Besides the moral qualities that we have mentioned, the guerrilla fighter should possess a series of
very important physical qualities. He must be indefatigable. He must be able to produce another
effort at the moment when weariness seems intolerable. Profound conviction, expressed in every
line of his face, forces him to take another step, and this not the last one, since it will be followed by
another and another and another until he arrives at the place designated by his chiefs.
He ought to be able to endure extremities, to with-stand not only the privations of food, water,
clothing, and shelter to which he is subjected frequently, but also the sickness and wounds that
often must be cured by nature without much help from the surgeon. This is all the more necessary
because usually the enemy will assassinate the individual who leaves the guerrilla zone to recover
from sickness or wounds.
To meet these conditions he needs an iron constitution that will enable him to resist all these
adversities without falling ill and to make of his hunted animal's life one more factor of strength.
With the help of his natural adaptability, he becomes a part of the land it-self where he fights.
All these considerations bring us to ask: what is the ideal age for the guerrilla fighter? These limits
are al-ways very difficult to state precisely, because individual and social peculiarities change the
figure. A peasant, for example, will be much more resistant than a man from the city. A city dweller
who is accustomed to physical exercise and a healthy life will be much more efficient than a man
who has lived all his life be-hind a desk. But generally the maximum age of combatants in the
completely nomadic stage of the guerrilla struggle ought not to exceed forty years, although there
will be exceptional cases, above all among the peasants. One of the heroes of our struggle,
Commandant Crescencio Perez, entered the Sierra at 65 years of age and was immediately one of
the most useful men in the troop.
We might also ask if the members of the guerrilla band should be drawn from a certain social class.
It has already been said that this social composition ought to be adjusted to that of the zone chosen
for the center of operations, which is to say that the combatant nucleus of the guerrilla army ought
to be made up of peasants. The peasant is evidently the best soldier; but the other strata of the
population are not by any means to be excluded or deprived of the opportunity to fight for a just
cause. Individual exceptions are also very important in this respect.
We have not yet fixed the lower limit of age. We believe that minors less than sixteen years of age
ought not to be accepted for the fight, except in very special circumstances. In general these young
boys, only children, do not have sufficient development to bear tip under the work, the weather, and
the suffering to which they will be subjected.
The best age for a guerrilla fighter varies between 25 and 35 years, a stage in which the life of most
per- sons has assumed definite shape. Whoever sets out at that age, abandoning his home, his
children, and his entire world must have thought well of his responsibility and reached a firm
decision not to retreat a step. There are extraordinary cases of children who as combatants have
reached the highest ranks of our rebel army, but this is not the usual case. For every one of them
who displayed great fighting qualities, there were tens who ought to have been returned to their
homes and who frequently constituted a dangerous burden for the guerrilla band.
The guerrilla fighter, as we have said, is a soldier who carries his house on his back like the snail;
therefore, he must arrange his knapsack in such a way that the smallest quantity of utensils will
render the greatest possible service. He will carry only the indispensable, but he will take care of it
at all times as something fundamental and not to be lost except in extremely adverse situations.
His armament will also be only that which he can carry on his own. Reprovisioning is very difficult,
above all with bullets. To keep them dry, always to keep them clean, to count them one by one so
that none is lost; these are the watchwords. And the gun ought always to be kept clean, well
greased, and with the barrel shining. It is advisable for the chief of each group to impose some
penalty or punishment on those who do not maintain their armaments in these conditions.
People with such notable devotion and firmness must have an ideal that sustains them in the adverse
conditions that we have described. This ideal is simple, without great pretensions, and in general
does not go very far; but it is so firm, so clear that one will give his life for it without the least
hesitation. With almost all peasants this ideal is the right to have and work a piece of land of their
own and to enjoy just social treatment. Among workers it is to have work, to receive an adequate
wage as well as just social treatment. Among students and professional people more abstract ideas
such as liberty are found to be motives for the fight.
This brings us to the question: what is the life of the guerrilla fighter like? His normal life is the
long hike. Let us take as an example a mountain guerrilla fighter located in wooded regions under
constant harassment by the enemy. In these conditions the guerrilla band moves during daylight
hours, without eating, in order to change its position; when night arrives, camp is set up in a
clearing near a water supply according to a routine, each group assembling in order to eat in
common; at dusk the fires are lighted with whatever is at hand.
The guerrilla fighter eats when he can and everything he can. Sometimes fabulous feasts disappear
in the gullet of the combatant; at other times he fasts for two or three days without suffering any
diminution in his capacity for work.
His house will be the open sky; between it and his hammock he places a sheet of waterproof nylon
and beneath the cloth and hammock he places his knapsack, gun, and ammunition, which are the
treasures of the guerrilla fighter. At times it is not wise for shoes to be removed, because of the
possibility of a surprise attack by the enemy. Shoes are another of his precious treasures. Whoever
has a pair of them has the security of a happy existence within the limits of the prevailing
circumstances.
Thus, the guerrilla fighter will live for days without approaching any inhabited place, avoiding all
contact that has not been previously arranged, staying in the wildest zones, knowing hunger, at
times thirst, cold, heat; sweating during the continuous marches, letting the sweat dry on his body
and adding to it new sweat without any possibility of regular cleanliness (although this also depends
somewhat upon the individual disposition, as does everything else).
During the recent war, upon entering the village of El Uvero following a march of sixteen
kilometers and a fight of two hours and forty-five minutes in a hot sun (all added to several days
passed in very adverse conditions along the sea with intense heat from a boiling sun) our bodies
gave off a peculiar and offensive odor that repelled anyone who came near. Our noses were
completely habituated to this type of life; the hammocks of guerrilla fighters are known for their
characteristic, individual odor.
In such conditions breaking camp ought to be done rapidly, leaving no traces behind; vigilance
must be extreme. For every ten men sleeping there ought to be one or two on watch, with the
sentinels being changed continually and a sharp vigil being maintained over all entrances to the
camp.
Campaign life teaches several tricks for preparing meals, some to help speed their preparation;
others to add seasoning with little things found in the forest; still others for inventing new dishes
that give a more varied character to the guerrilla menu, which is com-posed mainly of roots, grains,
salt, a little oil or lard, and, very sporadically, pieces of the meat of some animal that has been slain.
This refers to the life of a group operating in tropical sectors.
Within the framework of the combatant life, the most interesting event, the one that carries all to a
convulsion of joy and puts new vigor in everybody's steps, is the battle. The battle, climax of the
guerrilla life, is sought at an opportune moment either when an enemy encampment sufficiently
weak to be annihilated has been located and investigated; or when an enemy column is advancing
directly toward the territory occupied by the liberating force. The two cases are different.
Against an encampment the action will be a thin encirclement and fundamentally will become a
hunt for the members of the columns that come to break the encirclement. An entrenched enemy is
never the favorite prey of the guerrilla fighter; he prefers his enemy to be on the move, nervous, not
knowing the ground, fearful of everything and without natural protections for defense. Whoever is
behind a parapet with powerful arms for repelling an offensive will never be in the plight, however
bad his situation, of a long column that is attacked suddenly in two or three places and cut. If the
attackers are not able to encircle the column and destroy it totally, they will retire prior to any
counteraction.
If there is no possibility of defeating those entrenched in a camp by means of hunger or thirst or by
a direct assault, the guerrilla ought to retire after the encirclement has yielded its fruits of
destruction in the relieving columns. In cases where the guerrilla column is too weak and the
invading column too strong, the action should be concentrated upon the vanguard. There should be
a special preference for this tactic, whatever the hoped-for result, since after the leading ranks have
been struck several times, thus diffusing among the soldiers the news that death is constantly
occurring to those in the van, the reluctance to occupy those places will provoke nothing less than
mutiny. Therefore, attacks ought to be made on that point even if they are also made at other points
of the column.
The facility with which the guerrilla fighter can perform his function and adapt himself to the
environment will depend upon his equipment. Even though joined with others in small groups, he
has individual characteristics. He should have in his knapsack, besides his regular shelter,
everything necessary to survival in case he finds himself alone for some time.
In giving the list of equipment we will refer essentially to that which should be carried by an
individual located in rough country at the beginning of a war, with frequent rainfall, some cold
weather, and harassment by the enemy; in other words, we place ourselves in the situation that
existed at the beginning of the Cuban war of liberation.
The equipment of the guerrilla fighter is divided into the essential and the accessory. Among the
first is a hammock. This provides adequate rest; it is easy to find two trees from which it can be
strung (see Picture 2-1); and, in cases where one sleeps on the ground, it can serve as a mattress.
Whenever it is raining or the ground is wet, a frequent occurrence in tropical mountain zones, the
hammock is indispensable for sleeping. A piece of waterproof nylon cloth is its complement. The
nylon should be large enough to cover the hammock when tied from its four corners, and with a line
strung through the center to the same trees from which the hammock hangs. This last line serves to
make the nylon into a kind of tent by raising a center ridge and causing it to shed water.
A blanket is indispensable, because it is cold in the mountains at night. It is also necessary to carry a
garment such as a jacket or coat which will enable one to bear the extreme changes of temperature.
Clothing should consist of rough work trousers and shirt which may or may not be of a uniform
cloth. Shoes should be of the best possible construction and also, since without good shoes marches
are very difficult they should be one of the first articles laid up in reserve.
Since the guerrilla fighter carries his house in his knapsack, the latter is very important. The more
primitive types may be made from any kind of sack carried by two ropes; but those of canvas found
in the market or made by a harness maker are preferable. The guerrilla fighter ought always to carry
some personal food besides that which the troop carries or consumes in its camps. Indispensable
articles are lard or oil, which is necessary for fat consumption; canned goods, which should not be
consumed except in circumstances where food for cooking cannot be found or when there are too
many cans and their weight impedes the march; preserved fish, which has great nutritional value;
condensed milk, which is also nourishing, particularly on account of the large quantity of sugar that
it contains; some sweet for its good taste. Powdered milk can also be carried. Sugar is another
essential part of the supplies, as is salt, without which life becomes sheer martyrdom, and
something that serves to season the meals, such as onion, garlic, etc., according to the
characteristics of the country. This completes the category of the essentials.
The guerrilla fighter should carry a plate, knife, and fork, camping style, which will serve all the
various necessary functions. The plate can be camping or military type or a pan that is usable for
cooking anything from a piece of meat to a potato, or for brewing tea or coffee.
To care for the rifle, special greases are necessary; and these must be carefully administered-sewing
machine oil is very good if there is no special oil avail-able. Also needed are cloths that will serve
for cleaning the arms frequently and a rod for cleaning the gun inside, something that ought to be
done often. The ammunition belt can be of commercial type or homemade, according to the
circumstances, but it ought to be so made that not a single bullet will be lost. Ammunition is the
basis of the fight without which everything else would be in vain; it must be cared for like gold.
A canteen or a bottle for water is essential, since it will frequently be necessary to drink in a
situation where water is not available. Among medicines, those of general use should be carried: for
example, penicillin or some other type of antibiotic, preferably the types taken orally, carefully
closed; medicines for lowering fever, such as aspirin; and others adapted to treating the endemic
diseases of the area. These may be tablets against malaria, sulfas for diarrhea, medicines against
parasites of all types; in other words, fit the medicine to the characteristics of the region. It is
advisable in places where there are poisonous animals to carry appropriate injections. Surgical
instruments will complete the medical equipment. Small personal items for taking care of less
important injuries should also be included.
A customary and extremely important comfort in the life of the guerrilla fighter is a smoke, whether
cigars, cigarettes, or pipe tobacco; a smoke in moments of rest is a great friend to the solitary
soldier. Pipes are useful, because they permit using to the extreme all tobacco that remains in the
butts of cigars and cigarettes at time of scarcity. Matches are extremely important not only for
lighting a smoke, but also for starting fires; this is one of the great problems in the forest in rainy
periods. It is preferable to carry both matches and a lighter, so that if the lighter runs out of fuel,
matches remain as a substitute.
Soap should be carried, not only for personal cleanliness, but for washing eating utensils, because
intestinal infections or irritations are frequent and can be caused by spoiled food left on dirty
cooking ware. With this set of equipment, the guerrilla fighter can be assured that he will be able to
live in the forest under adverse conditions, no matter how bad, for as long as is necessary to
dominate the situation.
There are accessories that at times are useful and others that constitute a bother but are very useful.
The compass is one of these; at the outset this will be used a great deal in gaining orientation, but
little by little knowledge of the country will make it unnecessary. In mountainous regions a
compass is not of much use, since the route it indicates will usually be cut off by impassable
obstacles. Another useful article is an extra nylon cloth for covering all equipment when it rains.
Remember that rain in tropical countries is continuous during certain months and that water is the
enemy of all the things that the guerrilla fighter must carry: food, ammunition, medicine, paper, and
clothing.
A change of clothing can be carried, but this is usually a mark of inexperience. The usual custom is
to carry no more than an extra pair of pants, eliminating extra underwear and other articles, such as
towels. The life of the guerrilla fighter teaches him to con-serve his energy in carrying his knapsack
from one place to another, and he will, little by little, get rid of everything that does not have
essential value.
In addition to a piece of soap, useful for washing utensils as well as for personal cleanliness, a
toothbrush and paste should be carried. It is worthwhile also to carry a book, which will be
exchanged with other members of the band. These books can be good biographies of past heroes,
histories, or economic geographies, preferably of the country, and works of general character that
will serve to raise the cultural level of the soldiers and discourage the tendency toward gambling or
other undesirable forms of passing the time. There are periods of boredom in the life of the guerrilla
fighter.
Whenever there is extra space in the knapsack1 it ought to be used for food, except in those zones
where the food supply is easy and sure. Sweets or food of lesser importance complementing the
basic items can be carried. Crackers can be one of these, although they occupy a large space and
break up into crumbs. In thick forests a machete is useful; in very wet places a small bottle of
gasoline or light, resinous wood, such as pine, for kindling will make firebuilding easier when the
wood is wet.
A small notebook and pen or pencil for taking notes and for letters to the outside or communication
with other guerrilla bands ought always to be a part of the guerrilla fighter's equipment. Pieces of
string or rope should be kept available; these have many uses. Also needles, thread, and buttons for
clothing. The guerrilla fighter who carries this equipment will have a solid house on his back, rather
heavy but furnished to assure a comfortable life during the hardships of the campaign.
3. ORGANIZATION OF A GUERRILLA BAND
No rigid scheme can be offered for the organization of a guerrilla band; there will be innumerable
differences according to the environment in which it is to operate. For convenience of exposition we
will suppose that our experience has a universal application, but it should be kept in mind that it is
only one way, that there will possibly be new forms that may work better with the particular
characteristics of another given armed group.
The size of the component units of the guerrilla force is one of the most difficult problems to deal
with: there will be different numbers of men and different compositions of the troop, as we have
already explained. Let us suppose a force situated in favorable ground, mountainous with conditions
not so bad as to necessitate perpetual flight, but not so good as to afford a base of operations. The
combat units of an armed force thus situated ought to number not more than one hundred and fifty
men, and even this number is rather high; ideal would be a unit of about one hundred men. This
constitutes a column, and in the Cuban organization is commanded by a commandant. It should be
remembered that in our war the grades of corporal and sergeant were omitted because they were
considered reminiscent of the tyranny.
On this premise, the commandant commands this whole force of one hundred to one hundred fifty
men; and there will be as many captains as there are groups of thirty to forty men. The captain has
the function of directing and unifying his platoon, making it fight almost always as a unit and
looking after the distribution of men and the general organization. In guerrilla warfare, the squad is
the functional unit. Each squad, made up of approximately eight to twelve men, is commanded by a
lieutenant, who performs for his group functions analogous to those of the captain, to whom he
must always be in constant subordination.
The operational tendency of the guerrilla band to function in small groups makes the squad the true
unit. Eight to ten men are the maximum that can act as a unit in a fight in these conditions:
therefore, the squad, which will frequently be separated from the captain even though they fight on
the same front, will operate under the orders of its lieutenant; there are exceptions, of course. A
squad should not be broken up nor kept dispersed at times when there is no fighting. Each squad
and platoon should know who the immediate successor is in case the chief falls, and these persons
should be sufficiently trained to be able to take over their new responsibilities immediately.
One of the fundamental problems of the troop is food supply; in this everyone from the last man to
the chief must be treated alike. This acquires a high importance, not only because of the chronic
shortage of supplies, but also because meals are the only events that take place daily. The troops,
who have a keen sense of justice, measure the rations with a sharp eye; the least favoritism for
anyone ought never to be permitted. If in certain circumstances the meal is served to the whole
column, a regular order should be established and observed strictly, and at the same time the
quantity and quality of food given to each one ought to be carefully checked. In the distribution of
clothing the problem is different, these being articles of individual use. Here two considerations
prevail: first, the demand for necessities of those who need them, which will almost always be
greater than the supply; and, second, the length of service and merits of each one of the applicants.
The length of service and merits, something very difficult to fix exactly, should be noted in special
booklets by one assigned this responsibility under the direct supervision of the chief of the column.
The same should be said about other articles that become available and are of individual rather than
collective utility. Tobacco and cigarettes ought to be distributed according to the general rule of
equal treatment for everybody.
This task of distribution should be a specifically assigned responsibility. It is preferable that the
persons designated be attached directly to the command. The command performs, therefore,
administrative tasks of liaison which are very important as well as all the other special tasks that are
necessary. Officers of the greatest intelligence ought to be in. it. Soldiers attached to the command
ought to be alert and of maximum dedication, since their burdens will usually be greater than those
borne by the rest of the troop. Nevertheless, they can have no special treatment at mealtime.
Each guerrilla fighter carries his complete equipment; there is also a series of implements of use to
the group that should be equitably distributed within the column. For this, too, rules can be
established, de- pending upon the number of unarmed persons in the troop. One system is to
distribute all extra materiel, such as medicines, medical or dental or surgical instruments, extra
food, clothing, general supplies, and heavy weapons equally among all platoons, which will then be
responsible for their custody. Each captain will distribute these supplies among the squads, and each
chief of squad will distribute them among his men. Another solution, which can be used when a part
of the troop is not armed, is to create special squads or platoons assigned to transport; this works out
well, since it leaves the soldier who already has the weight and responsibility of his rifle free of
extra cargo. In this way danger of losing materiel is reduced, since it is concentrated; and at the
same time there is an incentive for the porter to carry more and to carry better and to demonstrate
more enthusiasm, since in this way he will win his right to a weapon in the future. These platoons
will march in the rear positions and will have the same duties and the same treatment as the rest of
the troop.
The tasks to be carried out by a column will vary according to its activities. If it is encamped, there
will be special teams for keeping watch. These should be experienced, specially trained, and they
should receive some special reward for this duty. This can consist of increased independence, or, if
there is an excess of sweets or tobacco after proportional distribution to each column, something
extra for the members of those units that carry out special tasks. For example, if there are one
hundred men and one hundred and fifteen packages of cigarettes, the fifteen extra packs of
cigarettes can be distributed among the members of the units referred to. The vanguard and the
rearguard units, separated from the rest, will have special duties of vigilance; but, besides, each
platoon ought to have such a watch of its own. The farther from the encampment the watch is
maintained, the greater is the security of the group, especially when it is in open country.
The places chosen should be high, dominating a wide area by day and difficult to approach by
night. If the plan is to stay several days, it is worthwhile to construct defenses that will permit a
sustained fire in case of an attack. These defenses can be obliterated when the guerrilla band moves,
or they can be left if circumstances no longer make it necessary to hide the path of the column.
In places where permanent encampments are established, the defenses ought to be improved
constantly. Remember that in a mountainous zone on ground carefully chosen, the only heavy arm
that is effective is the mortar. Using roofs reinforced with materials from the region, such as wood,
rocks, etc., it is possible to make good refuges which are difficult for the enemy forces to approach<br>and which will afford protection from mortar shells for the guerrilla forces.
It is very important to maintain discipline in the camp, and this should have an educational function.
The guerrilla fighters should be required to go to bed and get up at fixed hours. Games that have no
social function and that hurt the morale of the troops and the consumption of alcoholic drinks
should both be prohibited. All these tasks are performed by a commission of internal order elected
from those combat-ants of greatest revolutionary merit. Another mission of these persons is to
prevent the lighting of fires in places visible from a distance or that raise columns of smoke before
nightfall; also to see. that the camp is kept clean and that it is left in such a condition when the
column leaves as to show no signs of passage, if this is necessary.
Great care must be taken with fires which leave traces for a long time. They must be covered with
earth; papers, cans, and scraps of food should also be burned. During the march complete silence
must prevail in the column. Orders are passed by gestures or by whispers that go from mouth to
mouth until they reach the last man. If the guerrilla band is marching through unknown places,
breaking a road, or being led by a guide, the vanguard will be approximately one hundred or two
hundred meters or even more in front, according to the characteristics of the ground. In places
where confusion may arise as to the route, a man will be left at each turning to await those who
follow, and this will be repeated until the last man in the rearguard has passed. The rearguard will
also be somewhat separated from the rest of the column, keeping a watch on the roads in the rear
and trying to erase tracks of the troops as much as possible. If there is a road coming from the side
that offers danger, it is necessary always to have a group keeping a watch on it until the last man
has passed. It is more practical that each platoon utilize its own men for this special duty, with each
having the obligation to pass the guard to members of the following platoon and then to rejoin his
own unit; this process will be continued until the whole troop has passed.
The march should be uniform and in an established order, always the same. Thus it will always be
known that Platoon 1 is the vanguard, followed by Platoon 2 and then Platoon 3, which may be
the command; then 4, followed by the rearguard or Platoon 5 or other platoons that make up the
column, always in the same order. In night marches silence should be even stricter and the distance
between each combatant shorter, so that no one will get lost and make it necessary to shout and turn
on lights. Light is the enemy of the guerrilla fighter at nighttime.
If all this marching has attack as its objective, then upon arriving at a given point, the point to which
all will return after the objective has been accomplished, extra weight will be set down, such things
as knapsacks and cooking utensils, for example, and each platoon will proceed with nothing more
than its arms and fighting equipment. The point of attack should have been already studied by
trustworthy people who have reconnoitered the ground and have observed the location of the enemy
guards. The leaders, knowing the orientation of the base, the number of men that defend it, etc., will
make the final plan for the attack and send combatants to their places, always keeping in mind that a
good part of the troops should be assigned to intercept reinforcements. In cases where the attack
upon the base is to be merely a diversion in order to provoke the sending of reinforcements along
roads that can be easily ambushed, a man should communicate the result rapidly to the command as
soon as the attack has been carried out, in order to break the encirclement, if necessary to prevent
being attacked from the rear. In any case there must always be a watch on the roads that lead to the
place of combat while the encirclement or direct attack is being carried out.
By night a direct attack is always preferable. It is possible to capture an encampment if there is
enough drive and necessary presence of mind and if the risks are not excessive.
An encirclement requires waiting and taking cover, closing in steadily on the enemy, trying to
harass him in every way, and, above all, trying to force him by fire to come out. When the circle has
been closed to short range, the "Molotov cocktail" is a weapon of extraordinary effectiveness.
Before arriving at a range for the "cocktail," shotguns with a special charge can be employed (See
picture 2-2). These arms, christened in our war with the name of "M-16," consist of a 16-calibre
sawed-off shotgun with a pair of legs added in such a way that with the butt of the gun they form a
tripod. The weapon will thus be mounted at an angle of about 45 degrees; this can be varied by
moving the legs back and forth. It is loaded with an open shell from which all the shot has been
removed. A cylindrical stick extending from the muzzle of the gun is used as the projectile. A bottle
of gasoline resting on a rubber base is placed on the end of the stick. This apparatus will fire the
burning bottles a hundred meters or more with a fairly high degree of accuracy. This is an ideal
weapon for enrichments when the enemy has many wooden or inflammable material constructions;
also for firing against tanks in hilly country.
Once the encirclement ends with a victory, or, having completed its objectives, is withdrawn, all
platoons retire in order to the place where the knapsacks have been left, and normal life is resumed.
The nomadic life of the guerrilla fighter in this stage produces not only a deep sense of fraternity
among the men but at times also dangerous rivalries between groups or platoons. If these are not
channeled to produce beneficial emulation, there is a risk that the unity of the column will be
damaged. The education of the guerrilla fighter is important from the very beginning of the
struggle. This should explain to them the social purpose of the fight and their duties, clarify their
understanding, and give them lessons in morale that serve to forge their characters. Each experience
should be a new source of strength for victory and not simply one more episode in the fight for
survival.
One of the great educational techniques is example. Therefore the chiefs must constantly offer the
example of a pure and devoted life. Promotion of the soldier should be based on valor, capacity, and
a spirit of sacrifice; whoever does not have these qualities in a high degree ought not to have
responsible assignments, since he will cause unfortunate accidents at any moment.
The conduct of the guerrilla fighter will be subject to judgment whenever he approaches a house to
ask for something. The inhabitants will draw favorable or unfavorable conclusions about the
guerrilla band according to the manner in which any service or food or other necessity is solicited
and the methods used to get what is wanted. The explanation by the chief should be detailed about
these problems, emphasizing their importance; he should also teach by example. If a town is
entered, all drinking of alcohol should be prohibited and the troops should be exhorted before- hand
to give the best possible example of discipline.
The entrances and exits to the town should be constantly watched.
The organization, combat capacity, heroism, and spirit of the guerrilla band will undergo a test of
fire during an encirclement by the enemy, which is the most dangerous situation of the war. In the
jargon of our guerrilla fighters in the recent war, the phrase "encirclement face" was given to the
face of fear worn by someone who was frightened. The hierarchy of the deposed regime pompously
spoke of its campaigns of "encirclement and annihilation." However, for a guerrilla band that knows
the country and that is united ideologically and emotionally with its chief, this is not a particularly
serious problem. It need only take cover, try to slow up the advance of the enemy, impede his action
with heavy equipment, and await nightfall, the natural ally of the guerrilla fighter. Then with the
greatest possible stealth, after exploring and choosing the best road, the band will depart, utilizing
the most adequate means of escape and maintaining absolute silence. It is extremely difficult in
these conditions at night to prevent a group of men from escaping the encirclement.
4. THE COMBAT
Combat is the most important drama in the guerrilla life. It occupies only a short time; nevertheless,
these brilliant moments acquire an extraordinary importance, since each small encounter is a battle
of a fundamental kind for the combatants.
We have already pointed out that an attack should be carried out in such a way as to give a
guarantee of victory. In addition to general observations concerning the tactical function of attack in
guerrilla warfare, the different characteristics that each action can pre-sent ought to be noted. We
will refer initially, for purposes of description, to the type of fight carried out on favorable ground,
because this is the original model of guerrilla warfare; and it is in this connection that certain
principles must be examined before dealing with other problems through a study of practical
experience. Warfare on the plain is always the result of an advance by the guerrilla bands
consequent on their being strengthened and on changes in conditions; this implies an increase of
experience on the part of the guerrilla and with it the possibility of using that experience to
advantage.
In the first stage of guerrilla warfare, enemy columns will penetrate insurgent territory deeply;
depending on the strength of these columns two different types of guerrilla attacks will be made.
One of these, first in chronological order, is for a fixed number of months to cause systematic losses
in the enemy's offensive capacity. This tactic is carried out on the vanguards. Unfavorable ground
impedes flank defenses by the advancing columns; therefore, there must always be one point of the
vanguard that, as it penetrates and exposes the lives of its components, serves to give security to the
rest of the column. When men and reserves are insufficient and the enemy is strong, the guerrilla
should always aim for the destruction of this vanguard point. The system is simple; only a certain
coordination is necessary. At the moment when the vanguard appears at the selected place-the
steepest possible-a deadly fire is let loose on them, after a convenient number of men have been
allowed to penetrate. A small group must hold the rest of the column for some moments while arms,
munitions, and equipment are being collected. The guerrilla soldier ought always to have in mind
that his source of supply of arms is the enemy and that, except in special circumstances, he ought
not to engage in a battle that will not lead to the capture of such equipment.
When the strength of the guerrilla band permits, a complete encirclement of the column will be
carried out; or at least this impression will be given. In this case the guerrilla front line must be
strong enough and well enough covered to resist the frontal assaults of the enemy, considering,
naturally, both offensive power and combat morale. At the moment in which the enemy is detained
in some chosen place, the rearguard guerrilla forces make an attack on the enemy's rear. Such a
chosen place will have characteristics making a flank maneuver difficult; snipers, outnumbered,
perhaps, by eight or ten times, will have the whole enemy column within the circle of fire.
Whenever there are sufficient forces in these cases, all roads should be protected with ambushes in
order to detain reinforcements. The encirclement will be closed gradually, above all at night. The
guerrilla fighter knows the places where he fights, the invading column does not; the guerrilla
fighter grows at night, and the enemy feels his fear growing in the darkness.
In this way, without too much difficulty, a column can be totally destroyed; or at least such losses
can be inflicted upon it as to prevent its returning to battle and to force it to take a long time for
regrouping. When the force of the guerrilla band is small and it is desired above all to detain and
slow down the advance of the invading column, groups of snipers fluctuating between two and ten
should be distributed all around the column at each of the four cardinal points. In this situation
combat can be begun, for example, on the right flank; when the enemy centers his action on that
flank and fires on it, shooting will begin at that moment from the left flank; at another moment from
the rearguard or from the vanguard; and so forth.
With a very small expenditure of ammunition it is possible to hold the enemy in check indefinitely.
The technique of attacking an enemy convoy or position must be adapted to the conditions of the
place chosen for the combat. In general, the first at-tack on an encircled place should be made
during night hours against an advance post, with surprise assured. A surprise attack carried out by
skillful commandos can easily liquidate a position, thanks to the advantage of surprise. For a regular
encirclement the paths of escape can be controlled with a few men and the roads of access defended
with ambushes; these should be distributed in such a way that if one is unsuccessful, it falls back or
simply withdraws, while a second remains, and so on successively. In cases where the surprise
factor is not present, victory in an attempt to take an encampment will depend on the capacity of the
encircling force to detain the at-tempts of the rescue columns. In these cases there will usually be
support on the enemy's side by artillery, mortars, airplanes, and tanks. In favorable ground the tank
is an arm of small danger; it must travel by roads that are narrow and is an easy victim of mines.
The offensive capacity of these vehicles when in formation is here generally absent or reduced,
since they must proceed in Indian file or at most two abreast. The best and surest weapon against
the tank is the mine; but in a close fight, which may easily take place in steep places, the "Molotov
cocktail" is an arm of extraordinary value. We will not talk yet of the bazooka, which for the
guerrilla force is a decisive weapon but difficult to acquire, at least in the first stages. Against the
mortar there is the recourse of a trench with a roof. The mortar is an arm of formidable potency
when used against an encircled place; but on the other hand, against mobile attackers it loses its
effectiveness unless it is used in large batteries. Artillery does not have great importance in this type
of fight, since it has to be placed in locations of convenient access and it does not see the targets,
which are constantly shifting. Aviation constitutes the principal arm of the oppressor forces, but its
power of attack also is much reduced by the fact that its only targets are small trenches, generally
hidden. Planes will be able to drop high explosive or napalm bombs, both of which constitute
inconveniences rather than true dangers. Besides, as the guerrilla draws as close as possible to the
defensive lines of the enemy, it becomes very difficult for planes to attack these points of the
vanguard effectively.
When encampments with wood or inflammable constructions are attacked, a Molotov cocktail is a
very important arm at a short distance. At longer distances bottles with inflammable material with
the fuse lighted can be launched from a sixteen-caliber shotgun, as described earlier.
Of all the possible types of mines, the most effective, although requiring the most technical
capacity, is the remotely exploded mine; but contact, fuse, and above all electric mines with their
lengths of cord are also extremely useful and constitute on mountainous roads defenses for the
popular forces that are virtually invulnerable.
A good defense against armored cars along roads is to dig sloping ditches in such a way that the
tank enters them easily and afterwards cannot get out, as Picture 2-3 shows. These can easily be
hidden from the enemy, especially at nighttime or when he has no infantry in advance of the tanks
because of resistance by the guerrilla forces.
Another common form of advance by the enemy in zones that are not too steep is in trucks that are
more or less open. The columns are headed by armored vehicles and the infantry follows behind in
trucks Depending upon the force of the guerrilla band it may be possible to encircle the entire
column, following the general rules; or it can be split by attacking some of the trucks and
simultaneously exploding mines. It is necessary to act rapidly in this case, seizing the arms of the
fallen enemy and retiring.
For an attack on open trucks, an arm of great importance which should be used with all its potential
is the shotgun. A sixteen-caliber shotgun with large shot can sweep ten meters, nearly the whole
area of the truck, killing some of the occupants, wounding others, and provoking an enormous
confusion. Grenades, if they are available, are also excellent weapons for these cases.
For all these attacks surprise is fundamental because, at least at the moment of firing the first shot, it
is one of the basic requirements of guerrilla warfare. Surprise is not possible if the peasants of the
zone know of the presence of the insurgent army. For this reason all movements of attack should be
made at night. Only men of proven discretion and loyalty can know of these movements and
establish the contacts. The march should be made with knapsacks full of food, in order to be able to
live two, three, or four days in the places of ambush.
The discretion of the peasants should never be trusted too much, first because there is a natural
tendency to talk and to comment on events with other members of the family or with friends; and
also because of the inevitable cruelty with which the enemy soldiers treat the population after a
defeat. Terror can be sown, and this terror leads to someone's talking too much, revealing important
information, in the effort to save his life.
In general, the place chosen for an ambush should be located at least one day's march from the
habitual camp of the guerrilla band, since the enemy will al-most always know its location more or
less accurately. We said before that the form of fire in a battle indicates the location of the opposing
forces; on one side violent and rapid firing by the soldier of the line, who has the customary
abundance of ammunition; on the other side the methodical, sporadic fire of the guerrilla fighter
who knows the value of every bullet and who endeavors to expend it with a high degree of
economy, never firing one shot more than necessary. It is not reasonable to allow an enemy to
escape or to fail to use an ambush to the full in order to save ammunition, but the amount that is to
be expended in determined circumstances should be calculated in advance and the action carried out
according to these calculations.
Ammunition is the great problem of the guerrilla fighter. Arms can always be obtained.
Furthermore, those which are obtained are not expended in guerrilla warfare, while ammunition is
expended; also, generally, it is arms with their ammunition that are captured and never or rarely
ammunition only. Each weapon that is taken will have its loads, but it cannot contribute to the
others because there are no extras. The tactical principle of saving fire is fundamental in this type of
warfare.
A guerrilla chief who takes pride in his role will never be careless about withdrawal. This should be
timely, rapid, and carried out so as to save all the wounded and the equipment of the guerrilla, its
knapsacks, ammunition, etc. The rebels ought never to be surprised while withdrawing, nor can
they permit themselves the negligence of becoming surrounded. Therefore, guards must be posted
along the chosen road at all places where the enemy army will eventually bring its troops forward in
an attempt to close a circle; and there must be a system of communication that will permit rapid
reports when a force tries to surround the rebels.
In the combat there must always be some unarmed men. They will recover the guns of companions
who are wounded or dead, guns seized in battle or belonging to prisoners; they will take charge of
the prisoners, of removing the wounded, and of transmission of messages. Besides, there ought to
be a good corps of messengers with iron legs and a proven sense of responsibility who will give the
necessary reports in the least possible time.
The number of men needed besides the armed combatants varies; but a general rule is two or three
for each ten, including those who will be present at the scene of the battle and those who will carry
out necessary tasks in the rearguard, keeping watch on the route of withdrawal and performing the
messenger services mentioned above.
When a defensive type of war is being fought, that is to say, when the guerrilla band is endeavoring
to prohibit the passage of an invasion column beyond a certain point, the action becomes a war of
positions; but always at the outset it should have the factor of surprise. In this case, since trenches as
well as other defensive systems that will be easily observable by the peasants are going to be used,
it is necessary that these latter remain in the friendly zone. In this type of warfare the government
generally establishes a blockade of the region, and the peasants who have not fled must go to buy
their basic foods at establishments located outside the zones of guerrilla action. Should these
persons leave the region at critical moments, such as those we are now describing, this would
constitute a serious danger on account of the information that they could eventually supply to the
enemy army. The policy of complete isolation must serve as the strategic principle of the guerrilla
army in these cases.
The defenses and the whole defensive apparatus should be arranged in such a manner that the
enemy vanguard will always fall into an ambush. It is very important as a psychological factor that
the man in the vanguard will die without escape in every battle, because this produces within the
enemy army a growing consciousness of this danger, until the moment arrives when nobody wants
to be in the vanguard; and it is obvious that a column with no vanguard cannot move, since
somebody has to assume that responsibility. Also encirclements can be carried out if these are
expedient; or diversionary maneuvers such as flank attacks; or the enemy can simply be detained
frontally. In every case, places which are susceptible of being utilized by the enemy for flank
attacks should be fortified.
We are now assuming that more men and arms are available than in the combats described hitherto.
It is evident that the blockade of all possible roads con-verging into a zone, which may be very
numerous, requires a large personnel. The various kinds of traps and attacks against armored
vehicles will be in- creased here, in order to give the greatest security p05-sible to the systems of
fixed trenches which can be located by the enemy. In general in this type of fight the order is to
defend the positions unto death if necessary; and it is essential to assure the maximum possibilities
of survival to every defender.
The more a trench is hidden from distant view, the better; above all, it is important to give it a cover
so that mortar fire will be ineffective. Mortars of 60.1 or 85 millimeters, the usual campaign
caliber's, cannot penetrate a good roof made with simple materials from the region. This may be
made from a base of wood, earth, and rocks covered with some camouflage material. An exit for
escape in an extremity must always be constructed, so that the defender may get away with less
danger.
The sketch [above, See Picture 2-4 ed.] shows the form in which these defenses were constructed in
the Sierra Maestra. They were sufficient to protect us from mortar fire.
This outline clearly indicates that fixed lines of fire do not exist. The lines of fire are something
more or less theoretical; they are established at certain critical moments, but they are extremely
elastic and permeable on both sides.
What does exist is a wide no man's land. But the characteristics of no man's land in guerrilla warfare
are that it is inhabited by a civil population, and that this civil population collaborates in a certain
measure with either of the two sides, even though in an overwhelming majority with the
insurrectionary band. These people cannot be removed en masse from the zone on account of their
numbers and because this would create problems of supply for either one of the con-tenders who
tried to provide food for so many people. This no man's land is penetrated by periodic incursions
(generally during the daytime) by the repressive forces and at night by the guerrilla forces. The
guerrilla forces find there a maintenance base of great importance for their troops; this should be
cared for in a political way, always establishing the best possible relations with the peasants and
merchants.
In this type of warfare the tasks of those who do not carry arms, of those who are not direct combatants,
are extremely important. We have already indicated some of the characteristics of liaison in
places of combat; but liaison is an institution throughout the whole guerrilla organization. Liaison
out to the most distant command or out to the most distant group of guerrilla fighters ought to be
linked in such a way that messages will travel from one place to an-other via the most rapid system
available in the region. This holds for regions of easy defense, that is to say, in favorable ground, as
well as in unfavorable ground. A guerrilla band operating in unfavorable ground will not be able to
use modern systems of communication, such as telegraph, roads, etc., except some radios located in
military garrisons capable of being defended. If these fall into the hands of the enemy force, it is
necessary to change codes and frequencies, a task that is rather troublesome.
In all these matters we are speaking from memory of things that occurred in our war of liberation.
The daily and accurate report on all activities of the enemy is complemented with liaison. The
system of espionage should be carefully studied, well worked out, and personnel chosen with
maximum care. The harm that a counter-spy can do is enormous, but even without such an extreme
case, the harm that can result from exaggerated information which misjudges the danger is very
great. It is not probable that danger will be underrated. The tendency of people in the country is to
overrate and exaggerate it. The same magic mentality that makes phantasms and various
supernatural beings appear also creates monstrous armies where there is hardly a platoon or an
enemy patrol. The spy ought to seem as neutral as possible, not known by the enemy to have any
connection with the forces of liberation. This is not as difficult a task as it appears; many such
persons are found in the course of the war: businessmen, professional men, and even clergymen can
lend their help in this type of task and give timely information.
One of the most important characteristics of guerrilla warfare is the notable difference between the
in- formation that reaches the rebel forces and the information possessed by the enemy. While the
latter must operate in regions that are absolutely hostile, finding sullen silence on the part of the
peasants, the rebels have in nearly every house a friend or even a relative; and news is passed about
constantly through the liaison system until it reaches the central command of the guerrilla force or
of the guerrilla group that is in the zone.
When an enemy penetration occurs in territory that has become openly pro-guerrilla, where all the
peasants respond to the cause of the people, a serious problem is created. The majority of peasants
try to escape with the popular army, abandoning their children and their work; others even carry the
whole family; some wait upon events. The most serious problem that an enemy penetration into
guerrilla territory can provoke is that of a group of families finding themselves in a tight, at times
desperate situation. Maximum help should be given to them, but they must be warned of the
troubles that can follow upon a flight into inhospitable zones so far from their habitual places of
livelihood, exposed to the hardships that usually befall in such cases.
It is not possible to describe any pattern of repression on the part of the enemies of the people. Although
the general methods of repression are always the same, the enemies of the people act in a
more or less intensely criminal fashion according to the specific social, historic, and economic
circumstances of each place. There are places where the flight of a man into the guerrilla zone,
leaving his family and his house, does not provoke any great reaction. There are others where this is
enough to provoke the burning or seizure of his belongings, and still others where the flight will
bring death to all members of his family. Adequate distribution and organization of the peasants
who are going to be affected by an enemy advance must of course be arranged according to the
habits that prevail in the war zone or country concerned.
Obviously preparations must be made to expel the enemy from such territory by moving against his
sup-plies, completely cutting his lines of communication, destroying by means of small guerrilla
bands his at-tempts to supply himself, and in general forcing him to devote large quantities of men
to his supply problem.
In all these combat situations a very important factor is the correct utilization of reserves wherever
battle begins. The guerrilla army, because of its characteristics, can rarely count on reserves, since it
always strikes in such a way that the efforts of every individual are regulated and employed at
something. Nevertheless, despite these characteristics it should have at someplace, men ready to
respond to an unforeseen development, to detain a counteroffensive, or to take care of a situation at
any moment. Within the organization of the guerrilla band, assuming that the conditions and
possibilities of the moment permit, a utility platoon can be held in readiness, a platoon that should
always go to the places of greatest danger. It can be christened the "suicide platoon" or something
similar; this title in reality indicates its functions. This "suicide platoon" should be in every place
where a battle is decided: in the surprise at-tacks upon the vanguard, in the defense of the most
vulnerable and dangerous places, in a word, wherever the enemy threatens to break the stability of
the line of fire. It ought to be made up strictly of volunteers. Entrance into this platoon should be
regarded almost as a prize for merit. In time it becomes the favorite group of any guerrilla column,
and the guerrilla fighter who wears its insignia enjoys the admiration and respect of all his
companions.
5. BEGINNING, DEVELOPMENT, AND END OF A GUERRILLA WAR
We have now abundantly defined the nature of guerrilla warfare. Let us next describe the ideal
development of such a war from its beginning as a rising by a single nucleus on favorable ground.
In other words, we are going to theorize once more on the basis of the Cuban experience. At the
outset there is a more or less homogeneous group, with some arms, that devotes itself almost
exclusively to hiding in the wildest and most inaccessible places, making little contact with the
peasants. It strikes a fortunate blow and its fame grows. A few peasants, dispossessed of their land
or engaged in a struggle to conserve it and young idealists of other classes join the nucleus; it
acquires greater audacity and starts to operate in inhabited places, making more contact with the
people of the zone; it repeats attacks, always fleeing after making them; suddenly it engages in
combat with some column or other and destroys its vanguard. Men continue to join it; it has
increased in number, but its organization remains exactly the same; its caution diminishes, and it
ventures into more populous zones.
Later it sets up temporary camps for several days; it abandons these upon receiving news of the
approach of the enemy army, or upon suffering bombardments, or simply upon becoming
suspicious that such risks have arisen. The numbers in the guerrilla band increase as work among
the masses operates to make of each peasant an enthusiast for the war of liberation. Finally, an
inaccessible place is chosen, a settled life is initiated, and the first small industries begin to be
established: a shoe factory, a cigar and cigarette factory, a clothing factory, an arms factory, a
bakery, hospitals, possibly a radio transmitter, a printing press, etc.
The guerrilla band now has an organization, a new structure. It is the head of a large movement with
all the characteristics of a small government. A court is established for the administration of justice,
possibly laws are promulgated. and the work of indoctrination of the peasant masses continues,
extended also to workers if there are any near, to draw them to the cause. An enemy action is
launched and defeated; the number of rifles increases; with these the number of men fighting with
the guerrilla band increases. A moment arrives when its radius of action will not have increased in
the same proportion as its personnel; at that moment a force of appropriate size is separated, a
column or a platoon, perhaps, and this goes to another place of combat.
The work of this second group will begin with somewhat different characteristics because of the
experience that it brings and because of the influence of the troops of liberation on the war zone.
The original nucleus also continues to grow; it has now received substantial support in food,
sometimes in guns, from various places; men continue to arrive; the administration of government,
with the promulgation of laws, continues; schools are established, permitting the indoctrination and
training of recruits. The leaders learn steadily as the war develops, and their capacity of command
grows under the added responsibilities of the qualitative and quantitative increases in their forces.
If there are distant territories, a group departs for them at a certain moment, in order to confirm the
advances that have been made and to continue the cycle.
But there will also exist an enemy territory, unfavorable for guerrilla warfare. There small groups
begin to penetrate, assaulting the roads, destroying bridges, planting mines, sowing disquiet. With
the ups and downs characteristic of warfare the movement continues to grow; by this time the
extensive work among the masses makes easy movement of the forces possible in unfavorable
territory and so opens the final stage, which is suburban guerrilla warfare.
Sabotage increases considerably in the whole zone. Life is paralyzed; the zone is conquered. The
guerrillas then go into other zones, where they fight with the enemy army along defined fronts; by
now heavy arms have been captured, perhaps even some ,tanks; the fight is more equal. The enemy
falls when the process of partial victories becomes transformed into final victories, that is to say,
when the enemy is brought to accept battle in conditions imposed by the guerrilla band; there he is
annihilated and his surrender compelled.
This is a sketch that describes what occurred in the different stages of the Cuban war of liberation;
but it has a content approximating the universal. Nevertheless, it will not always be possible to
count on the degree of intimacy with the people, the conditions, and the leadership that existed in
our war. It is unnecessary to say that Fidel Castro possesses the high qualities of a fighter and
statesman: our path, our struggle, and our triumph we owed to his vision. We cannot say that
without him the victory of the people would not have been achieved; but that victory would
certainly have cost must more and would have been less complete.
CHAPTER III: ORGANIZATION OF THE GUERRILLA
FRONT
1. SUPPLY
A good supply system is of basic importance to the guerrilla hand. A group of men in contact with
the soil must live from the products of this soil and at the same time must see that the livelihood
continues of those who provide the supplies, the peasants; since in the hard guerrilla struggle it is
not possible, above all at the beginning, for the group to dedicate its own energies to producing
supplies, not to mention that these supplies would be easily discovered and destroyed by enemy
forces in a territory likely to be completely penetrated by the action of repressive columns. Supply
in the first stages is always internal.
As the guerrilla struggle develops, it will be necessary to arrange supply from outside the limits or
territory of the combat. At the beginning the band lives solely on what the peasants have; it may be
possible to reach a store occasionally to buy something, but never possible to have lines of supply
since there is no territory in which to establish them. The line of supply and the store of food are
conditioned by the development of the guerrilla struggle.
The first task is to gain the absolute confidence of the inhabitants of the zone; and this confidence is
won by a positive attitude toward their problems, by help and a constant program of orientation, by
the defense of their interests and the punishment of all who attempt to take advantage of the chaotic
moment in which they live in order to use pressure, dispossess the peasants, seize their harvests, etc.
The line should be soft and hard at the same time: soft and with a spontaneous cooperation for all
those who honestly sympathize with the revolutionary movement; hard upon those who are
attacking it outright, fomenting dissentions, or simply communicating important information to the
enemy army.
Little by little the territory will be cleared, and there will then be a greater ease of action. The
fundamental principle that ought to prevail is that of paying always for all merchandise taken from a
friend. This merchandise can consist of crops or of articles from commercial establishments. Many
times they will be donated, but at other times the economic conditions of the peasantry prevent such
donations. There are cases in which the necessities of warfare force the band to take needed food
from stores without paying for it, simply because there is no money. In such cases the merchant
ought always to be given a bond, a promissory note, something that certifies to the debt, "the bonds
of hope" already described. ft is better to use this method only with people who are outside the
limits of the liberated territory, and in such cases to pay as soon as possible all or at least a part of
the debt. When conditions have improved sufficiently to maintain a territory permanently free from
the dominion of the opposing army, it is possible to set up collective plantings, where the peasants
work the land for the benefit of the guerrilla army. In this way an adequate food supply of a
permanent character is guaranteed.
If the number of volunteers for the guerrilla army is much greater than the number of arms, and
political circumstances prevent these men from entering zones dominated by the enemy, the rebel
army can put them to work directly on the land, harvesting crops; this guarantees supply and adds
something to their record of service looking toward future promotion to the status of combatants.
However, it is more advisable that the peasants themselves sow their own crops; this results in work
performed more effectively, with more enthusiasm and skill. When conditions have ripened even
more, it is possible, depending on the crops involved, to arrange purchases of entire harvests in such
a way that they can remain in the field or in warehouses for the use of the army.
When agencies also charged with the duty of supplying the peasant population have been
established, all food supplies will be concentrated in these agencies in order to facilitate a system of
barter among the peasants, with the guerrilla army serving as intermediary.
If conditions continue to improve, taxes can be established; these should be as light as possible,
above all for the small producer. It is important to pay attention to every detail of relations between
the peasant class and the guerrilla army, which is an emanation of that class.
Taxes may be collected in money in some cases, or in the form of a part of the harvest, which will
serve to increase the food supplies. Meat is one of the articles of primary necessity. Its production
and conservation must be assured. Farms should be established under peasants having no apparent
connection with the army, if the zone is not secure; they will de-vote themselves to the production
of chickens, eggs, goats, and pigs, starting with stock that has been bought or confiscated from the
large landowners. In the zones of big estates there are usually large quantities of cattle. These can
be killed and salted and the meat maintained in condition for consumption for a long period of time.
This will also produce hides. A leather industry, more or less primitive, can be developed to provide
leather for shoes, one of the fundamental accessories in the struggle. In general, necessary foods are
the following (depending on the zone): meat, salt, vegetables, starches, or grains. The basic food is
always produced by the peasants; it may be "malanga," as in the mountainous regions of Oriente
Province in Cuba; it may be corn, as in the mountainous regions of Mexico, Central America, and
Peru; potatoes, also in Peru; in other zones, such as Argentina, cattle; wheat in others; but always it
is necessary to assure a supply of the fundamental food for the troop as well as some kinds of fat
which permit better food preparation; these may be animal or vegetable fats.
Salt is one of the essential supplies. When the force is near the sea and in contact with it, small
dryers should be established immediately; these will assure some production in order always to
have a reserve stock and the ability to supply the troops. Remember that in wild places such as
these, where only some of the foods are produced, it is easy for the enemy to establish an
encirclement that can greatly hurt the flow of supplies to the zone. It is well to provide against such
eventualities through peasant organization and civil organizations in general. The inhabitants of the
zone should have on hand a minimum food supply that will permit them at least to survive, even
though poorly, during the hardest phases of the struggle. An attempt should be made to collect
rapidly a good provision of foods that do not decompose -such grains, for example, as corn, wheat,
rice, etc., which will last quite a long time; also flour, salt, sugar, and canned goods of all types;
further, the necessary seeds should be sown.
A moment will arrive when all the food problems of the troops in the zone are solved, but large
quantities of other products will be needed: leather for shoes, if it has not been possible to create an
industry for supplying the zone; cloth and all the accessory items necessary for clothing; paper, a
press or mimeograph machine for newspapers, ink, and various other implements. In other words,
the need for articles from the outside world will increase in the measure that the guerrilla bands
become organized and the organization becomes more complex. In order for this need to be met
adequately it is necessary that the organized lines of supply function perfectly. These organizations
are composed basically of friendly peasants. They should have two poles, one in the guerrilla zone
and one in a city. Departing and radiating from the guerrilla zones, lines of supply will penetrate the
whole territory, permitting the passage of materials. Little by little the peasants accustom
themselves to the danger (in small groups they can work marvels) and come to place the material
that is needed in the indicated spot without running extreme risks. These movements can be carried
out at night with mules or other similar transport animals or with trucks, depending on the zone.
Thus, a very good supply may be achieved. This type of line of supply is for areas near places of
operation.
It is also necessary to organize a line of supply from distant areas. These organizations should
produce the money needed for making purchases and also the implements that cannot be produced
in small towns or provincial cities. The organization will be nourished with direct donations from
sectors sympathetic to the struggle, exchanged for secret "bonds," which should be delivered. A
strict control over the personnel charged with the management of this operation should always be
maintained. Serious consequences should follow any neglect of the indispensable moral requisites
involved in this responsibility. Purchases can be made with cash and also with "bonds of hope"
when the guerrilla army, having departed from its base of operations, menaces a new zone. In these
cases there is no way to avoid taking the merchandise from any merchant; he must rely on the good
faith and capabilities of the guerrilla armies to make good on his account.
For all lines of supply that pass through the country, it is necessary to have a series of houses,
terminals, or way-stations, where supplies may be hidden during the day while waiting to be moved
by night. Only those directly in charge of the food supplies should know these houses. The least
possible number of inhabitants should know about this transport operation, and these should be
persons in whom the organization has the greatest confidence.
The mule is one of the most useful animals for these tasks. With an incredible resistance to fatigue
and a capacity to walk in the hilliest zones, the mule can carry more than 100 kilograms on its back
for many days. The simplicity of its food needs also makes it an ideal means of transport. The mule
train should be well supplied with shoes; the muleteers should understand their animals and take the
best possible care of them. In this way it is possible to have regular four-footed armies with an
unbelievable utility. But frequently, despite the strength of the animal and its capacity to bear up
through the hardest days, difficulty of passage will make it necessary to leave the cargo in fixed
sites. In order to avoid this necessity, there should be a team charged with making trails for this
class of animals. If all these conditions are met, if an adequate organization is created, and if the
rebel army maintains excellent relations as needed with the peasants, an effective and lasting supply
for the whole troop is guaranteed.
2. CIVIL ORGANIZATION
The civil organization of the insurrectional movement is very important on both fronts, the external
and the internal. Naturally, these two have characteristics that are as different as their functions,
though they both perform tasks that fall under the same name. The collections that can be carried
out on the external front, for example, are not the same as those which can take place on the internal
front; neither are the propaganda and the supply. Let us describe first the tasks on the internal front.
Here we are dealing with a place dominated, relatively speaking, by the forces of liberation.
Also, it is to be supposed that the zone is adapted to guerrilla warfare, because when these
conditions do not exist, when the guerrilla fighting is taking place in poorly adapted terrain, the
guerrilla organization increases in extension but not in depth; it embraces new places, but it cannot
arrive at an internal organization, since the whole zone is penetrated by the enemy. On the internal
front we can have a series of organizations which perform specific functions for more efficiency in
administration. In general, propaganda belongs directly to the army, but it also can be separated
from the army if kept under its control. (This point is so important that we will treat it separately.)
Collections are a function of the civil organization, as are the general tasks of organizing the
peasants and workers, if these are present. One council should govern both of these classes.
Raising supplies, as we explained in a previous chapter, can be carried out in various ways: through
direct or indirect taxes, through direct or indirect donations, and through confiscations; all this goes
to make up the large chapter on supplies for the guerrilla army.
Keep in mind that the zone ought by no means to be impoverished by the direct action of the rebel
army, even though the latter will be responsible indirectly for the impoverishment that results from
enemy encirclement, a fact that the adversary's propaganda will repeatedly point out. Precisely for
this reason conflicts ought not to be created by direct causes. There ought not be, for example, any
regulations that prevent the farmers of a zone in liberated territory from selling their products
outside that territory, save in extreme and transitory circumstances and with a full explanation of
these interruptions to the peasantry. Every act of the guerrilla army ought always to be accompanied
by the propaganda necessary to explain the reasons for it. These reasons will generally be well
understood by a peasantry that has sons, fathers, brothers, or relations within this army, which is,
therefore, something of their own.
In view of the importance of relations with the peasants, it is necessary to create organizations that
make regulations for them, organizations that exist not only within the liberated area, but also have
connections in the adjacent areas. Precisely through these connections it is possible to penetrate a
zone for a future enlargement of the guerrilla front. The peasants will sow the seed with oral and
written propaganda, with accounts of life in the other zone, of the laws that have already been
issued for the protection of the small peasant, of the spirit of sacrifice of the rebel army; in a word,
they are creating the necessary atmosphere for helping the rebel troops.
The peasant organizations should also have connections of some type that will permit the
channeling and sale of crops by the rebel army agencies in enemy territory through intermediaries
more or less benevolent, more or less friendly to the peasant class. Joined with a devotion to the
cause which brings the merchant to defy dangers in such cases, there also exists the devotion to
money that leads him to take advantage of the opportunity to gain profits.
We have already spoken, in connection with supply problems, of the importance of the department
of road construction. When the guerrilla band has achieved a certain level of development, it no
longer wanders about through diverse regions without an encampment; it has centers that are more
or less fixed. Routes should be established varying from small paths permitting the passage of a
mule to good roads for trucks. In all this, the capacity of the organization of the rebel army must be
kept in mind, as well as the offensive capacity of the enemy, who may destroy these constructions
and even make use of roads built by his opponent to reach the encampments more easily. The
fundamental rule should be that roads are for assisting supply in places where any other solution
would be impossible; they should not be constructed except in circumstances where there is a
virtual certainty that the position can be maintained against an attack by the adversary. Another
exception would be roads built without great risk to facilitate communication between points that
are not of vital importance.
Furthermore, other means of communication may be established. One of these that is extremely
important is the telephone. This can be strung in the forest with the convenience that arises from
using trees for posts. There is the advantage that they are not visible to the enemy from above. The
telephone also presupposes a zone that the enemy cannot penetrate.
The council-or central department of justice, revolutionary laws, and administration-is one of the
vital features of a guerrilla army fully constituted and with territory of its own. The council should
be under the charge of an individual who knows the laws of the country; if he understands the
necessities of the zone from a juridical point of view, this is better yet; he can proceed to prepare a
series of decrees and regulations that help the peasant to normalize and institutionalize his life
within the rebel zone.
For example, during our experience in the Cuban war we issued a penal code, a civil code, rules for
supplying the peasantry and rules of the agrarian reform. Subsequently, the laws fixing
qualifications of candidates in the elections that were to be held later throughout the country were
established; also the Agrarian Reform Law of the Sierra Maestra. The council is likewise in charge
of accounting operations for the guerrilla column or columns; it is responsible for handling money
problems and at times intervenes directly in supply.
All these recommendations are flexible; they are based upon an experience in a certain place and
are conditioned by its geography and history; they will be modified in different geographical,
historical, and social situations. In addition to the council, it is necessary to keep the general health
of the zone in mind. This can be done by means of central military hospitals that should give the
most complete assistance possible to the whole peasantry. Whether adequate medical treatment can
be given will depend upon the stage reached by the revolution. Civil hospitals and civil health
administration are united directly with the guerrilla army, and their functions are performed by
officers and men of the army, who have the dual function of caring for the people and orienting
them toward better health. The big health problems among people in these conditions are rooted in
their total ignorance of elementary principles of hygiene. This aggravates their already precarious
situation.
The collection of taxes, as I have already said, is also a function of the general council. Warehouses
are very important. As soon as a place is taken that is to serve as a base for the guerrilla band,
warehouses should be established in the most orderly fashion possible. These will serve to assure a
minimum care of merchandise and, most important, will provide the control needed for equalizing
distribution and keeping it equitable at later times.
Functions are different on the external front both in quantity and in quality. For example,
propaganda should be of a national, orienting type, explaining the victories obtained by the guerrilla
band, calling workers and peasants to effective mass fights, and giving news, if there is any, of
victories obtained on this front itself. Solicitation of funds is completely secret; it ought to be
carried out with the greatest care possible, isolating small collectors in the chain completely from
the treasurer of the organization.
This organization should be distributed in zones that complement each other in order to form a
totality, zones that may be provinces, states, cities, and villages, depending on the magnitude of the
movement. In each of them there must be a finance commission that takes charge of the disposal of
funds collected. It is possible to collect money by selling bonds or through direct donations. When
the development of the struggle is more advanced, taxes may be collected; when industries come to
recognize the great force that the insurrectional army possesses, they will consent to pay. Supply
procurement should be fitted to the necessities of the guerrilla bands; it will be organized in the
form of a chain of merchandise in such a way that the more common articles are procured in nearby
places, and the things that are really scarce or impossible to procure locally, in larger centers. The
effort always is to keep the chain as limited as possible, known to the smallest number of men; it
can thus perform its mission for a longer time.
Sabotage should be directed by the civil organization in the external sector in coordination with the
central command. In special circumstances, after careful analysis, assaults on persons will be used.
In general we consider that this is not desirable except for the purpose of eliminating some figure
who is notorious for his villainies against the people and the virulence of his repression. Our
experience in the Cuban struggle shows that it would have been possible to save the lives of
numerous fine comrades who were sacrificed in the performance of missions of small value.
Several times these ended with enemy bullets of reprisal on combatants whose loss could not be
compared with the results obtained. Assaults and terrorism in indiscriminate form should not be
employed. More preferable is effort directed at large concentrations of people in whom the
revolutionary idea can be planted and nurtured, so that at a critical moment they can be mobilized
and with the help of the armed forces contribute to a favorable balance on the side of the revolution.
For this it is necessary also to make use of popular organizations of workers, professional people,
and peasants, who work at sowing the seed of the revolution among their respective masses,
explaining, providing revolutionary publications for reading, teaching the truth. One of the
characteristics of revolutionary propaganda must be truth. Little by little, in this way, the masses
will be won over. Those among them who do the best work may be chosen for incorporation into
the rebel army or assignment to other tasks of great responsibility.
This is the outline of civil organization within and outside guerrilla territory at a time of popular
struggle. There are possibilities of perfecting all these features to a high degree. I repeat once more,
it is our Cuban experience which speaks through me; new experiences can vary and improve these
concepts. We offer an outline, not a bible.
3. THE ROLE OF THE WOMAN
The part that the woman can play in the development of a revolutionary process is of extraordinary
importance. It is well to emphasize this, since in all our countries, with their colonial mentality,
there is a certain underestimation of the woman which becomes a real discrimination against her.
The woman is capable of performing the most difficult tasks, of fighting beside the men; and
despite current belief, she does not create conflicts of a sexual type in the troops.
In the rigorous combatant life the woman is a companion who brings the qualities appropriate to her
sex, but she can work the same as a man and she can fight; she is weaker, but no less resistant than
he. She can perform every class of combat task that a man can at a given moment, and on certain
occasions in the Cuban struggle she performed a relief role.
Naturally the combatant women are a minority. When the internal front is being consolidated and it
is desirable to remove as many combatants as possible who do not possess indispensable physical
characteristics, the women can be assigned a considerable number of specific occupations, of which
one of the most important, perhaps the most important, is communication between different
combatant forces, above all between those that are in enemy territory. The transport of objects,
messages, or money, of small size and great importance, should be confided to women in whom the
guerrilla army has absolute confidence; women can transport them using a thousand tricks; it is a
fact that however brutal the repression, however thorough the searching, the woman receives a less
harsh treatment than the man and can carry her message or other object of an important or
confidential character to its destination.
As a simple messenger, either by word of mouth or of writing, the woman can always perform her
task with more freedom than the man, attracting less attention and at the same time inspiring less
fear of danger in the enemy soldier. He who commits brutalities acts frequently under the impulse
of fear or apprehension that he himself will be attacked, since this is one form of action in guerrilla
warfare.
Contacts between separated forces, mess ages to the exterior of the lines, even to the exterior of the
country; also objects of considerable size, such as bullets, are transported by women in special belts
worn beneath their skirts. But also in this stage a woman can perform her habitual tasks of
peacetime; it is very pleasing to a soldier subjected to the extremely hard conditions of this life to be
able to look forward to a seasoned meal which tastes like something. (One of the great tortures of
the war was eating a cold, sticky, tasteless mess.) The woman as cook can greatly improve the diet
and, furthermore, it is easier to keep her in these domestic tasks; one of the problems in guerrilla
bands is that all works of a civilian character are scorned by those who perform them; they are
constantly trying to get out of these tasks in order to enter into forces that are actively in combat.
A task of great importance for women is to teach beginning reading, including revolutionary theory,
primarily to the peasants of the zone, but also to the revolutionary soldiers. The organization of
schools, which is a part of the civil organization, should be done principally through women, who
arouse more enthusiasm among children and enjoy more affection from the school community.
Likewise, when the fronts have been consolidated and a rear exists, the functions of the social
worker also fall to women who investigate the various economic and social evils of the zone with a
view to changing them as far as possible.
The woman plays an important part in medical matters as nurse, and even as doctor, with a
gentleness infinitely superior to that of her rude companion in arms, a gentleness that is so much
appreciated at moments when a man is helpless, without comforts, perhaps suffering severe pain
and exposed to the many dangers of all classes that are a part of this type of war.
Once the stage of creating small war industries has begun, the woman can also contribute here,
especially in the manufacture of uniforms, a traditional employment of women in Latin American
countries. With a simple sewing machine and a few patterns she can perform marvels. Women can
take part in all lines of civil organization. They can replace men perfectly well and ought to do so,
even where persons are needed for carrying weapons, though this is a rare accident in guerrilla life.
It is important to give adequate indoctrination to men and women, in order to avoid all kinds of
misbehavior that can operate to hurt the morale of the troops; but persons who are otherwise free
and who love each other should be permitted to marry in the Sierra and live as man and wife after
complying with the simple requirements of the guerrilla band.
4. MEDICAL PROBLEMS
One of the grave problems that confronts the guerrilla fighter is exposure to the accidents of his life,
especially to wounds and sicknesses, which are very frequent in guerrilla warfare. The doctor
performs a function of extraordinary importance in the guerrilla band, not only in saving lives, in
which many times his scientific intervention does not count because of the limited resources
available to him; but also in the task of reinforcing the patient morally and making him feel that
there is a person near him who is dedicated with all his force to minimizing his pains. He gives the
wounded or sick the security of knowing that a person will remain at his side until he is cured or has
passed danger.
The organization of hospitals depends largely upon the stage of development of the guerrilla band.
Three fundamental types of hospital organization corresponding to various stages can be mentioned.
In this development we have a first, nomadic phase. In it the doctor, if there is one, travels
constantly with his companions, is just another man; he will probably have to perform all the other
functions of the guerrilla fighter, including that of fighting, and will suffer at times the depressing
and desperate task of treating cases in which the means of saving life are not available. This is the
stage in which the doctor has the most influence over the troops, the greatest importance for their
morale. During this period in the development of the guerrilla band the doctor achieves to the full
his character of a true priest who seems to carry in his scantily equipped knapsack needed
consolation for the men. The value of a simple aspirin to one who is suffering is beyond calculation
when it is given by the friendly hand of one who sympathetically makes the suffering his own.
Therefore the doctor in the first stage should be a man who is totally identified with the ideals of the
revolution, because his words will affect the troops much more deeply than those spoken by any
other member.
In the normal course of events in guerrilla warfare another stage is reached that could be called
"semi- nomadic." In it there are encampments, more or less frequented by the guerrilla troops;
friendly houses of complete confidence where it is possible to store objects and even leave the
wounded; and a growing tendency for the troop to become settled. At this stage the task of the
doctor is less trying; he may have emergency surgical equipment in his knapsack and another more
complete outfit for less urgent operations in a friendly house. It is possible to leave the sick and
wounded in the care of peasants who will give their help with great devotion. He can also count on
a larger number of medicines kept in convenient places; these should be completely catalogued as
well as possible, considering the circumstances in which he lives. In this same semi-nomadic state,
if the band operates in places that are absolutely inaccessible, hospitals can be established to which
the sick and wounded will go for recovery.
In the third stage, when there are zones invulnerable to the enemy, a true hospital organization is
constructed. In its most developed form, it can consist of three centers of different types. In the
combat category there ought to be a doctor, the combatant the most loved by the troop, the man of
battle, whose knowledge does not have to be too deep. I say this because his task is principally one
of giving relief and of preparing the sick or wounded, while the real medical work is performed in
hospitals more securely situated. A surgeon of quality ought not to be sacrificed in the line of fire.
When a man falls in the front line, stretcher-bearers, if these are available given the organization of
the guerrilla band, will carry him to the first post; if they are not available, his companions
themselves will perform this duty. Transport of the wounded in rough zones is one of the most
delicate of all tasks and one of the most painful experiences in a soldier's life. Perhaps the transport
of a wounded man is harder on all concerned, because of his sufferings and of the spirit of sacrifice
in the troop, than the fact itself of being wounded, however grave it may be. The transport can be
carried out in different ways according to the characteristics of the ground. In rough and wooded
places, which are typical in guerrilla warfare, it is necessary to walk single file. Here the best
system is to use a long pole, with the patient carried in a hammock that hangs from it.
The men take turns carrying the weight, one before and one behind. They should yield place to two
other companions frequently, since the shoulders suffer severely and the individual gradually wears
himself out carrying this delicate and heavy burden.
When the wounded soldier has passed through this first hospital, he then goes with the information
as to what has been done for him to a second center, where there are surgeons and specialists
depending upon the possibilities of the troop. Here the more serious operations needed for saving
life or relieving individuals from danger are performed.
Afterwards, at a third level, hospitals with the greatest comforts possible are established for direct
investigation in the zones affected of the causes and effects of illnesses that afflict the inhabitants of
the area. These hospitals of the third group, which correspond to a sedentary life, are not only
centers of convalescence and of operations of less urgency, but also establishments serving the civil
population, where the hygienists perform their orienting function. Dispensaries that will permit an
adequate individual surveillance should also be established. The hospitals of this third group can
have, if the supply capability of the civil organization permits, a series of facilities that provide
diagnosis even with laboratory and x-ray facilities.
Other useful individuals are the assistants to the doctor. They are generally youths with something
of a vocation and some knowledge, with fairly strong physiques; they do not bear arms, sometimes
because their vocation is medicine, but usually because there are insufficient arms for all who want
them. These assistants will be in charge of carrying most of the medicines, an extra stretcher or
hammock, if circumstances make this possible. They must take charge of the wounded in any battle
that is fought.
The necessary medicines should be obtained through contacts with health organizations that exist in
territory of the enemy. Sometimes they can be obtained from such organizations as the International
Red Cross, but this possibility should not be counted upon, especially in the first moments of the
struggle. It is necessary to organize an apparatus that will permit rapid transport of needed
medicines in case of danger and that will gradually supply all the hospitals with the supplies needed
for their work, military as well as civil. Also, contacts should be made in the surrounding areas with
doctors who will be capable of helping the wounded whose cases are beyond the capacities or the
facilities of the guerrilla band.
Doctors needed for this type of warfare are of different characteristics. The combatant doctor, the
companion of men, is the type for the first stage; his functions develop as the action of the guerrilla
band becomes more complicated and a series of connected organisms are constructed. General
surgeons are the best acquisition for an army of this type. If an anesthetist is available, so much the
better; though almost all operations are performed, not with gas anesthesia, but using "largactil" and
sodium pentothal, which are much easier to administer and easier to procure and conserve. Besides
general surgeons, bone specialists are very useful, because fractures occur frequently from accidents
in the zone; bullets producing this type of wound in limbs also frequently cause them. The clinic
serves the peasant mass mainly, since in general, sicknesses in the guerrilla armies are so easy of
diagnosis as to be within the reach of anybody. The most difficult task is the cure of those produced
by nutritional deficiencies.
In a more advanced stage there may even be laboratory technicians, if there are good hospitals, in
order to have a complete outfit. Calls should be made to all sectors of the profession whose services
are needed; it is quite likely that many will respond to this call and come to lend their help.
Professionals of all classes are needed; surgeons are very useful, dentists as well. Dentists should be
advised to come with a simple campaign apparatus and a campaign-type drill; working with this
they can do practically everything necessary.
5. SABOTAGE
Sabotage is one of the invaluable arms of a people that fights in guerrilla form. Its organization falls
under the civil or clandestine branch, since sabotage should be carried out, of course, only outside
the territories dominated by the revolutionary army; but this organization should be directly
commanded and oriented by the general staff of the guerrillas, which will be responsible for
deciding the industries, communications, or other objectives that are to be attacked.
Sabotage has nothing to do with terrorism; terrorism and personal assaults are entirely different
tactics. We sincerely believe that terrorism is of negative value, that it by no means produces the
desired effects, that it can turn a people against a revolutionary movement, and that it can bring a
loss of lives to its agents out of proportion to what it produces. On the other hand, attempts to take
the lives of particular persons are to be made, though only in very special circumstances; this tactic
should be used where it will eliminate a leader of the oppression. What ought never to be done is to
employ specially trained, heroic, self-sacrificing human beings in eliminating a little assassin whose
death can provoke the destruction in reprisal of all the revolutionaries employed and even more.
Sabotage should be of two types: sabotage on a national scale against determined objectives, and
local sabotage against lines of combat. Sabotage on a national scale should be aimed principally at
destroying communications. Each type of communication can be destroyed in a different way; all of
them are vulnerable. For example, telegraph and telephone poles are easily destroyed by sawing
them almost all the way through, so that at night they appear to be in normal condition; a sudden
kick causes one pole to fall and this drags along with it all those that are weak, producing a blackout
of considerable extent.
Bridges can be attacked with dynamite; if there is no dynamite, those made of steel can be made to
fall very easily with an oxyacetylene blowtorch. A steel truss bridge should be cut in its main beam
and in the upper beam from which the bridge hangs. When these two beams have been cut at one
end with the torch, they are then cut at the opposite end. The bridge will fall completely on one side
and will be twisted and destroyed. This is the most effective way to knock out a steel bridge without
dynamite. Railroads should also be destroyed, as should roads and culverts; at times trains should
be blown up, if the power of the guerrilla band makes this possible.
Utilizing the necessary equipment will also destroy the vital industries of each region at certain
moments. In these cases it is necessary to have an overall view of the problem and to be sure that a
center of work is not destroyed unless the moment is decisive, since this brings with it as a
consequence massive unemployment of workers and hunger. The enterprises belonging to the
potentates of the regime should be eliminated (and attempts made to convince the workers of the
need for doing so), unless this will bring very grave social consequences.
We reiterate the importance of sabotage against communications. The great strength of the enemy
army against the rebels in the flatter zones is rapid communication; we must, then, constantly
undermine that strength by knocking out railroad bridges, culverts, electric lights, telephones; also
aqueducts and in general everything that is necessary for a normal and modern life.
Around the combat lines sabotage should be performed in the same way but with much more
audacity, with much more dedication and frequency. Here it is possible to count on the invaluable
aid of the flying patrols of the guerrilla army, which can descend into these zones and help the
members of the civil organization perform a given task. Again, sabotage ought to be aimed
principally at communications, but with much more persistence. All factories, all centers of
production that are capable of giving the enemy something needed to maintain his offensive against
the popular forces, ought also to be liquidated.
Emphasis should be placed on seizing merchandise, cutting supplies as much as possible, if
necessary frightening the large landowners who want to sell their farm products, burning vehicles
that travel along the roads, and using them to blockade the roads. It is expedient in every action of
sabotage that frequent contact be made with the enemy army at points not far away, always
following the system of hit and run. It is not necessary to put up a serious resistance, but simply to
show the adversary that in the area where the sabotage has been carried out there are guerrilla forces
disposed to fight. This forces him to take a large number of troops, to go with care, or not to go at
all.
Thus, little by little, all the cities in the zone surrounding guerrilla operations will be paralyzed.
6. WAR INDUSTRY
Industries of war within the sector of the guerrilla army must be the product of a rather long
evolution; they also depend upon control of territory in a geographic situation favorable for the
guerrilla. At a time when there are liberated zones and when the enemy establishes strict blockades
over all supplies, different departments will be organized as necessary, in the manner already
described. There are two fundamental industries, of which one is the manufacture of shoes and
leather goods. It is not possible for a troop to walk without shoes in wooded zones, hilly, with many
rocks and thorns. It is very difficult to march without shoes in such conditions; only the natives, and
not all of them, can do it. The rest must have shoes. The industry is divided into two parts, one for
putting on half-soles and repairing damaged shoes; the other will be devoted to the manufacture of
rough shoes. There should be a small but complete apparatus for making shoes; since this is a
simple industry practiced by many people in such regions it is very easy to procure. Connected with
the shoe repair works there ought always to be a shop making all classes of canvas and leather
goods for use by the troop, such as cartridge belts and knapsacks. Although these articles are not
vital, they contribute to comfort and give a feeling of autonomy, of adequate supply, and of selfreliance
to the troop.
An armory is the other fundamental industry for the small internal organization of the guerrilla
band. This also has different functions: that of simple repair of damaged weapons, of rifles, and
other available arms; the function of manufacturing certain types of combat arms that the
inventiveness of the people will create; and the preparation of mines with various mechanisms.
When conditions permit, equipment for the manufacture of powder may be added. If it is possible to
manufacture the explosive as well as the percussion mechanisms in free territory, brilliant
achievements can be scored in this category, which is a very important one, because
communications by road can be completely paralyzed by the adequate employment of mines.
Another group of industries that has its importance will make iron and tin products. In the iron
works will be centered all labor connected with the equipping of the mules, such as making their
shoes. In the tin works the fabrication of plates and especially of canteens is important. A foundry
can be joined with the tin works. By melting soft metals it is possible to make grenades, which with
a special type of charge will contribute in an important way to the armament of the troop. There
ought to be a technical team for general repair and construction work of varied types, the "service
battery," as it is called in regular armies. With the guerrillas it would operate as such, taking care of
all necessities, but without any vestige of the bureaucratic spirit.
Someone must be in charge of communications. He will have as his responsibility not only
propaganda communications, such as radio directed toward the outside, but also telephones and
roads of all types. We will use the civil organization as necessary in order to perform his duties
effectively. Remember that we are in a period of war subject to attack by the military and that often
many lives depend upon timely communication.
For accommodating the troop it is well to have cigarette and cigar factories. The leaf can be bought
in selected places and carried to free territory where the articles for consumption by the soldiers can
be manufactured. An industry for preparing leather from hides is also of great importance. All these
are simple enterprises that can operate quite well anywhere and are easy to establish in the guerrilla
situation. The industry for making leather requires some small construction with cement; also it
uses large amounts of salt; but it will be an enormous advantage to the shoe industry to have its own
supply of raw material. Salt should be made in revolutionary territory and accumulated in large
quantities. It is made by evaporating water of a high saline concentration. The sea is the best source,
though there may be others. It is not necessary to purify it of other ingredients for purposes of
consumption, though these give it a flavor that is disagreeable at first.
Meat should be conserved in the form of jerked beef, which is easy to prepare. This can save many
lives among the troop in extreme situations. It can be conserved with salt in large barrels for a fairly
long time, and it can then be eaten in any circumstances.
7. PROPAGANDA
The revolutionary idea should be diffused by means of appropriate media to the greatest depth
possible. This requires complete equipment and an organization. This organization should be of two
types which complement each other in covering the whole national area: for propaganda originating
outside free territory, that is, from the national civil organization; and propaganda originating
within, that is, from the base of the guerrilla army. In order to coordinate these two propagandas,
the functions of which are strictly related, there should be a single director for the whole effort.
Propaganda of the national type from civil organizations outside free territory should be distributed
in newspapers, bulletins, and proclamations. The most important newspapers will be devoted to
general matters in the country and will inform the public exactly of the state of the guerrilla forces,
observing always the fundamental principle that truth in the long run is the best policy. Besides
these publications of general interest there must be others more specialized for different sectors of
the population. A publication for the countryside should bring to the peasant class a message from
their companions in all the free zones who have already felt the beneficial effects of the revolution;
this strengthens the aspirations of the peasantry. A workers' newspaper will have similar
characteristics, with the sole difference that it cannot always offer a message from the combatant
part of that class, since it is likely that workers' organizations will not operate within the framework
of guerrilla warfare until the last stages.
The great watchwords of the revolutionary movement, the watchword of a general strike at an
opportune moment, of help to the rebel forces, of unity, etc., should be explained. Other periodicals
can be published; for example, one explaining the tasks of those elements in the whole island which
are not combatants but which nevertheless carry out diverse acts of sabotage, of attempts, etc.
Within the organization there can be periodicals aimed at the enemy's soldiers; these will explain
facts of which they are otherwise kept ignorant. News bulletins and proclamations about the
movement are very useful.
The most effective propaganda is that which is prepared within the guerrilla zone. Priority will be
given to the diffusion of ideas among natives of the zone, offering explanations of the theoretical
significance of the insurrection, already known to them as a fact. In this zone there will also be
peasant periodicals, the general organ of all the guerrilla forces, and bulletins and proclamations.
There will also be the radio.
All problems should be discussed by radio-for example, the way to defend oneself from air attacks
and location of the enemy forces, citing familiar names among them. Propaganda for the whole
nation will use newspapers of the same type as those prepared outside free territory, but it can
produce fresher and more exact news, reporting facts and battles that are extremely interesting to
the reader. Information on international affairs will be confined almost exclusively to commentary
on facts that are directly related to the struggle of liberation.
The propaganda that will be the most effective in spite of everything, that which will spread most
freely over the whole national area to reach the reason and the sentiments of the people, is words
over the radio. The radio is a factor of extraordinary importance. At moments when war fever is
more or less palpitating in every one in a region or a country, the inspiring, burning word increases
this fever and communicates it to every one of the future combatants. It explains, teaches, fires, and
fixes the future positions of both friends and enemies. However, the radio should be ruled by the
fundamental principle of popular propaganda, which is truth; it is preferable to tell the truth, small
in its dimensions, than a large lie artfully embellished. On the radio news should be given,
especially of battles, of encounters of all types, and assassinations committed by the repression;
also, doctrinal orientations and practical lessons to the civil population; and, from time to time,
speeches by the chiefs of the revolution. We consider it useful that the principal newspaper of the
movement bear a name that recalls something great and unifying, perhaps a national hero or
something similar. Also, it should explain in articles of depth where the armed movement is going.
It ought to create a consciousness of the great national problems, besides offering sections of more
lively interest for the reader.
8. INTELLIGENCE
"Know yourself and your adversary and you will be able to fight a hundred battles without a single
disaster." This Chinese aphorism is as valuable for guerrilla warfare as a biblical psalm. Nothing
gives more help to combatant forces than correct information. This arrives spontaneously from the
local inhabitants, who will come to tell its friendly army, its allies, what is happening in various
places; but in addition it should be completely systematized. As we saw, there should be a postal
organization with necessary contacts both within and outside guerrilla zones for carrying messages
and merchandise. An intelligence service also should be in direct contact with enemy fronts. Men
and women, especially women, should infiltrate; they should be in permanent contact with soldiers
and gradually discover what there is to be discovered. The system must be coordinated in such a
way that crossing the enemy lines into the guerrilla camp can be carried out without mishap.
If this is well done with competent agents the insurgent camp will be able to sleep more quietly.
This intelligence will be concerned principally, as I have already said, with the front line of fire or
the forward enemy encampments that are in contact with no man's land; but it ought also to develop
in the same measure as the guerrilla band develops, increasing its depth of operation and its
potential to foresee larger troop movements in the enemy rear. Though all inhabitants are
intelligence agents for the guerrilla band in the places where it is dominant or makes incursions, it is
wise to have persons especially assigned to this duty. The peasants, not accustomed to precise battle
language, have a strong tendency to exaggerate, so their reports must be checked. As the
spontaneous forms of popular collaboration are molded and organized, it is possible to use the
intelligence apparatus not only as an extremely important auxiliary but also as a weapon of attack
by using its personnel, for example, as "sowers of fear." Pretending to be on the side of the enemy
soldiers, they sow fear and instability by spreading discouraging information. By knowing exactly
the places where the enemy troop is going to attack, it is easy to avoid him or, when the time is ripe,
to attack him at places where it is least expected. Mobility, the basic tactic, can be developed to the
maximum.
9. TRAINING AND INDOCTRINATION
The fundamental training of the soldier of liberation is the life itself with the guerrilla band, and no
one can be a chief who has not learned his difficult office in daily, armed exercises. Life with some
companions will teach something about the handling of arms, about principles of orientation, about
the manner of treating the civil population, about fighting, etc.; but the precious time of the guerrilla
band is not to be consumed in methodical teaching. This begins only when there is a large liberated
area and a large number of persons are needed for carrying out a combat function. Schools for
recruits will then be established. These schools then perform a very important function. They are to
form new soldiers from persons who have not passed through that excellent sieve of formidable
privations, guerrilla combatant life. Other privations must be suffered at the outset to convert them
into the truly chosen. After having passed through very difficult tests, they will arrive at
incorporating themselves into the kingdom of an army that lives from day to day and leaves no
traces of its path anywhere. They ought to perform physical exercises, mainly of two types: an agile
gymnastic with training for war of a commando type, which demands agility in attack and
withdrawal; and hikes that are hard and exhausting that will serve to toughen the recruit for this
kind of existence. Above all, they should live in the open air. They should suffer all the
inclemencies of the weather in close contact with nature, as the guerrilla band does.
The school for recruits must have workers who will take care of its supply needs. For this there
should be cattle sheds, grain sheds, gardens, dairy, everything necessary, so that the school will not
constitute a charge on the general budget of the guerrilla army. The students can serve in rotation in
the work of sup- ply, either as punishment for bad conduct or simply as volunteers. This will
depend upon characteristics proper to the zone where the school is being held. We believe that a
good principle is to assign volunteers and to cover the remaining work quotas with those who have
the poorest conduct and show the poorest disposition for learning warfare.
The school should have its small medical organization with a doctor or nurse, according to the p05-
sibilities; this will provide the recruits with the best possible attention.
Shooting is the basic apprenticeship (See Picture 3-1). The guerrilla fighter should be carefully
trained in this respect, so that he will try to expend the least possible amount of ammunition. He
begins by practicing what is called dry shooting. It consists of seating the rifle firmly on any kind of
wooden apparatus as shown in the picture. Without moving or firing the rifle the recruits direct the
movement of a target until they think they have a hole at the center exactly in the line of sight. A
mark is made on a backboard that remains stationary. If the mark for three tries gives a single point,
this is excellent. When circumstances permit, practice with 22-calibre rifles will begin; this is very
useful. If there is an excess of ammunition or a great need for preparing soldiers, opportunity will
be given to fire with bullets.
One of the most important courses in the school for recruits, one which we hold to be basic and
which can be given in any place in the world, is in meeting attack from the air Our school had been
positively identified from the air and received attacks once or twice daily. The form in which the
students resisted the impact of these continuous bombardments on their regular places of instruction
virtually showed which of the young men had possibilities for becoming useful soldiers in battle.
The important thing, that which must never be neglected in a school for recruits, is indoctrination;
this is important because the men arrive without a clear conception as to why they come, with
nothing more than very diffuse concepts about liberty, freedom of the press, etc., without any clear
foundation whatever. Therefore, the indoctrination should be carried out with maximum dedication
and for the maximum amount of time possible. These courses should offer elementary notions about
the history of the country, explained with a clear sense of the economic facts that motivate each of
the historic acts; accounts of the national heroes and their manner of reacting when confronted with
certain injustices; and afterwards an analysis of the national situation or of the situation in the zone.
A short primer should be well studied by all members of the rebel army, so that it can serve as a
skeleton of that which will come later.
There should also be a school for training teachers, where agreement can be reached on the choice
of texts to be used, taking as a basis the contribution that each book can make to the educational
process.
Reading should be encouraged at all times, with an effort to promote books that are worthwhile and
that enlarge the recruit's facility to encounter the world of letters and great national problems.
Further reading will follow as a vocation; the surrounding circumstances will awaken new desires
for understanding in the soldiers. This result will be produced when, little by little, the recruits
observe in their routine tasks the enormous advantages of men who have passed through the school
over the remainder of the troop, their capacity for analyzing problems, their superior discipline,
which is another of the fundamental things that the school should teach.
This discipline should be internal, not mechanical but justified by reasons and designed to produce
formidable benefits in moments of combat.
10. THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE ARMY OF A REVOLUTIONARY
MOVEMENT
As we have seen, a revolutionary army of a guerrilla type, whatever its zone of operations, should
also have a non-combatant organization for the performance of a series of extremely important
auxiliary missions. We shall see later that this whole organization converges to lend the army
maximum help, since obviously the armed fight is the crucial factor in the triumph.
The military organization is headed by a commander-in-chief, in the case of the Cuban experience
by a commandant, who names the commanders of the different regions or zones; these latter have
authority to govern their respective territories of action, to name column commanders, that is to say,
the chiefs of each column, and the other lower officers.
Under the commander-in-chief there will be the zone commanders; under them several columns of
varying size, each with a column commander; under the column commanders there will be captains
and lieutenants, which, in our guerrilla organization, were the lowest grade. In other words, the first
rank above the soldiers was the lieutenant.
This is not a model but a description of one reality, of how the organization worked in one country
where it proved possible to achieve triumph over an army that was fairly well organized and armed.
Even less here than in other respects is our experience a pattern. It simply shows how as events
develop it is possible to organize an armed force. The ranks certainly have no importance, but it is
important that no rank should be conferred that does not correspond to the effective battle force
commanded. Ranks should not be given to persons who have not passed through the sieve of
sacrifice and struggle, for that would conflict with morality and justice.
The description given above refers to a well-developed army, already capable of waging a serious
combat. In the first stage of the guerrilla band, the chief can take the rank he likes, but he will still
command only a small group of men.
One of the most important features of military organization is disciplinary punishment. Discipline
must be one of the bases of action of the guerrilla forces (this must be repeated again and again). As
we have already said, it should spring from a carefully reasoned internal conviction; this produces
an individual with inner discipline. When this discipline is violated, it is necessary always to punish
the offender, whatever his rank, and to punish him drastically in a way that hurts.
This is important, because pain is not felt by a guerrilla soldier in the same way as by a soldier of
the regular army. The punishment of putting a soldier in jail for ten days constitutes for the guerrilla
fighter a magnificent period of rest; ten days with nothing to do but eat, no marching, no work, no
standing the customary guards, sleeping at will, resting, reading, etc. From this it can be deduced
that deprivation of liberty ought not to be the only punishment available in the guerrilla situation.
When the combat morale of the individual is very high and self-respect strong, deprivation of his
right to be armed can constitute a true punishment for the individual and provoke a positive
reaction. In such cases, this is an expedient punishment. The following painful incident is an
example. During the battle for one of the cities of Las Villas province in the final days of the war,
we found an individual asleep in a chair while others were attacking positions in the middle of the
town. When questioned, the man responded that he was sleeping because he had been deprived of
his weapon for firing accidentally. He was told that this was not the way to react to punishment and
that he should regain his weapon, not in this way, but in the first line of combat.
A few days passed, and as the final assault on the city of Santa Clara began, we visited the first-aid
hospital. A dying man there extended his hand, recalling the episode I have narrated, affirmed that
he had been capable of recovering his weapon and had earned the right to carry it. Shortly
afterwards, he died.
This was the grade of revolutionary morale that our troop achieved through the continual exercise
of armed struggle. It is not possible to achieve it at the outset, when there are still many who are
frightened, and subjective currents serve to put a brake on the influence of the Revolution; but
finally it is reached through work and through the force of continual example.
Long night watches and forced marches can also serve as punishments; but the marches are not
really practical, since they consume the individual to no purpose other than that of punishment, and
they require guards who also wear themselves out. The guards suffer the further inconvenience of
having to keep a watch on the persons being punished, who are soldiers of scant revolutionary
mentality.
In the forces directly under my command I imposed the punishment of arrest with privation of
sweets and cigarettes for light offenses and a total deprivation of food for worse offenses. The result
was magnificent, even though the punishment was terrible; it is advisable only in very special
circumstances.
APPENDICES
1. ORGANIZATION IN SECRET OF THE FIRST GUERRILLA BAND
Guerrilla warfare obeys laws, some derived from the general laws of war and others owing to its
own special character. If there is a real intention to begin the struggle from some foreign cou9try or
from distant and remote regions within the same country, it is obvious that it must begin in small
conspiratorial movements of secret members acting without mass support or knowledge. If the
guerrilla movement is born spontaneously out of the reaction of a group of individuals to some form
of coercion, it is possible that the later organization of this guerrilla nucleus to prevent its
annihilation will be sufficient for a beginning. But generally guerrilla warfare starts from a wellconsidered
act of will: some chief with prestige starts an uprising for the salvation of his people,
beginning his work in difficult conditions in a foreign country.
Almost all the popular movements undertaken against dictators in recent times have suffered from
the same fundamental fault of inadequate preparation. The rules of conspiracy, which demand
extreme secrecy and caution, have not generally been observed. The governmental power of the
country frequently knows in advance about the intentions of the group or groups, either through its
secret service or from imprudent revelations or in some cases from outright declarations, as
occurred, for example, in our case, in which the invasion was announced and summed up in the
phrase of Fidel Castro. "In the year '56 we will be free or we will be martyrs."
Absolute secrecy, a total absence of information in the enemy's hands, should be the primary base
of the movement. Secondly and also very important is selection of the human material. At times this
selection can be carried out easily, but at others it will be extremely difficult, since it is necessary to
rely on those elements that are available, longtime exiles or persons who present themselves when
the call goes out simply because they understand that it is their duty to enroll in the battle to liberate
their country, etc. There may not be the necessary facilities for making a complete investigation of
these individuals. Nevertheless, even though elements of the enemy regime introduce themselves, it
is unpardonable that they should later be able to pass information, because in the period just prior to
an action all those who are going to participate should be concentrated in secret places known only
to one or two persons; they should be under the strict vigilance of their chiefs and without the
slightest contact with the outside world. Whenever there are concentrations, whether as a
preparation for departure or in order to carry out preliminary training or simply to hide from the
police, it is necessary always to keep all new personnel about whom there is no clear knowledge
available away from the key places.
In underground conditions no one, absolutely no one, should know anything more than the strictly
indispensable; and there ought not to be talk in front of anyone. When certain types of concentration
have been carried out, it is necessary even to control letters that leave and arrive in order to have a
total knowledge of the contacts that the individuals maintain; no one should be permitted to live
alone, nor to go out alone; personal contacts of the future member of the liberating army, contacts
of any type, should be prevented by every means. However positive the role of women in the
struggle, it must be emphasized that they can also play a destructive part. The weakness for women
that young men have when living apart from their habitual medium of life in special, even psychic
conditions, is well known. As dictators are well aware of this weakness, they try to use it for
infiltrating their spies. At times the relationship of these women with their superiors is clear and
even notorious; at other times, it is extremely difficult to discover even the slightest evidence of
contact; therefore, it is necessary also to prohibit relations with women.
The revolutionary in a clandestine situation preparing for war should be a complete ascetic; this also
serves to test one of the qualities that later will be the basis of his authority, discipline. If an
individual repeatedly disobeys orders of his superiors and makes contacts with women, contracts
friendships that arc not permitted, etc., he should be separated immediately, not merely because of
the potential dangers in the contacts, but simply because of the violation of revolutionary discipline.
Unconditional help should not be expected from a government, whether friendly or simply
negligent, that allows its territory to be used as a base of operations; one should regard the situation
as if he were in a completely hostile camp. The few exceptions that of course can occur are really
confirmations of the general rule.
We shall not speak here of the number of persons that should be readied. This depends upon so
many and such varied conditions that it is practically impossible to specify. But the minimum
number with which it is possible to initiate a guerrilla war can be mentioned. In my opinion,
considering the normal desertions and weaknesses in spite of the rigorous process of selection, there
should be a nucleus of 30 to 50 men; this figure is sufficient to initiate an armed fight in any
country of the Americas with their conditions of favorable territory for operations, hunger for land,
repeated attacks upon justice, etc.
Weapons, as has already been said, should be of the same type as those used by the enemy.
Considering always that every government is in principle hostile to a guerrilla action being
undertaken from its territory, the bands that prepare themselves should not be greater than
approximately 50 to 100 men per unit. In other words, though there is no objection to 500 men
initiating a war, all 500 should not be concentrated in one place. They are so numerous as to attract
attention and in case of any betrayal of confidence or of any raid, the whole group falls; on the other
hand, it is more difficult to raid various places simultaneously.
The central headquarters for meetings can be more or less known, and the exiled persons will go
there to hold meetings of all types; but the leaders ought not to be present except very sporadically,
and there should be no compromising documents. The leaders should use as many different houses
as possible, those least likely to be under surveillance. Arms deposits should be distributed in
several places, if possible; these should be an absolute secret, known to only one or two people.
Weapons should be delivered into the hands of those who are going to use them only when the war
is about to be initiated. Thus a punitive action against persons who are training, while leading to
their imprisonment, will not produce a loss of arms that are very difficult to procure. Popular forces
are not in any condition to suffer such a loss.
Another important factor to which due attention must be given is preparation of the forces for the
extremely hard fight that is going to follow. These forces should have a strict discipline, a high
morale, and a clear comprehension of the task to be performed, without conceit, without illusions,
without false hopes of an easy triumph. The struggle will be bitter and long, reverses will be
suffered; they can be at the brink of annihilation; only high morale, discipline, faith in final victory,
and exceptional leadership can save them. This was our Cuban experience; at one time twelve men
were able to form the nucleus of the future army, because all these conditions were met and because
the one who led us was named Fidel Castro.
Besides ideological and moral preparations, careful physical training is necessary. The guerrillas
will, of course, select a mountainous or very wild zone for their operations. At any rate, in whatever
situation they find themselves, the basic tactic of the guerrilla army is the march, and neither slow
men nor tired men can be tolerated. Adequate training therefore includes exhausting hikes day and
night, day after day, increasing gradually, always continued to the brink of exhaustion, with
emulation used to increase speed. Resistance and speed will be fundamental qualities of the first
guerrilla nucleus. Also a series of theoretical principles can be taught, for example, direction
finding, reading, and forms of sabotage. If possible, there should be training with military rifles,
frequent firing, above all at distant targets, and much instruction about the way to economize
bullets.
To the guerrilla fighter, economy and utilization of ammunition down to the last bullet should be almost
like religious tenets. If all these admonitions are followed, the guerrilla forces may well reach
their goal.
2. DEFENSE OF POWER THAT HAS BEEN WON
Naturally victory cannot be considered as finally won until the army that sustained the former
regime has been systematically and totally smashed. Further, all the institutions that sheltered the
former regime should be wiped out. But since this is a manual for guerrilla bands we will confine
ourselves to analyzing the problem of national defense in case of war or aggression against the new
power.
The first development we meet is that world public opinion, "the respectable press," the "truthful"
news agencies of the United States and of the other countries belonging to the monopolies will
begin an attack on the liberated country, an attack as aggressive and systematic as the laws of
popular reform. For this reason not even a skeleton of personnel from the for-former army can be
retained. Militarism, mechanical obedience, traditional concepts of military duty, discipline and
morale cannot be eradicated with one blow. Nor can the victors, who are good fighters, decent and
kindhearted, but at the same time generally lacking education, be allowed to remain in contact with
the vanquished, who are proud of their specialized military knowledge in some combat arm- in
mathematics, fortifications, logistics, etc.-and who hate the uncultured guerrilla fighters with all
their might.
There are, of course, individual cases of military men who break with the past and enter into the
new organization with a spirit of complete cooperation. These persons are doubly useful, because
they unite with their love of the people's cause the knowledge necessary for carrying forward the
creation of the new popular army A second step will be consequent upon the first: as the old army is
smashed and dismembered as an institution and its former posts occupied by the new army, it will
be necessary to reorganize the new force. Its former guerrilla character, operating under
independent chiefs without planning, can be changed; but it is very important to emphasize that
operational concepts of the guerrilla band should still serve as the guide to structure. These concepts
will determine the organic formation and the equipment of the popular army. Care should be taken
to avoid the error that we fell into during the first months of trying to put the new popular army into
the old bottles of military discipline and ancient organization. This error can cause serious
maladjustments and can lead to a complete lack of organization.
Preparation should begin immediately for the new defensive war that will have to be fought by the
people's army, accustomed to independence of command within the common struggle and
dynamism in the management of each armed group. This army will have two immediate problems.
One will be the in- corporation of thousands of last-hour revolutionaries, good and bad, whom it is
necessary to train for the rigors of guerrilla life and to give revolutionary indoctrination in
accelerated and intensive courses. Revolutionary indoctrination that gives the necessary ideological
unity to the army of the people is the basis of national security both in the long and short runs. The
other problem is the difficulty of adaptation to the new organizational structure.
A corps to take charge of sowing the new truths of the Revolution among all the units of the army
should immediately be created. It should explain to the soldiers, peasants, and workers, who have
come out of the mass of the people, the justice and the truth of each revolutionary act, the
aspirations of the Revolution, why there is a fight, why so many companions have died without
seeing the victory. United to this intensive indoctrination, accelerated courses of primary instruction
that will begin to overcome illiteracy should also be given, in order to improve the rebel army
gradually until it has become an instrument of high technical qualifications, solid ideological
structure, and magnificent combat power.
Time will create these three qualities. The military apparatus can continue to be perfected as time
goes on; the former combatants can be given special courses to prepare them to serve as
professional military men who will then give annual courses of instruction to the people joining
voluntarily or by conscription. This will depend on national characteristics and rules cannot be
stated.
From this point forward we are expressing the opinion of the command of the Rebel Army with
respect to the policy to be followed in the concrete Cuban situation, given the menace of foreign
invasion, the conditions of the modern world at the end of 1959 or the beginning of 1960, with the
enemy in sight, analyzed, evaluated, and awaited without fear. In other words, we are no longer
theorizing for the instruction of others about what has already been done; rather we theorize about
what has been done by others in order to apply it ourselves in our own national defense.
As our problem is to theorize about the Cuban case, and locate and test our hypothesis on the map
of American realities, we present as an epilogue the following analysis of the Cuban situation, its
present and its future.
EPILOGUE
ANALYSIS OF THE CUBAN SITUATION, ITS PRESENT AND ITS FUTURE
A year has now passed since the flight of the dictator, the culmination of a long armed civil struggle
by the Cuban people. The achievements of the government in the social, economic, and political
fields are enormous; nevertheless, it is necessary to analyze them, to evaluate each act and to show
precisely the dimensions of our Cuban Revolution. This national Revolution, fundamentally
agrarian, having the enthusiastic support of workers, of people from the middle class and today
even of owners of industry, has acquired a continental and world-wide importance, enhanced by its
peculiar characteristics and by the inflexible will of the people.
It will not be possible to present a synthesis, however brief, of all the laws passed, all of them
undoubtedly of popular benefit. It will be enough to select a few for special emphasis and to show
at the same time the logical chain that carries us forward, step by step, in a progressive and
necessary order of concern for the problems of the Cuban people.
The first alarm for the parasitic classes of the country is sounded in the rent law, the reduction of
electric rates, and government intervention in the telephone company followed by a reduction in
rates, all decreed in rapid succession. Those who had thought Fidel Castro and the men who made
this Revolution to be nothing more than politicians of the old style, manageable simpletons with
beards their only distinction, now began to suspect that something deeper was emerging from the
bosom of the Cuban people and that their privileges were in danger. The word "Communism" began
to envelop the figures of the leaders and of the triumphant guerrilla fighters; consequently the word
anti-Communism, as the position dialectically opposed, began to serve as a nucleus for all those
who resented the loss of their unjust privileges.
The law on vacant lots and the law on installment sales aggravated this sensation of malaise among
the usurious capitalists. But these were minor skirmishes with the reactionaries; everything was still
all right and possible. "This crazy fellow," Fidel Castro, could be counseled and guided to good
paths, to good "democratic" paths, by a Dubois or a Porter. It was necessary to place hope in the
future.
The Agrarian Reform law was a tremendous jolt. Most of those who had been hurt now saw clearly.
One of the first was Gaston Baquero, the voice of reaction; he had accurately interpreted what was
going to happen and had retired to quieter scenes under the Spanish dictatorship. There were still
some who thought that "the law is the law," that other governments had already promulgated such
laws, theoretically designed to help the people. Carrying out these laws was another thing. That
brash and complex child that had the initials INRA for its familiar name was treated at the
beginning with peevish and touching paternalism within the ivory towers of learning, pervaded with
social doctrines and respectable theories of public finance, to which the uncultivated and absurd
mentalities of the guerrilla fighters could not arrive. But INRA advanced like a tractor or a war
tank, because it is tractor and tank at the same time, breaking down the walls of the great estates as
it passed and creating new social relations in the ownership of land. This Cuban Agrarian Reform
appeared with various characteristics important for America. It was anti-feudal in the sense that it
eliminated the Cuban-style latifundia, annulled all contracts that called for payment of rent of land
in crops, and liquidated the servile relations that existed principally in coffee and tobacco
production, two important branches of our agriculture. But it also was an Agrarian Reform in a
capitalist medium to destroy the pressure of monopoly on human beings, isolated or joined together,
to help them work their land honorably and to produce without fear of the creditor or the master. It
had the characteristic from the first moment of assuring to peasants and agricultural workers, those
who give themselves to the soil, needed technical help from competent personnel; machinery;
financial help provided through credits from INRA or para-state banks; and big help from the
"Association of People's Stores" that has developed on a large scale in Oriente and is in process of
development in other provinces. The state stores, replacing the old usurers, provide just financing
and pay a just price for the harvest.
Compared with the other three great agrarian reforms in America (Mexico, Guatemala, and Bolivia)
the most important distinctive characteristic is the decision to carry Cuban reform all the way,
without concessions or exceptions of any kind. This total Agrarian Reform respects no rights that
are not rights of the people nor singles out any class or nationality for discriminatory treatment: the
force of the law falls equally on the United Fruit Company and on the King Ranch, as on the big
Cuban landowners.
Under these conditions land is being cleared, mainly for the production of crops which are very
important to the country, rice, oil-producing grains and cotton; these are being intensively
developed. But the nation is not satisfied and is going to recover all its stolen resources. Its rich subsoil,
which has been a field of monopolist voracity and struggle, is virtually recovered by the
petroleum law. This law, like the Agrarian Reform and all the others promulgated by the
Revolution, responds to Cuba's irresistible necessities, to urgent demands of a people that wishes to
be free, that wishes to be master of its economy, that wishes to prosper and to reach ever higher
goals of social development. But for this very reason it is an example for the continent and feared
by the oil monopolies. It is not that Cuba directly hurts the petroleum monopoly substantially. There
is no reason to believe the country to be rich in reserves of the prized fuel, even though there are
reasonable hopes of obtaining a supply that will satisfy its internal needs. On the other hand, by its
law Cuba gives a palpable example to the brother peoples of America, many of them foraged by
these monopolies or pushed into intercine wars in order to satisfy the necessities or appetites of
competing trusts. At the same time Cuba shows the possibility of acting in America and the exact
hour when action ought to be considered. The great monopolies also cast their worried look upon
Cuba; not only has someone in the little island of the Caribbean dared to liquidate the interests of
the omnipotent United Fruit Company, legacy of Mr. Foster Dulles to his heirs; but also the empires
of Mr. Rockefeller and the Deutsch group have suffered under the lash of intervention by the
popular Cuban Revolution.
This law, like the mining law, is the response of the people to those who try to check them with
threats of force, with aerial incursions, with punishments of whatever type. Some say that the
mining law is as important as the Agrarian Reform. We do not consider that it has this importance
for the economy of the country in general, but it introduces another new feature: a 25 percent tax on
the amount of product exported, to be paid by companies that sell our minerals abroad (leaving now
something more than a hole in our territory). This not only contributes to our Cuban welfare; it also
increases the relative strength of the Canadian monopolies in their struggle with the present
exploiters of our nickel. Thus the Cuban Revolution liquidates the latifundia, limits the profits of
the foreign monopolies, limits the profits of the foreign intermediaries that dedicate themselves with
parasitic capital to the commerce of importation, launches upon the world a new policy in America,
dares to break the monopolist status of the giants of mining, and leaves one of them in difficulty, to
say the least. This signifies a powerful new message to the neighbors of the great stronghold of
monopoly, and causes repercussions throughout America. The Cuban Revolution breaks all the
barriers of the news syndicates and diffuses its truth like a shower of dust among the American
masses anxious for a better life. Cuba is the symbol of nationality renewed and Fidel Castro the
symbol of liberation.
By a simple law of gravity the little island of one hundred fourteen thousand square kilometers and
six and one-half million inhabitants assumes the leadership in the anti-colonial struggle in America,
in which serious handicaps in other countries permit Cuba to take the heroic, glorious and
dangerous advanced post. The economically less weak nations of colonial America, the ones in
which national capitalism develops haltingly in a continuous, relentless, and at times violent
struggle against the foreign monopolies, now cede their place gradually to this small, new champion
of liberty, since their governments do not have sufficient force to carry the fight forward. This is not
a simple task, nor is it free from danger and difficulties. The backing of a whole people and an
enormous charge of idealism and spirit of sacrifice are needed in the nearly solitary conditions in
which we are carrying it out in America. Small countries have tried to maintain this post before
Guatemala, the Guatemala of Quetzal, that dies when it is imprisoned in a cage, the Guatemala of
the Indian Tecum Umam, fell before the direct aggression of the colonialists. Bolivia, the country of
Morillo, the proto-martyr of American independence, yielded to the terrible hardships of the
struggle after setting three examples that served as the foundation of the Cuban Revolution: the
suppression of the army, agrarian reform, and nationalization of mines-maximum source of riches
and at the same time maximum source of tragedy.
Cuba knows about these previous examples, knows the failures and the difficulties, but it knows
also that we are at the dawning of a new era in the world. The pillars of colonialism have been
swept aside by the power of the national and popular struggle in Asia and Africa. Solidarity among
peoples does not now come from religion, customs, tastes, racial affinity or its lack. It arises from a
similarity in economic and social conditions and from a similarity in desire for progress and
recuperation. Asia and Africa joined hands in Bandung; Asia and Africa come to join hands with
colonial and indigenous America through Cuba, in Havana.
On the other hand, the great colonial powers have lost ground before the struggle of the peoples.
Belgium and Holland are two caricatures of empires; Germany and Italy lost their colonies. France
is bitterly fighting a war that is lost. England, diplomatic and skillful, liquidates political power
while maintaining the economic connections.
American capitalism replaced some of the old colonial capitalisms in the countries that began their
in- dependent life. But it knows that this is transitory and that there is no real security for its
financial speculations in these new territories. The octopus cannot there apply its suckers firmly.
The claw of the imperial eagle is trimmed. Colonialism is dead or is dying a natural death in all
these places.
America is something else. It has been some time since the English lion with its voracious appetite
departed from our America and the young and charming Yankee capitalists installed the
"democratic" version of the English clubs, imposing their sovereign domination over every one of
the twenty republics.
These is the colonial realm of North American monopoly, its reason for being and last hope, the
"backyard of its own house." If all the Latin American peoples should raise the flag of dignity, as
Cuba has done, monopoly would tremble; it would have to accommodate to a new politicaleconomic
situation and to substantial prunings of profits. Monopoly does not like profits to be
pruned, and the Cuban example, this "bad example" of national and international dignity, is gaining
strength in the countries of America. Each time that an impudent people cries out for liberation,
Cuba is accused; and it is true in a sense that Cuba is guilty, because Cuba has shown the way, the
way of the armed popular fight against armies supposed to be invincible, the way of struggle in wild
places to wear down and destroy the enemy far from his bases, in a word, the way of dignity.
This Cuban example is bad, a very bad example, and monopoly cannot sleep quietly while this bad
example remains at its feet, defying danger, advancing toward the future. It must be destroyed,
voices declare. It is necessary to intervene in this bastion of "Communism," cry the servants of
monopoly disguised as representatives in Congress. "The Cuban situation is very disturbing," say
the artful defenders of the trusts; we all know that their meaning is: "It must be destroyed."
Very well. What are the different possibilities of aggressive action to destroy the bad example? One
could be called the purely economic. These begins with a restriction on credit by North American
banks and suppliers to all businessmen, national banks, and even the National Bank of Cuba. Credit
is thus restricted in North America, and through the medium of associates an attempt is made to
have the same policy adopted in all the countries of Western Europe; but this alone is not sufficient.
The denial of credits strikes a first strong blow at the economy, but recovery is rapid and the
commercial balance evens out, since the victimized country is accustomed to living as best it can. It
is necessary to apply more pressure. The sugar quota is brought into the picture: yes, no, no, yes.
Hurriedly the calculating machines of the agents of monopoly total up all sorts of accounts and
arrive at the final conclusion: it is very dangerous to reduce the Cuban quota and impossible to
cancel it. Why very dangerous? Because besides being bad politics, it would awaken the appetite of
ten or fifteen other supplier countries, causing them tremendous discomfort, because they would all
consider they had a right to something more. It is impossible to cancel the quota, because Cuba is
the largest, most efficient, and cheapest provider of sugar to the United States, and because sixty
percent of the interests that profit directly from the production and commerce in sugar are United
States interests. Besides, the commercial balance is favorable to the United States; whoever does
not sell cannot buy; and it would set a bad example to break a treaty. Further, the supposed North
American gift of paying nearly three cents above the market price is only the result of North
American incapacity to produce sugar cheaply. The high wages and the low productivity of the soil
prevent the Great Power from producing sugar at Cuban prices; and by paying this higher price for
a product, they are able to impose burdensome treaties on all beneficiaries, not only Cuba.
Impossible to liquidate the Cuban quota.
We do not consider likely the possibility that monopolists are employing a variant of the economic
approach in bombarding and burning sugar cane fields, hoping to cause a scarcity of the product.
Rather this appears to be a measure calculated to weaken confidence in the power of the
revolutionary government. (The corpse of the North American mercenary stains more than a Cuban
house with blood; it also stains a policy. And what is to be said of the gigantic explosion of arms
destined for the Rebel Army?)
Another vulnerable place where the Cuban economy can be squeezed is the supply of raw materials,
such as cotton. However, it is well known that there is an over-production of cotton in the world,
and any difficulty of this type would be transitory. Fuel? This is worth some attention; it is possible
to paralyze a country by depriving it of fuel, and Cuba produces very little petroleum. It has some
heavy fuel that can be used to operate its steam-driven machinery and some alcohol that can be used
in vehicles; also, there are large amounts of petroleum in the world. Egypt can sell it, the Soviet
Union can sell it, perhaps Iraq will be able to sell it shortly. It is not possible to develop a purely
economic strategy
As another possibility of aggression, if to this economic variant were added an intervention by some
puppet power, the Dominican Republic, for example, it would be somewhat more of a nuisance; but
the United Nations would doubtless intervene, with nothing concrete having been achieved.
Incidentally, the new course taken by the Organization of American States creates a dangerous
precedent of intervention. Behind the shield of the Trujillo pretext, monopoly solaces itself by
constructing a means of aggression. It is sad that the Venezuelan democracy has put us in the
difficult position of having to oppose an intervention against Trujillo. What a good turn it has done
the pirates of the continent!
Among the new possibilities of aggression is physical elimination by means of an assault on the
"old fellow," Fidel Castro, who has become by now the focus of the monopolies' wrath. Naturally,
measures must be arranged so that the other two dangerous "international agents," Raul Castro and
the author, are also eliminated. This solution is appealing; if simultaneous assaults on all three or at
least on the directing head succeeded, it would be a boon to the reaction. (But do not forget the
people, Messrs. Monopolists and agents, the omnipotent people who in their fury at such a crime
would crush and erase all those who had anything to do directly or indirectly with an assault on any
of the chiefs of the Revolution; it would be impossible to restrain them.)
Another aspect of the Guatemalan variant is to put pressure on the suppliers of arms, in order to
force Cuba to buy in Communist countries and then use this as an occasion to let loose another
shower of insults. This could give results. "It may be," someone in our government has said, "that
they will attack us as Communists, but they are not going to eliminate us as imbeciles."
Thus it begins to appear as if a direct aggression on the part of the monopolies will be necessary;
various possible forms are being shuffled and studied in the IBM machines with all processes
calculated. It occurs to us at the moment that the Spanish variant could be used. The Spanish variant
would be one in which some initial pretext is seized upon for an attack by exiles with the help of
volunteers, volunteers who would be mercenaries of course, or simply the troops of a foreign
power, well supported by navy and air, well enough supported, shall we say, to be successful. It
could also begin as a direct aggression by some state such as the Dominican Republic, which would
send some of its men, our brothers, and many mercenaries to die on these beaches in order to
provoke war; this would prompt the pure-intentioned monopolists to say that they do not wish to
intervene in this "disastrous" struggle between brothers; they will merely limit and confine and
freeze the war within its present limits by maintaining vigilance over the skies and seas of this part
of America with cruisers, battleships, destroyers, aircraft carriers, submarines, minesweepers,
torpedo boats, and airplanes. And it could happen that while these zealous guardians of continental
peace were not allowing a single boat to pass with things for Cuba, some, many, or all of the boats
headed for the unhappy country of Trujillo would escape the iron vigilance. Also they might
intervene through some "reputable" inter-American organ, to put an end to the "foolish war" that
"Communism" had unleashed in our island; or, if this mechanism of the "reputable" American
organ did not serve, they might intervene directly, as in Korea, using the name of the international
organ in order to restore peace and protect the interests of all nations.
Perhaps the first step in the aggression will not be against us, but against the constitutional
government of Venezuela, in order to liquidate our last point of support on the continent. If this
happens, it is possible that the center of the struggle against colonialism will move from Cuba to the
great country of Bolivar. The people of Venezuela will rise to defend their liberties with all the
enthusiasm of those who know that they are fighting a decisive battle, that behind defeat lies the
darkest tyranny and behind victory the certain future of America. A stream of popular struggles can
disturb the peace of the monopolist cemeteries formed out of our subjugated sister republics.
Many reasons argue against the chance of enemy victory, but there are two fundamental ones. The
first is external: this is the year 1960, the year that will finally hear the voices of the millions of
beings who do not have the luck to be governed by the possessors of the means of death and
payment. Further, and this is an even more powerful reason, an army of six million Cubans will
grasp weapons as a single man in order to defend its territory and its Revolution. Cuba will be a
battlefield where the army will be nothing other than part of the people in arms. After destruction in
a frontal war, hundreds of guerrilla bands under a dynamic command and a single center of
orientation, will fight the battle all over the country. In cities the workers will die in their factories
or centers of work, and in the country the peasants will deal out death to the invader from behind
every palm tree and from every furrow of the new mechanically plowed field that the Revolution
has given them.
And around the world international solidarity will create a barrier of hundreds of millions of people
protesting against aggression. Monopoly will see how its pillars are undermined and how the spider
web curtain of its newspaper lies is swept away by a puff. But let us suppose that they dare to defy
the popular indignation of the world; what will happen here within?
The first thing to be noted, given our position as an easily vulnerable island without heavy arms,
with a very weak air force and navy, is the necessity of applying the guerrilla concept to the fight
for national defense. Our ground units will fight with the fervor, decision, and enthusiasm of which
the sons of the Cuban Revolution are capable in these glorious years of our history. But if the worst
occurs, we are prepared to continue fighting even after the destruction of our army organization in a
frontal combat. In other words, confronting large concentrations of enemy forces that succeed in
destroying ours, we would change immediately into a guerrilla army with a good sense of mobility,
with unlimited authority in our column commanders, though with a central command located
somewhere in the country giving the necessary direction and fixing the general overall strategy.
The mountains would be the last line of defense of the organized armed vanguard of the people,
which is the Rebel Army; but in every house of the people, on every road, in every forest, in every
piece of national territory the struggle would be fought by the great army of the rearguard, the entire
people trained and armed in the manner now to be described.
Since our infantry units will not have heavy arms, they will concentrate on anti-tank and anti-air
defense. Mines in very large numbers, bazookas or anti-tank grenades, anti-aircraft cannon of great
mobility and mortar batteries will be the only arms of any great power. The veteran infantry soldier,
though equipped with automatic weapons, will know the value of ammunition. He will guard it with
loving care. Special installations for reloading shells will accompany each unit of the army,
maintaining reserves of ammunition even though precariously.
The air force will probably be badly hurt in the first moments of an invasion of this type. We are
basing our calculations upon an invasion by a first-class foreign power or by a mercenary army of
some other power, helped either openly or surreptitiously by this great power of first magnitude.
The national air force, as I said, will be destroyed, or almost destroyed: only reconnaissance or
liaison planes will remain, especially helicopters for minor functions.
The navy will also be organized for this mobile strategy; small launches will give the smallest target
to the enemy and maintain maximum mobility. The great desperation of the enemy army in this
case as before will be to find something to receive his blows. Instead he will find a gelatinous mass,
in movement, impenetrable, that retreats and never presents a solid front, though it inflicts wounds
from every side.
It is not easy to overcome an army of the people that is prepared to continue being an army in spite
of its defeat in a frontal battle. Two great masses of the people are united around it: the peasants and
the workers. The peasants have already given evidence of their efficiency in detaining the small
band that was marauding in Pinar del Rio. These peasants will be trained principally in their own
regions; but the platoon commanders and the superior officers will be trained, as is now already
being done, in our military bases. From there they will be distributed throughout the thirty zones of
agrarian development that form the new geographical division of the country. This will constitute
thirty more centers of peasant struggle, charged with defending to the maximum their lands, their
social conquests, their new houses, their canals, their dams, their flowering harvests, their
independence, in a word, their right to live.
At the beginning they will oppose also a firm resistance to any enemy advance, but if this proves
too strong for them, they will disperse, each peasant becoming a peaceful cultivator of his soil
during the day and a fearsome guerrilla fighter at night, scourge of the enemy forces. Something
similar will take place among the workers; the best among them will be trained also to serve
thereafter as chiefs of their companions, teaching them principles of defense. Each social class,
however, will have different tasks. The peasant will fight a battle typical of the guerrilla fighter; he
should learn to be a good shot, to take advantage of all the difficulties of the ground and to
disappear without ever showing his face. The workers, on the other hand, have the advantage of
being within a modern city, which is a large and efficient fortress; at the same time their lack of
mobility is a drawback. The worker will learn first to block the streets with barricades of any
available vehicle, furniture, or utensil; to use every block as a fortress with communications formed
by holes made in interior walls; to use that terrible arm of defense, the "Molotov cocktail"; and to
coordinate his fire from the innumerable loop-holes provided by the houses of a modern city.
From the worker masses assisted by the national police and those armed forces charged with the
defense of the city, a powerful block of the army will be formed; but it must expect to suffer great
losses. The struggle in the cities in these conditions cannot achieve the facility and flexibility of the
struggle in the countryside: many will fall, including many leaders, in this popular struggle. The
enemy will use tanks that will be destroyed rapidly as soon as the people learn their weaknesses and
not to fear them; but before that the tanks will leave their balance of victims.
There will also be other organizations related to those of workers and peasants: first, the student
militias, which will contain the flower of the student youth, directed and coordinated by the Rebel
Army; organizations of youth in general, who will participate in the same way; and organizations of
women, who will provide an enormous encouragement by their presence and who will do such
auxiliary tasks for their companions in the struggle as cooking, taking care of the wounded, giving
final comfort to those who are dying, doing laundry, in a word, showing their companions-in-arms
that they will never be absent in the difficult moments of the Revolution. All this is achieved by
wide-scale organization of the masses supplemented with patient and careful education, an
education that begins and is confirmed in knowledge acquired from their own experience; it should
concentrate on reasoned and true explanations of the facts of the Revolution.
The revolutionary laws should be discussed, explained, studied in every meeting, in every
assembly, wherever the leaders of the Revolution are present for any purpose. Also, the speeches of
the leaders, and in our case particularly of the undisputed leader, should constantly be read,
commented upon, and discussed. People should come together in the country to listen by radio, and
where there are more advanced facilities, to watch by television these magnificent popular lessons
that our Prime Minister gives.
The participation of the people in politics, that is to say, in the expression of their own desires made
into laws, decrees, and resolutions, should be constant. Vigilance against any manifestations
opposed to the Revolution should also be constant; and vigilance over morale within the
revolutionary masses should be stricter, if this is possible, than vigilance against the nonrevolutionary
or the disaffected. It can never be permitted, lest the Revolution take the dangerous
path of opportunism, that a revolutionary of any category should be excused for grave offenses
against decorum or morality simply because he is a revolutionary. The record of his former services
may provide extenuating circumstances and they can always be considered in deciding upon the
punishment, but the act itself must always be punished.
Respect for work, above all for collective work and work for collective ends, ought to be cultivated.
Volunteer brigades to construct roads, bridges, docks or dams, and school cities should receive a
strong impulse; these serve to forge a unity among persons showing their love for the Revolution
with works.
An army that is linked in such ways with the people, that feels this intimacy with the peasants and
the workers from which it emerged, that knows besides all the special techniques of its warfare and
is psychologically prepared for the worst contingencies, is invincible; and it will be even more
invincible as it makes the just phrase of our immortal Camilo a part of the flesh of the army and the
citizenry: "The army is the people in uniform." Therefore, for all these reasons, despite the necessity
that monopoly suppress the "bad example" of Cuba, our future is brighter than ever.
END OF GUERRILLA WARFARE

You know that saying "If these walls could talk"? Well, now they can. Not only can they talk, but in the exact sense that the saying speaks of. Imagine if you could walk into a room and use a certain technology to find out every word that was ever spoken in that room. In years to come you wont have to imagine, and in only under a year rich people wont have to imagine. Just so you understand how fucking insane this is, the creators can't even reveal themselves, because they'll be killed. This thing, whatever it is that they've made, is going to change history. We'll be finding out everything that REALLY happened in history. Every suspicion of people of the past, everything we read in the history books, gone. Every unsolved crime, everytime you ever wondered what someone said about anything you can imagine. There is no more freedom. The thought police are actually here. Ever wondered if something you heard about wasn't true? Of course. Like maybe in the room where they signed the declaration of independence they got stoned and had gay orgies. Well, now every theory will be confirmed or annihilated. Anyway, theres no possible way to imagine all of the possibilities this new technology will create.... so anyway, heres the article explaining how it works:

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070007398

Oh, and while you're thinking of all the crazy shit that will go on and all of the devastation and craziness from the new shit people will be finding out, remember that with this on top of the fact that bush just signed the bill that completely strips you of your rights to privacy, the government REALLY is going to have a thought police. One, they're going to make up bullshit stories about new stuff they found out that people said, and two, they're going to keep secret anything they dont like that they find out people said, and eventually destroy the buildings that the words were said in, and three, they're going to try and keep this technology from people, anything they have to do. Our only hope is that since they've destroyed privacy in this country that they wont be able to tell citizens that they cant do it either.... but they'll try. Anyway, as far as the creation of this goes, I think its great. Its just that in a capitalist society, and with a government like ours, its no good for it to come here, but it would be great if common people could afford it, and people werent scared of the information it would provide. Just remember, there are no more conspiracy theories, or fictional stories that warn us of our fucked up ways such as 1984, and there is nothing left that protects of from being stripped of our constitutional rights... this shit is for real, it is here, right now.

Feel free to use some of these, there are a shit load of them. Not only are they true, but some of the things said here that make our government look like shit were said by the "founding fathers" of our country, gotta love that.

1. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

2. America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. – James Bovard

3. War is just one more big government program. – Joseph Sobran

4. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams (1814)

5. They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

6. One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. – Thomas B. Reed (1886)

7. If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger (1995)

8. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O'Rourke

9. The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. – Tacitus

10. Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington

11. No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain (1866)

12. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. – Robert Heinlein

13. The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients. – Edmund Burke (1899)

14. Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. – Thomas Jefferson

15. The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society. – Mark Skousen

16. A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

17. The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. – John Hay (1872)

18. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. – James Bovard (1994)

19. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. – Thomas Jefferson

20. Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. – Thomas Jefferson

21. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. – Goethe

22. When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence. – Gary Lloyd

23. Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H.L. Mencken

24. The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. – H.L. Mencken

25. It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. – Henry George

26. Where morality is present, laws are unnecessary. Without morality, laws are unenforceable. – Anonymous

27. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. – Barry Goldwater (1964)

28. Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest political end. – Lord Acton

29. The power to tax is the power to destroy. – John Marshall

30. [On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon

31. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C. S. Lewis

32. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property. – Lysander Spooner

33. In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, and cruelty. – Leo Tolstoy

34. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. – Ayn Rand

35. If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. – Samuel Adams

36. If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too. – Somerset Maugham

37. A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. – Alexander Tytler

38. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. – G. Gordon Liddy

39. The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced. – Frank Zappa

40. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. – Justice Learned Hand

41. It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. – Charles A. Beard

42. A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R. Murrow

43. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. – Thomas Jefferson (1781)

44. The desire to rule is the mother of heresies. – St. John Chrysostom

45. Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it? – Harlon Carter

46. It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself. – Justice Casey Percell

47. No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. – Edmund A. Opitz

48. The government was set to protect man from criminals – and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government. – Ayn Rand

49. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. – Mark Twain

50. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. – Edward Langley

51. I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights. – Abraham Lincoln

52. Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. – Thomas Paine

53. Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. – Harry Emerson Fosdick

54. The state in which the rulers are the most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed; and the state in which they are the most eager, the worst. – Anonymous

55. It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. – Calvin Coolidge

56. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson

57. It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. – Voltaire

58. The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of our freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government. – Eleanor Roosevelt

59. Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. – Herbert Hoover

60. Give me liberty or give me death! – Patrick Henry

61. First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me. – Pastor Father Niemoller (1946)

62. Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at its worst, an intolerant one. – Thomas Paine

63. There's never been a good government. – Emma Goldman

64. We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk. – Millicent Fenwick (1983)

65. Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. – Montesquieu

66. A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. – P. J. O'Rourke

67. Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. – Henry David Thoreau

68. Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. – Mark Twain

69. There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress. – Mark Twain

70. Talk is cheap – except when Congress does it. – Cullen Hightower

71. You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest. – Ambrose Gwinett Bierce

72. [Political] offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct. – Thomas Jefferson (1799)

73. The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare. – Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1976)

74. The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire. – Joseph Sobran (1995)

75. Governments harangue about deficits to get more revenue so they can spend more. – Allan H. Meltzer (1993)

76. When important issues affecting the life of an individual are decided by somebody else, it makes no difference to the individual whether that somebody else is a king, a dictator, or society at large. – James Taggart (1992)

77. No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power. – P. J. O'Rourke (1992)

78. Here's your enemy for this week, the government says. And some gullible Americans click their heels and salute – often without knowing who or even where the enemy of the week is. – Charley Reese (1998)

79. The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another. – Milton Friedman

80. The best government is the one that charges you the least blackmail for leaving you alone. – Thomas Rudmose-Brown (1996)

81. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free. – P.J. O'Rourke (1993)

82. The Government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. – Ronald Reagan

83. Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. – James Madison

84. The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals … It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of. – Albert Gallatin (1789)

85. The Constitution shall never be construed … to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. – Samuel Adams

86. I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it. – Alexis De Toqueville

87. I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. – Thomas Jefferson (1800)

88. I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change. – Al Gore

89. If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. – Winston Churchill

90. Tyranny is always better organized than freedom. – Charles Peguy

91. The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. – George Washington

92. A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4BC - 65AD.

93. He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. – the Bible, Luke 22:36.

94. Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest. – Mahatma Gandhi, in Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 446

95. Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. – Benjamin Disraeli, 1874

96. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. – UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 29(3).

97. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. – Winston Churchill

98. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. – P.J. O'Rourke (1993)

99. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. – Ronald Reagan (1986)

100. I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature. – Sidney Hook

101. War is the health of the State. – Randolph Bourne (1917)

102. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. – Douglas Casey (1992)

103. If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist. – Joseph Sobran (1995)

104. In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. – Voltaire (1764)

105. Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. – William Pitt (1783)

106. When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. – P.J. O'Rourke

107. A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. – Barry Goldwater (1964)

108. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. – Will Rogers

109. Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. – Milton Friedman

110. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. – H.L. Mencken

111. There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. – P.J. O'Rourke (1993)

112. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. – Robert A. Heinlein

113. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. – Pericles (430 BC)

114. There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money – if a gun is held to his head. – P.J. O'Rourke

115. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. – Herbert Spencer (1891)

116. More laws, less justice. – Marcus Tullius Ciceroca (42 BC)

117. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. – Thomas Jefferson

118. Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others. – William Allen White

119. I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. – Thomas Jefferson (1823)

120. America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She well knows that by enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom. – John Quincy Adams (1821)

121. An Avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he a establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. – Thomas Paine (1795)

122. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. – Frederic Bastiat

123. Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what your government is doing to you. – Joseph Sobran (1990)

124. God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. – Daniel Webster (1834)

125. The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time. – Justice George Sutherland (1938)

126. The era of resisting big government is never over. – Paul Gigot (1998)

127. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. – Thomas Paine (1776)

128. Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. – Honore de Balzac

129. Whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without compromise private ownership in the means of production. – Ludwig von Mises (1920)

130. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. – James Madison

131. Let the people think they govern and they will be governed. – William Penn (1693)

132. In 1940, teachers were asked what they regarded as the three major problems in American schools. They identified the three major problems as: Littering, noise, and chewing gum. Teachers last year were asked what the three major problems in American schools were, and they defined them as: Rape, assault, and suicide. – William Bennett (1993)

133. The threat posed by humans to the natural environment is nothing compared to the threat to humans posed by global environmental policy. – Fred L. Smith (1992)

134. The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom – they are the pillars of society. – Henrik Ibsen (1877)

135. Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping, and unintelligent. – H. L. Mencken

136. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

137. This country is a one-party country. Half of it is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn't make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians. – Hugh Downs (1997)

138. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. – Lord Acton (1887)

139. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. – Mao Zedong (1938)

140. The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community. – David D. Boaz (1997)

141. We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. – Winston Churchill (1903)

142. If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves. – Thomas Sowell (1992)

143. War has all the characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate: Centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism about intended results, and blindness to unintended secondary results. – Joseph Sobran (1991)

144. There never was a good war or a bad peace. – Benjamin Franklin (1773)

145. Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. – Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

146. Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. – Albert Einstein

147. Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. – George Bernard Shaw

148. In matters of Power, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. – Thomas Jefferson

149. The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. – Patrick Henry

150. The strength of the Constitution, lies in the will of the people to defend it. – Thomas Edison

151. The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now. – South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905)

152. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens. – Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations"

153. Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. – H.L. Mencken

154. Collectivism doesn't work because it's based on a faulty economic premise. There is no such thing as a person's "fair share" of wealth. The gross national product is not a pizza that must be carefully divided because if I get too many slices, you have to eat the box. The economy is expandable and, in any practical sense, limitless. – P. J. O'Rourke, "How to Explain Conservatism"

155. Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. – Ludwig von Mises

156. The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced. If the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt, people must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. – Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 BC

157. Liberals want the government to be your Mommy. Conservatives want government to be your Daddy. Libertarians want it to treat you like an adult. – Andre Marrou

158. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

159. Liberty consists in doing what one desires. – John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

160. The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. – John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

161. Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free. – Harry Browne

162. If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. – Noam Chomsky

163. I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. – Aldous Huxley

164. The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills. – Thomas Jefferson

165. America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. – Ayn Rand

166. There's always someone telling you not to do something. The main thing is just to ignore them. – Tim Robbins

167. Everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one thinks about changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy

168. One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. – Plato

169. Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention. – Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

170. The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner. – Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982)

171. When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both. – James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union

172. If we have to kill 12 people to save 1 human life it will have been worth it. – Unknown

173. Virtually all reasonable laws are obeyed, not because they are the law, but because reasonable people would do that anyway. If you obey a law simply because it is the law, that's a pretty likely sign that it shouldn't be a law. – Unknown

174. The U.S. Constitution may be flawed, but it's a whole lot better than what we have now. – Unknown

175. The welfare state reduces a citizen to a client, subordinates them to a bureaucrat, and subjects them to rules that are anti-work, anti-family, anti-opportunity and anti-property … Humans forced to suffer under such anti-human rules naturally develop pathologies. The evening news is the natural result of the welfare state. – Unknown

176. I do not believe that the government should have its long nose poked into the private consensual relationships between people. – John Anderson, Independent presidential candidate, 1980

177. When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will. – Fredric Bastiat, early French economist

178. Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and laissez faire. – Ludwig Mises,

179. Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial … the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. – Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1928

180. Tariffs, quotas and other import restrictions protect the business of the rich at the expense of high cost of living for the poor. Their intent is to deprive you of the right to choose, and to force you to buy the high-priced inferior products of politically favored companies. – Alan Burris, "A Liberty Primer"

181. Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers. – Frank Chodorov

182. The legacy of Democrats and Republicans approaches: Libertarianism by bankruptcy. – Nick Nuessle, 1992

183. Truth and news are not the same thing. – Katharine Graham, owner of The Washington Post

184. The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer. – Henry Kissinger

185. We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. – Stephen Schneider, environmental activist, in "Discover", Oct. '89

186. I think the terror most people are concerned with is the IRS. – Malcolm Forbes, when asked if he was afraid of terrorism

187. Let the people decide through the marketplace mechanism what they wish to see and hear. Why is there this national obsession to tamper with this box of transistors and tubes when we don't do the same for Time magazine? – Mark Fowler, FCC Chairman

188. The usual road to slavery is that first they take away your guns, then they take away your property, then last of all they tell you to shut up and say you are enjoying it. – James A. Donald

189. Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. – Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist

190. The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws. We regard the minimum wage law as one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books. – Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist

191. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark - Mapp vs. Ohio

192. If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread. – Thomas Jefferson

193. Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was representation without taxation. – Fletcher Knebel, historian

194. Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them. – George Santayana
     Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body and the work of his hands are properly his. – John Locke, 1690

195. There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation. – James Madison

196. Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Seizing the results of someone's labor is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities. – Robert Nozick, Harvard philosopher

197. Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the '20s and '30s, Prohibition did. And drugs do not cause today's alarming crime rates, but drug prohibition does. – US District Judge James C. Paine, addressing the Federal Bar Association in Miami, November, 1991

198. The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people. – Congressman Ron Paul, 1987

199. The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave. – Ayn Rand

200. I am interested in politics so that one day I will not have to be interested in politics. – Ayn Rand

201. They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here? – Paul Harvey 8/31/94

202. Even the most Bush-happy, flag suckling jack-arse knows deep-down inside that something is wrong. America is over and everyone knows it. The New World Order has a dying empire odor and changing the channel ain't going to make this go away. – Jello Biafra

203. If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence … and the courts must abide by that decision. – US v Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at 1006

204. Love your country but fear its government. – N.E. folk wisdom

205. Where is it written in the Constitution, in what section or clause is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battle in any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it? – Daniel Webster

206. There are many farm handouts; but let's call them what they really are: a form of legalized theft. Essentially, a congressman tells his farm constituency, "Vote for me. I'll use my office to take another American's money and give it to you." – Walter Williams, economist and syndicated columnist

207. National Health Insurance means combining the efficiency of the Postal Service with the compassion of the I.R.S. … and the cost accounting of the Pentagon. – Louis Sullivan/Connie Horner quoted by Novak in _Forbes_

208. Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA – ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State. – Heinrich Himmler

209. The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words. – The Atlanta Journal

210. Government does not grow by seizing our freedoms, but by assuming our responsibilities. – Michael Cloud

211. The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk". – Harry Browne

212. Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. – Ronald Reagan

213. The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. – Justice William O. Douglas

214. Why doesn't everybody just leave everybody else the hell alone? – Jimmy Durante

215. This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! – Adolph Hitler [1935] The Weapons Act of Nazi Germany.

216. After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military. – William S. Burroughs

217. To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors. – John Stuart Mill

218. When taxes are too high, people go hungry. – Lao Tsu

219. Show me a movement that doesn't hate somebody and I will join it at once. – Robert Anton Wilson

220. What's *just* has been debated for centuries but let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn *belongs* to you – and why? – Walter Williams

221. Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. – Henry David Thoreau

222. No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: "But what would you replace it with?" When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with? – Thomas Sowell

223. A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort … is not strictly speaking a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang violence. – Ayn Rand

224. Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. – Thomas Paine

225. One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license. – P.J. O'Rourke

226. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. – Abraham Lincoln

227. The more laws and restrictions there are, the poorer the people become. – Lao Tsu

228. When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. – Thomas Jefferson

229. In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. – Mohandas Gandhi

230. Force always attracts men of low morality. – Albert Einstein

231. A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot – because the first leads inevitably to the second. – Harry Browne

232. It is not charity if it's at the point of a gun. – Unknown

233. The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. – Ayn Rand

234. When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress? – Marilyn French

235. No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. – Ronald Reagan

236. There is no more country – everyone go home. – Bracken

237. I'm not going to pontificate and tell you to execute your government at dawn, but it wouldn't be a bad idea. – John Lydon

238. Society exists for the benefit of its members – not the members for the benefit of society. – Herbert Spencer

239. When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty. – George Mason

240. What is a Communist? One who has yearnings – for equal division of unequal earnings. – Ebenezer Elliot

241. Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism. – Mary McCarthy

242. Equality of opportunity is freedom, but equality of outcome is repression. – Dick Feagler

243. There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation. – Frédéric Bastiat

244. The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace. – H. L. Mencken

245. A man should be upright, not be kept upright. – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

246. Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn't even get out of committee. – F. Lee Bailey

247. Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless. – Kenneth Baker

248. Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it. – Mikhail Bakunin

249. Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone. – Frédéric Bastiat

250. People fear witches, and burn women. – Justice Louis Brandeis

251. The American heritage was one of individual liberty, personal responsibility and freedom from government … Unfortunately … that heritage has been lost. Americans no longer have the freedom to direct their own lives … Today, it is the government that is free – free to do whatever it wants. There is no subject, no issue, no matter … that is not subject to legislation. – Harry Browne

252. Communism is like one big phone company. – Lenny Bruce

253. The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. – Edmund Burke

254. If we have learned anything in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot Federalize Virtue. – George Bush

255. It must never be unpatriotic to support your country against your government. It must always be unpatriotic to support your government against your country. – Stephen T. Byington

256. Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging than the drug itself. – Jimmy Carter

257. The office of the government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves. – William Ellery Channing

258. If you ruin your life, you will pay the price of rehabilitating yourself … We are not punished for our sins, but by them. Liberty means responsibility. – Michael Cloud

259. We are living in a sick society filled with people who would not directly steal from their neighbor but who are willing to demand that the government do it for them. – William L. Comer

260. America was born of revolt, flourished on dissent, became great through experimentation. – Henry Steele Commager

261. Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business. – Calvin Coolidge

262. You can only be free if I am free. – Clarence Darrow

263. Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment. – Philip K. Dick

264. When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. – Justice William O. Douglas

265. A tyranny based on … deception and maintained by terror must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself. – Albert Einstein

266. Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

267. That which we call sin in others is experiment for us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

268. So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves. – Marilyn Ferguson

269. Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion – the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals – the technique of the marketplace. – Milton Friedman

270. Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or, which is the same thing, corrupt. – Mohandas Gandhi

271. The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable. – Ulysses S. Grant

272. The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed. – Alexander Hamilton

273. Don't do drugs because if you do drugs you'll go to prison, and drugs are really expensive in prison. – John Hardwick

274. Past studies by and large confirm the prediction that higher minimum wages reduce employment opportunities and raise unemployment, particularly among teenagers, minorities and other low-skilled workers. – Masanori Hashimoto

275. We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation. – William Hazlitt

276. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery! Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! – Patrick Henry

277. The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. – Adolf Hitler

278. I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own. – Billie Holiday

279. Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control. – Jack Hugh

280. When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free. – Charles Evans Hughes

281. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. – Thomas Jefferson

282. It's no accident that capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge. Egoism and competition are, alas, stronger forces than public spirit and sense of duty. – Albert Einstein

283. On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. – Thomas Jefferson

284. According to George Hitchings, co-winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in medicine, FDA's five-year delay in approving the antibacterial drug Septra cost 80,000 lives. – Sam Kazman

285. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

286. I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes as common as the grass. – Lao Tsu

287. If men are good, you don't need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don't dare have one. – Robert LeFevre

288. Low-income workers as a group are the major victims of minimum wage legislation. – Keith B. Leffler

289. Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. – Abraham Lincoln

290. Public educators, like Soviet farmers, lack any incentive to produce results, innovate, to be efficient, to make the kinds of difficult changes that private firms operating in a competitive market must make to survive. – Carolyn Lochhead

291. Those who attack the rationale of the game, and not the players, are its most formidable adversaries. – James J. Martin

292. Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth. – Mohandas Gandhi

293. If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded. – Karl Marx

294. In 1950, the average family of four paid 2% of its earnings to federal taxes. Today it pays 24%– William R. Mattox, Jr. (sometime before 1996)

295. Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy. – Ludwig von Mises

296. When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.
     When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
     When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun.
     Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet. – Lyle Myhr

297. In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then, they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew … Then they came for the Catholics. I didn't speak up then because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up. – Reverend Martin Niemoller, German Lutheran pastor arrested by the Gestapo in 1937.

298. It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money. – P.J. O'Rourke

299. Petty laws breed great crimes. – Ouida

300. The essential psychological requirement of a free society is the willingness on the part of the individual to accept responsibility for his life. – Edith Packer

301. When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny. – Thomas Paine

302. The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. – Thomas Jefferson

303. The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence. All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals. Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense. – Congressman Ron Paul, (R) Texas

304. As you increase the cost of the license to practice medicine, you increase the price at which the medical service must be sold and you correspondingly decrease the number of people who can afford to buy the service. – William Pusey, then president of the American Medical Association

305. The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand

306. The American Dream was not about government's taking huge sums of money (under the label of "taxation") from citizens by force. The American Dream was about individualism and the opportunity to achieve success without interference from others. – Robert Ringer

307. Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it. – Will Rogers

308. I am convinced that we can do to guns what we've done to drugs: create a multi-billion dollar underground market over which we have absolutely no control. – George L. Roman

309. The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day. – Theodore Roosevelt

310. Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. – Seneca

311. Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out … People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically "right." Guns ended that, and a social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work. – L. Neil Smith (from The Probability Broach)

312. Let him who would move the world, first move himself. – Socrates

313. What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long. – Thomas Sowell

314. The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within. – Mohandas Gandhi

315. However insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible. – Herbert Spencer (from "The Right To Ignore The State")

316. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit … Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do … He does not keep "protecting" you by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that. – Lysander Spooner

317. If I were a Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be burning the rain forest too. – Sting

318. I favor free trade in drugs for the same reason the Founding Fathers favored free trade in ideas: in a free society it is none of the government's business what ideas a man puts into his mind; likewise, it should be none of its business what drugs he puts into his body. – Thomas Szasz

319. That government is best which governs least. – Henry David Thoreau

320. In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man and brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot. – Mark Twain

321. I love my country far too much to be a nationalist. – Unknown

322. I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. – Voltaire

323. If even one new drug of the stature of penicillin or digitalis has been unjustifiably banished to a company's back shelf because of exceedingly stringent regulatory requirements, that event will have harmed more people than all the toxicity that has occurred in the history of modern drug development. – William Wardell

324. It rankles me when somebody tries to force somebody to do something. – John Wayne

325. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any body of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. – Noah Webster

326. Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy. – Orson Welles

327. Liberals believe government should take people's earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people's earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage. – Walter Williams

328. Taking somebody's money without permission is stealing, unless you work for the IRS; then it's taxation. Killing people en masse is homicidal mania, unless you work for the Army; then it's National Defense. Spying on your neighbors is invasion of privacy, unless you work for the FBI; then it's National Security. Running a whorehouse makes you a pimp and poisoning people makes you a murderer, unless you work for the CIA; then it's counter-intelligence. – Robert Anton Wilson

329. Government, in it's last analysis, is organized force. – Woodrow Wilson

330. Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it. – Cousin Woodman

331. The proper direction of man's thought is not toward the creation of new laws for government, but toward the acceptance of every person's moral dignity. – Edmund Yates

332. The higher entry standards imposed by licensing laws reduce the supply of professional services … The poor are the net losers, because the availability of low-cost service has been reduced. In essence, the poor subsidize the information research costs of the rich. – S. David Young

333. The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge. – U.S. vs. Dougherty, 1972

334. The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. – Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japanese Shogun, August 29, 1558

335. We ask that the government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all. Therefore, we demand: … an end to the power of the financial interests. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. We demand … the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of national, state, and municipal governments. In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education … We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents … The government must undertake the improvement of public health – by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor … by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth. We combat the … materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only proceed from within on the foundation of the common good before the individual good. – From the political program of the Nazi Party, adopted in Munich, February 24, 1920

336. I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials. – George Mason.

337. The proverb warns that "You should not bite the hand that feeds you." But maybe you should if it prevents you from feeding yourself. – Thomas Szasz

338. When freedom is outlawed … Only outlaws will be free! – Anon

339. I have always thanked all my enemies profusely for expanding my horizons. – Unknown

340. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. – The Wizard of Oz

341. People who create things nowadays can expect to be prosecuted by highly moralistic people who are incapable of creating anything. There is no way to measure the chilling effect on innovation that results from the threats of taxation, regulation and prosecution against anything that succeeds. We'll never know how many ideas our government has aborted in the name protecting us. – Joseph Sobran May 13, 1998 (commenting on US vs Microsoft)

342. I believe the states can best govern our home concerns and the federal government our foreign ones. – Thomas Jefferson

343. It took about 150 years, starting with a Bill of Rights that reserved to the states and the people all powers not explicitly delegated to the federal government, to produce a Supreme Court willing to rule that growing corn to feed to your own hogs is interstate commerce and can therefore be regulated by Congress. – David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom

344. I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. – J. Edgar Hoover

345. First, God created idiots. That was just for practice. Then He created school boards. – Mark Twain

346. The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder. – Frédéric Bastiat

347. The police can't stop an intruder, mugger, or stalker from hurting you. They can pursue him only after he has hurt or killed you. Protecting yourself from harm is your responsibility, and you are far less likely to be hurt in a neighborhood of gun-owners than in one of disarmed citizens – even if you don't own a gun yourself. – Harry Browne

348. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. – Edmund Burke

349. Patriotism means loving our country, not the government. – Michael Cloud

350. Conservatives and liberals are kindred spirits as far as government spending is concerned. First, let's make sure we understand what government spending is. Since government has no resources of its own, and since there's no Tooth Fairy handing Congress the funds for the programs it enacts, we are forced to recognize that government spending is no less than the confiscation of one person's property to give it to another to whom it does not belong – in effect, legalized theft. – Walter Williams

351. The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people. – Justice William O. Douglas

352. The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. – Albert Einstein

353. I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my value system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal. – Milton Friedman

354. One who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence. Coercion is inhuman. – Mohandas Gandhi

355. The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits. – Thomas Jefferson

356. There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

357. The greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be. – Lao Tsu

358. You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have. – P.J. O'Rourke

359. A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody. – Thomas Paine

360. Wealth comes from successful individual efforts to please one's fellow man … that's what competition is all about: "outpleasing" your competitors to win over the consumers. – Walter Williams

361. To me, it doesn't matter if your scapegoats are the Jews, the homosexuals, the male sex, the Masons, the Jesuits, the Welfare Parasites, the Power Elite, the female sex, the vegetarians, or the Communist Party. To the extent that you need a scapegoat, you simply have not got your brain programmed to work as an efficient problem-solving machine. – Robert Anton Wilson

362. A strong body makes a strong mind. As to the species of exercise I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks. – Thomas Jefferson

363. The World's Smallest Political Quiz is the single best outreach tool we libertarians have. –George Getz, Libertarian Party press secretary

364. Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins. – Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, whose testimony convicted John Gotti

365. Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything. – Josef V. Stalin

366. In our desire to have government become our benefactor and sustainer, we have allowed it to become our taskmaster and overlord. As a result, we have become little more than well-fed, well-entertained slaves to the state. Freedom, as envisioned by our forefathers, is gone. – Chuck Baldwin 2001 (www.chuckbaldwinlive.com)

367. To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. – Richard Henry Lee (who drafted the Second Amendment as well as the rest of the Bill of Rights) 1788

368. Faced with the pain of freedom, man begs for his shackles. – Gerry Spence

369. I say that the Second Amendment doesn't allow for exceptions – or else it would have read that the right "to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, unless Congress chooses otherwise." And because there are no exceptions, I disagree with my fellow panelists who say the existing gun laws should be enforced. Those laws are unconstitutional [and] wrong – because they put you at a disadvantage to armed criminals, to whom the laws are no inconvenience. – Harry Browne, meetings with NRA's EVP, Wayne LaPierre and other panelists at a gun rights rally in Hot Springs, AR, 8/8/2000

370. The angels and the devils are definitely within us, not within the machines we use. – Michael Dertouzos

371. The limitation of tyrants is the endurance of those they oppose. – Frederick Douglass

372. Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice. – William Lloyd Garrison

373. The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency. – Eugene McCarthy

374. The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy. – John Jay, Joint-author of the Federalist Papers and first U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice

375. There ain't no rules around here! We're trying to accomplish something. – Thomas Edison

376. The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone – one which barely escapes being no government at all. – H. L. Mencken

377. Most economic fallacies derive … from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another. – Milton Friedman, Economic Freedom and Representative Government; 1973

378. Freedom is essentially a condition of inequality, not equality. It recognizes as a fact of nature the structural differences inherent in man – in temperament, character, and capacity – and it respects those differences. We are not alike and no law can make us so. – Frank Chodorov

379. When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves. – George Pataki

380. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. – Ronald Reagan

381. The cure for evil and disorder is more liberty, not suppression. – Alexander Berkman

382. Live and let live. – Friedrich von Schiller

383. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable … – H. L. Mencken

384. It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. – Emiliano Zapta, Mexican revolutionary

385. The times call for courage. The times call for hard work. But if the demands are high, it is because the stakes are even higher. They are nothing less than the future of human liberty, which means the future of civilization. – Henry Hazlitt

386. Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks. – Thomas Sowell, a black sociologist, author and columnist

387. To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. – Abraham Lincoln

388. These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated. – Thomas Paine

389. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. – The Declaration of Independence

390. Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence. – Henri Frederic Amiel

391. Liberty is always unfinished business. – Anonymous

392. And now that the legislators and do gooders have futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems. And try liberty … – Frederic Bastiat, 1850

393. Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hangs on the results. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the greatest historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us. – Ludwig von Mises

394. If our country is to survive and prosper, we must summon the courage to condemn and reject the liberal agenda, and we had better do it soon. – Walter E. Williams, "The Gathering Racial Tragedy"

395. I think we need to find out why the citizens of the world's wealthiest, most envied, most powerful country are so cynical, so distressed, so angry, so ticked of about so many things. – William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education.

396. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever. – George Orwell, 1984

397. Not only can no one predict the future, we don't understand the present – and there isn't even any certainty about the past. – Harry Browne

398. A man who walks down the centre line of a road risks getting hit from both sides. – Alexander Ziatanovic

399. It ain't so much what a man doesn't know that causes him so many problems, but what he knows that ain't so. – Will Rogers

400. To take what there is, and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived – to dig deep into the actual and get something out of it – this doubtless is the right way to live. – Henry James

401. The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. – Shakespeare

402. Men are most apt to believe what they least understand. – Montaigne

403. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic. – Dresden James

404. I have thought that a man of tolerable abilities may work great changes if he first forms a good plan and makes the execution of that same plan his whole study and business. – Benjamin Franklin

405. For all the sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been!" – John Greenleaf Whittier

406. It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes. – Bernard DeFoutenelle

407. People never believe in volcanoes until the lava actually overtakes them. – George Santayana

408. After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident, it makes you wonder about history. – Bits & Pieces

409. A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know where it is today. – Robert E. Lee

410. Ever since its founding in 1913, the Fed has described itself as an "independent" agency operated by selfless public servants striving to "fine-tune" the economy through monetary policy. In reality, however, a non-political governmental institution is as likely as a barking cat. – Thomas J. DiLorenzo

411. I do not deny the allegation, I deny the allegator. – Jesse Jackson [!]

412. Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk. – Bertolt Brecht

413. The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny. – Michael Parenti

414. Any story sounds true until someone tells the other side and sets the record straight. – Proverbs 18:17

415. War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength. – George Orwell

416. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. – George Orwell, 1984

417. For the totalitarian mind, adherence to state propaganda does not suffice: one must display proper enthusiasm while marching in the parade. – Noam Chomsky

418. Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us all. – Justice William O. Douglas

419. An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff. – Adlai Stevenson

420. The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but the newspapers. – Thomas Jefferson

421. When the mass media in some foreign countries serve as megaphones for the rhetoric of their government, the result is ludicrous propaganda. When the mass media in our country serve as megaphones for the rhetoric of the U.S. government, the result is responsible journalism. – Norman Solomon

422. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. – Second Amendment to the Constitution

423. An armed society is a polite society. – Robert A. Heinlein

424. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. – H L. Mencken

425. We must remember that government, no matter how hard it tries, cannot protect an individual from themselves. This legislation is simply one more attempt by big government to tell us that they know what is best for us. It is not the first time and it will not be the last. – Peter Calcagno

426. Washington is not America. It has become an alien city-state that rules America, and much of the rest of the world, in the way that Rome ruled the Roman Empire. – Richard Maybury

427. How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think. – Adolf Hitler

428. Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think. – Adolf Eichmann, Memoirs written after his 1960 capture by Israel.

429. A man's home may be his castle, but that does not keep the government from taking it. – United States v. Hendler, 952 F2d 1364 (Fed Cir 1991)

430. Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. – George Washington

431. A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes – will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished. – John Stuart Mill

432. The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. The more constrained the power of governments, the more power is diffused, checked, and balanced, the less it will aggress on others and commit democide. – R. J. Rummel, Death by Government

433. A nation that expects the government to prevent churches from burning, to control the price of bread or gasoline, to secure every job, and to find some villain for every dramatic accident risks an even larger loss of life and liberty. – William A. Niskanen, For a Less Responsive Government, Cato Policy Report,

434. The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime. – Max Stirner

435. The pattern is as old as human life. The new rulers use more and more force, more police, more soldiers, trying to enforce more efficient control, trying to make the planned economy work by piling regulations on regulations, decree on decree. The people are hungry and hungrier. And how does a man on this earth get butter? Doesn't the government give butter? But government does not produce food from the earth; Government is guns. It is one common distinction of all civilized peoples, that they give their guns to the Government. Men in Government monopolize the necessary use of force; they are not using their energies productively; they are not milking cows. To get butter, they must use guns; they have nothing else to use. – Rose Wilder Lane

436. The state is a force incarnate. Worse, it is the silly parading of force. It never seeks to prevail by persuasion. Whenever it thrusts its finger into anything it does so in the most unfriendly way. Its essence is command and compulsion. – Michael Bakunin

437. In every State, the government is nothing but a permanent conspiracy on the part of the minority against the majority, which it enslaves and fleeces. – Michael Bakunin

438. We are going to tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

439. … thou shall not steal, even by majority vote … – Gary North; Conspiracy

440. In levying taxes and in shearing sheep, it is well to stop when you get down to the skin. – Austin O'Malley

441. Public works are not accomplished by the miraculous power of a magic wand. They are paid for by funds taken away from the citizens. – Ludwig von Mises

442. A [tax loophole is] something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform. – Russell B. Long

443. [S]tatism is but socialized dishonesty; it is feathering the nests of some with feathers coercively plucked from others – on the grand scale. There is no moral difference between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax or any other social program. – Leonard Read

444. There's another major hurdle to a new year of prosperity: our tax code. No human being understands it. The current code, which runs over 8,000 pages and countless thousands more pages of IRS rulings and interpretations, is beyond redemption. ..Incalculable amounts of the nation's intellectual brainpower are devoted to the dead-end task of coping with the current tax code. Over one-half million people in the U.S. make their living off it, whether in lobbying, lawyering, tax preparing, or accounting. … Americans spend five and one-half billion hours a year filling out tax forms … and spend between $100 billion and $300 billion to comply with the current code. – Malcolm S. Forbes,

445. In increasing numbers, Americans believe that it is the responsibility – nay, the duty – of the federal government to take the earnings of some Americans and redistribute them to other Americans for various and sundry "good" reasons including "fairness." Citizens who know it is wrong to use force to take money from a neighbor have rationalized that it is OK for the government to do it for them. – Linda Bowles, nationally syndicated columnist

446. The average family pays more in taxes than it spends on food, clothing, and shelter combined. – Congressman Dick Armey, Why a Flat Tax? Durell Journal of Money and Banking, Spring 1995

447. The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. – Hilaire Belloc

448. How ever sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, religion or all four. – Gloria Steinem, American feminist

449. Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments … Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils.? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs. – Von Mises, Human Action

450. The present struggle seems less about abolishing big government than about who gets to use it. – William Greider, One World Ready or Not

451. Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains. – Jean Jacques Rosseau. The Social Contract, 1762

452. Pugsley's First Law of Government: All government programs accomplish the opposite of what they are designed to achieve. – John Pugsley

453. Everything government touches turns to crap. – Ringo Starr

454. One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt. – Lee Iacocca

455. With all that IMF money, the Thailand's and Mexico's are spared the consequences of their fiscal incompetence, and Wall Street's heavy hitters are spared the consequences of their stupid investments. The global economy is a rigged game, rigged so Third World politicians, rich investors and global corporations win – and U.S. taxpayers lose. – Patrick J. Buchanan

456. Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

457. A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion. – Hugo Black

458. If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't. – Hyman G. Rickover

459. If we do not halt this steady process of building commissions and regulatory bodies and the special legislation like huge inverted pyramids over every one of the simple constitutional provisions, we shall soon be spending many billions of dollars more. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

460. The proper and limited use of government is to invoke a common justice and keep the peace – and that is all. – Leonard Read

461. I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. – Thomas Jefferson

462. The bureaucrat's first objective, of course, is preservation of his job – provided by the big-government system, at the taxpayers expense. … Whether real world problems get solved or not is of secondary importance. It doesn't take much cynicism, in fact, to see that the bureaucrats have a vested interest in not having problems solved. If the problems did not exist (or had been invented), there would be no reason for the bureaucrat to have a job" – William Simon, former U.S Treasury Secretary

463. What is so bad about big government? My indictment of big government is that it is bad because it attacks liberty, prosperity, progress, harmony, and morality. Thanks to big government, we have significantly less of all of those good things than we would if we had been able to keep government right-sized. Big government is cancerous. Like a cancer, it hurts the body and tends to spread, doing more and more harm as it grows. It is time for some radical surgery. – George C. Leef, director of FEE's Freeman Society Discussion Clubs

464. Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy. – Charles Peters, How Washington Really Works

465. We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every 10 minutes. – J. William Fulbright

466. The era of big government is over. – Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 23, 1996

467. A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government. – Spiro T. Agnew

468. A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures? – Cicero

469. You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad – in fact, to do anything it wants. – Harry Browne

470. Once upon a time, government budgets were balanced, our money was sound, the streets were safe, and taxes imposed by all levels of government took less than 10% of our income. – Harry Browne

471. Through an unwieldy combination of big government, big military, big business, big labor and big cities, we have created an unworkable mega-nation which defies central management and control. Not only is the United States too big, but it has also become too authoritarian and too undemocratic, and its states assume too little responsibility for the solution of their own social, economic, and political problems. – Dr. Thomas Naylor, professor emeritus of economics at Duke University

472. The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. – Edmund Burke

473. Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, can never willingly abandon it. – Edmund Burke

474. The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest "functionaire" possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose desecration it depends whether and how I am allowed to live or to work. – Frederich von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

475. Of all 36 ways to get out of trouble, the best way is – leave. – Chinese Proverb

476. Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied. – Arthur Miller

477. Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction. – Blaise Pascal

478. Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. – Edmund Burke

479. A government is not legitimate merely because it exists. – Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

480. Resistance to tyranny is service to God. – James Madison

481. We do many things at the federal level that would be considered dishonest and illegal if done in the private sector. – Donald T. Regan

482. [During the 20th century] … 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. – R. J. Rummel, Death by Government

483. Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day. But a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery. – Thomas Jefferson

484. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. – Plato circa 400 B.C.

485. The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves. – Dresden James

486. I am unable to accept the idea that I should be an obedient subject of a gang of corrupt, unprincipled thugs who pontificate about freedom while enslaving the population. – John Pugsley, JPJ Nov 96

487. By the year 2012, projected outlays for entitlements and interest on the national debt will consume all tax revenues collected by the federal government … There will not be one cent left over for education, children's programs, highways, national defense, or any other discretionary program. – Bipartisan U.S. Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform

488. Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it. – Richard Lamm, former Gov of Colorado

489. A government debt is a government claim against personal income and private property – an unpaid tax bill. – Hans F. Sennholz, Debts & Deficits

490. There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people. – Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

491. The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but a swindling futurity on a large scale. – Thomas Jefferson

492. I fear for our nation. Nearly half of our people receive some kind of government subsidy. We have grown weak from too much affluence and too little adversity. I fear that soon we will not be able to defend our country from our sure and certain enemies. We have debased our currency to the point that even the most loyal citizen no longer trusts it. – A Roman Senator in A.D. 63

493. The Social Security system did not begin as an attempt to sabotage people's ability to plan for retirement, but it has worked out that way. The politicians who originally planned the system probably had no idea how it would turn out. But today's politicians know the system is rotted, and yet they refuse to make the changes necessary to free the American people from it. Instead, they make it worse. – Ed Clark 1980 LP presidential candidate, A New Beginning

494. While the feds … leave Social Security off their books, the government's obligation to make benefit payments to current and near-term Social Security recipients is certainly no less real than its obligation to pay interest on its Treasury bonds. – Laurence K. Kotlikoff, Harvard Business Review, "From Deficit Delusion to Generational Accounting", May-June, 1993

495. The one with the primary responsibility to the individual's future is that individual. – Dorcas Hardy, Director, Social Security System

496. We should distinguish at this point between "government" and "state" … A government is the consensual organization by which we adjudicate disputes, defend our rights, and provide for certain common needs … A state on the other hand, is a coercive organization asserting or enjoying a monopoly over the use of physical force in some geographic area and exercising power over its subjects. – David Boaz

497. Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice. – Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

498. The thing that differentiates people from animals is money. – Gertrude Stein

499. If the rich could hire other people to die for them, the poor could make a wonderful living. – Yiddish proverb

500. Money, not morality, is the principle of commercial nations. – Thomas Jefferson

501. It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses. – Winston Churchill

502. Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable – as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead. – Friedrich von Schiller

503. The real issue is control. The Internet is too widespread to be easily dominated by any single government. By creating a seamless global economic zone, anti-sovereign and unregulatable, the Internet calls into question the very idea of a nation-state. – John Perry Barlow

504. Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. Bankruptcies and losses concentrate the mind on prudent behavior. – Allan H. Meltzer

505. You doubt that … your great country … is on the wane? I say only this – look around you. – Saint Griseus

506. In the United States we have, in effect, two governments … We have the duly constituted Government … Then we have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by the Constitution. – Congressman Wright Patman

507. It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. – Henry Ford

508. Law! What do I care about the law? Ain't I got the power? – Cornelius Vanderbilt

509. Does America really need 70 percent of the world's lawyers? … Is it healthy for our economy to have 18 million lawsuits coursing through our system annually? – Dan Quayle August 13, 1991

510. Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. – Martin Luther King Jr.

511. If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the law's protection most! – and listens to their testimony. – James Baldwin, African-American Author, "No Name in the Street"

512. … the next revolution … will be when those who work refuse to support those who don't. – Walter Hickel

513. The standard of living of the common man is higher in those countries which have the greatest number of wealthy entrepreneurs. – Ludwig von Mises

514. There are two kinds of people – those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group, there is less competition there. – Indira Gandhi

515. Political elections do not choose leaders of society. Rather, they are an exercise in which groups of people choose individuals who will assist them in looting other groups of individuals, those folks who were unfortunate enough not to be able to elect their own political strongman. The process can be downright blatant, as is the case in African and Asian countries, or it can be relatively subtle as it is in the United States, where the trappings of "constitutionality" and "rule of law" hide many of the more nefarious goings on. – William Anderson, Are Politicians Leaders? 10/19/2000

516. Our two-party system is a fraud, a sham, a delusion. On foreign policy, trade, immigration, Big Government, we have one-party government, one party press; and conservatives are being played for suckers. – Patrick J Buchanan

517. Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. – Tom Lehrer

518. Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, "in government, the scum rises to the top". – Walter E. Williams

519. Being elected to Congress is regarded as being sent on a looting raid for one's friends. – George F. Will, Newsweek

520. Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. – Groucho Marx

521. Men rise from one ambition to another – first they seek to secure themselves from attack, and then they attack others. – Machiavelli

522. This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as we do when the baby gets hold of a hammer. – Will Rogers

523. Wherever politics intrudes upon economic life, political success is readily attained by saying what people like to hear rather than what is demonstrably true. Instead of safeguarding truth and honesty, the state then tends to become a major source of insincerity and mendacity. – Hans F. Sennholz

524. Those who make peaceful change impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. – John F. Kennedy

525. 80 percent were hypocrites, 80 percent liars, 80 percent serious sinners … except of Sundays. There is always boozing and floozing … I don't have enough time to tell you everybody's name. – William Miller, Congressional doorkeeper

526. Politicians are always interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs. – P.J. O'Rourke

527. A concern for states rights, local self government and regional identity used to be taken for granted everywhere in America. But the United States is no longer, as it once was, a federal union of diverse states and regions. National uniformity is being imposed by the political class that runs Washington, the economic class that owns Wall Street and the cultural class in charge of Hollywood and the Ivy League. – Michael Hill, professor of British History, University of Alabama

528. Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory. – John Kenneth Galbraith

529. Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him. – Charles DeGaulle

530. Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. – Ronald Reagan

531. Men who have greatness within them don't go in for politics. – Albert Camus

532. It may be true … that "you can't fool all the people all the time", but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country. – Will & Ariel Durant

533. Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. – Mark Twain

534. Politicians can't give us anything without depriving us of something else. Government is not a god. Every dime they spend must first be taken from someone else. – Gary Asmus

535. Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made. – Otto Von Bismark

536. Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. – Helen Keller

537. Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death. – James Madison

538. Citizen participation [is] a device whereby public officials induce nonpublic individuals to act in a way the officials desire. – Daniel P. Moynihan

539. If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard, this makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. – Henry David Thoreau

540. Voters who live off taxpayers are the Democrats' ace in the hole. The Democrats created big programs and never let the recipients forget it. This gives them an initial advantage of tens of millions of votes in any presidential election. – Joseph Sobran

541. The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. – Thomas Jefferson

542. Multiple political parties are a fact of life throughout Europe and most of the West. Today the only countries without strong multiparty political systems are the United States and a number of third world military dictatorships. – Thomas H. Naylor

543. Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing. – Bernard Baruch

544. It is indeed a singular thing that people wish to pass laws to nullify the disagreeable consequences that the law of responsibility entails. Will they never realize that they do not eliminate these consequences but merely pass them along to other people? The result is one injustice the more and one moral the less. – Frederic Bastiat

545. Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it. – Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

546. The voice of the majority is no proof of justice. – Johann von Schiller

547. It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood, if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be like tomorrow. – James Madison, Federalist Paper 62

548. A great many laws in a country, like many physicians, is a sign of malady. – Voltaire

549. An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. – Martin Luther King Jr.

550. Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money. – Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

551. The rule of law can be wiped out in one misguided, however well-intentioned, generation. – William T. Gossett, President ABA

552. Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. – Benjamin Franklin

553. The government's only proper job is to protect individual rights against violence by force or fraud … to protect men from foreign invaders … to settle disputes among men according to objective laws … The greatness of the Founding Fathers was how well they understood this issue and how close some of them came to understanding it perfectly. – Ayn Rand

554. The Constitution is not hearsay. It is not a bunch of legal myths passed along by word of mouth. It is not a depository for judicial delusions and ideological pipe dreams. It is not a figment of some justice's Marxian imagination. It is a written document – a legally binding contract whose words, spirit and intent are clear. – Linda Bowles, nationally syndicated columnist

555. The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it. – Felix Frankfurter, Graves vs. New York; 1939

556. We the people are the rightful master of both congress and the courts – not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. – Abraham Lincoln

557. Terrorism is a direct response to the crimes our government has committed against foreigners (besides which, the actual terrorists are within our own government) – Gore Vidal

558. If [drugs] didn't exist, our government would have to invent them, the better to enact laws aimed at keeping the citizens "sinless and obedient." – Gore Vidal

559. Going to war accelerated the move from indirect to direct rule. Almost any state that makes war finds that it cannot pay for the effort from its accumulated reserves and current revenues. Almost all war-making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat – including men – from reluctant citizens who have other uses for their resources. – Charles Tilly

560. When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. – Plato, 347 B.C.

561. Governments need armies to protect them from their enslaved and oppressed subjects. – Tolstoy

562. I say one evil empire down … one to go. – Michael Moore, The Big One

563. The laws of economics tell us that the expansion of the central state can't go on forever. Its limit is reached when the looted turn on the looters. And that's beginning to happen. More than six decades of hard work for American liberty beginning with the Old Right opposition to the Roosevelt Revolution and continuing with the Mises Institute, is beginning to bear fruit. – Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. 11-27-96

564. The leviathan state, that monster devouring civilization in this century, is in the throes of death. This is not a wish or a prediction, but a conclusion drawn from a broad look at the trends of the last decade and a half, which, if we take the right steps, can continue on into the next century. What has happened around the world – nations states collapsing, markets outwitting planners, citizens rising up against government masters – can and is happening here at home. – Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

565. In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. – Charles de Gaulle

566. No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. [!] – Abraham Lincoln

567. We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor. In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the states with which we have lately been confederated. All we ask is to be let alone – that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. This we will, we must resist to the direst extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned, the sword will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amnesty and commerce that cannot but be mutually beneficial. So long as this pretension is maintained, with a firm reliance on that Divine Power which covers with its protection the just cause, we must continue to struggle for our inherent right to freedom, independence, and self government. – President Jefferson Davis' first address to the Confederate Congress

568. In our government-controlled schools we are taught that Lincoln was our greatest president because his war ended slavery and saved the Union. As usual, the other side of the story – the side that reflects poorly on the government – somehow gets lost. – Richard J. Maybury, The Abe Lincoln Hoax

569. So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many many other evils … the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel. – Charles Dickens, as editor of All the Year Round, a British periodical in 1862

570. Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. – Abraham Lincoln [!], January 12, 1848 speech in Congress

571. Federalism is not when the central government graciously allows the states to do this or that. That is just another form of administration. True federalism is when the people of the states set limits to the central government. Fundamentally, federalism means states rights. The cause of states rights is the cause of liberty. They rise or fall together. – Clyde C. Wilson

572. For 134 years the American people have been led to believe that the right of secession had been overturned by a "verdict of arms," but that isn't true … It is true the shot fired at Fort Sumter was a mistake since it provided the pretext for the Southland to be invaded by foreign troops, but the right of secession realized through the ballot box remains an essential part of our constitutional order. – George Kalas, Chairman Emeritus, The Southern Party

573. The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects … what they thus lost they have never got back. – H.L. Mencken

574. The future inhabitants of [both] the Atlantic and Mississippi states will be our sons. We think we see their happiness in their union, and we wish it. Events may prove otherwise; and if they see their interest in separating why should we take sides? God bless them both, and keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better. – Thomas Jefferson

575. I expect to see trade wars, foreign policy disasters, a few race riots, a decrease in personal liberty, higher taxes, higher inflation and probably, economic collapse. The silver lining is, secession will probably become more feasible. – Charley Reese, What the next four years has in store for us column Nov. 8.1996 in Orlando Sentinal

576. Up until the late unpleasantness of the Civil war, then, the right of secession was more or less taken for granted in many quarters, and there has never been any amendment or even a Supreme Court decision saying it's improper. – Samual Francis, Secession May Be Legal But Not Expedient, Conservative Chronicles

577. If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. – Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address

578. The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so … – Alex de Tocqueville, Democracy In America

579. If [the Declaration of Independence] justifies the secession from the British empire of 3,000,000 of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of 5,000,000 of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861. – New York Tribune, December 17, 1860

580. The United States has become too big, too authoritarian, and too undemocratic. Its states assume too little responsibility for the solution of their own social, economic, and political problems. So starved for revenue are our states that they are all too willing to abdicate to the federal government their responsibilities for public education, criminal justice, employment, and environmental protection. Fine tuning or patch our badly crippled political system will do little to turn the situation around. There is only one solution to the problems of America – peaceful dissolution, not piecemeal devolution. – Thomas H. Naylor & William H. Willimon, Downsizing the U.S.A.

581. The error is in the assumption that the General Government is a party to the constitutional compact. The States … formed the compact, acting as sovereign and independent communities. – John C. Calhoun

582. The procedure of secession was to have an election for delegates to a state convention, to meet in convention, and to adopt ordinances of secession. This was done in accord with the Southern understanding of what would be in keeping with the United States Constitution. It had, after all, been ratified by the states acting through conventions. Could they not "un-ratify"it – secede from the Union – in the same fashion? – Clarence Carson, A Basic History Of The United States

583. Our government is an agency of delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders did not look to its preservation by force; but the chain they wove to bind these States together was one of love and mutual good offices … – Jefferson Davis

584. If you would not confront your neighbor and demand his money at the point of a gun to solve every new problem that may appear in your life, you should not allow the government to do it for you. – William E. Simon

585. A democracy is a place where numerous elections are held, at great cost, without issues, and with interchangeable candidates. – Gore Vidal

586. Taxation with representation ain't so hot either. – Gerald Barzan

587. Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic. – Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

588. A few pithy slogans on guns:
     1. An armed person is a citizen. An unarmed person is a subject.
     2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
     3. Six-shooter: The original point and click interface.
     4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
     5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
     6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
     7. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
     8. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
     9. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
     10. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
     11. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved.
     12. What part of "shall not be infringed" don't you understand?
     13. The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.
     14. 64,999,987 firearm owners killed no one yesterday.
     15. Guns only have two enemies: Rust and Politicians.
     16. Know guns, Know peace and safety. No guns, no peace nor safety.
     17. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
     18. 911 – government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
     19. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
     20. Criminals love gun control – it makes their jobs safer.
     21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
     22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
     23. We don't enforce unconstitutional laws; we REPEAL them.
     24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
     25. The American Revolution would never have happened with "gun control."

589. The difference between death and taxes is, death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. – Will Rogers

590. The Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals. It does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government. It is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens' protection against the government. – Ayn Rand

591. Government should stay the hell out of people's business. – Senator Barry Goldwater

592. Greedy capitalists get money by trade. Good liberals steal it. – David Friedman

593. "A well-crafted pepperoni pizza, being necessary to the preservation of a diverse menu, the right of the people to keep and cook tomatoes, shall not be infringed."

     I would ask you to try to argue that this statement says that only pepperoni pizzas can keep and cook tomatoes, and only well-crafted ones at that. This is basically what the so-called states rights people argue with respect to the well-regulated militia, vs. the right to keep and bear arms. – Bruce Tiemann

594. The New Deal Court essentially told Congress: It doesn't matter what the Constitution says or what limits on government it establishes, you are empowered to spend money on whatever you please. And so Congress does, even though its profligacy has placed the nation in great economic peril. – Stephen Moore, Director of Fiscal Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, March, 1997

595. "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...." – Congressional Oath of Office

596. The word politics is derived from the words "poly" meaning many and "ticks" meaning blood sucking parasites. – Anonymous

597. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. – Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276

598. We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money. – David Crockett, Congressman 1827-35

599. I never consider a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. –Thomas Jefferson

600. Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. – Thomas Jefferson 1779

601. We Americans have no commission from God to police the world – Benjamin Harrison

602. The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. –Benjamin Franklin

603. Switzerland is a land where crime is virtually unknown, yet most Swiss males are required by law to keep in their homes what amounts to a portable, personal machine gun. –Tom Clancy

604. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. – George Mason

605. You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money. – P.J. O'Rourke

606. Government is not the solution, but rather the cause of our problems. – Ronald Reagan

607. If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand. – Milton Friedman

608. Fire, water, and government know nothing of mercy. – Albanian Proverb

609. When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty. – Confucius

610. An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. – George Eliot

611. Politics is the art of obtaining money from the rich and votes from the poor on the pretext of protecting each from the other. – Anonymous

612. There is only one way to kill capitalism – by taxes, taxes, and more taxes. – Karl Marx

613. If there is no wind, row. – Chinese Proverb

614. [We] should not blame a gun itself for any crime or any acts of violence, any more than we can blame a pen for misspelling a word. – Senator Wallace F. Bennett (R-UT), Congressional Record, 5/16/68

615. Politicians never accuse you of "greed" for wanting other people's money – only for wanting to keep your own money. – Joseph Sobran

616. When politicians say "I'm in politics," it may or may not be possible to trust them, but when they say, "I'm in public service," you know you should flee. – Albert Jay Nock

617. Man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts. – Ronald Reagan, farewell address, 1/11/89

618. All socialism involves slavery. – Herbert Spencer

619. Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. – Will Rogers

620. Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm. – Malayan proverb

621. Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots. –John Adams 1793

622. Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark. –Walter Lippmann 1937

623. Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed. –Joseph Stalin

624. It's wrong for someone to confiscate your money, give it to someone else, and call that "compassion." – Harry Browne

625. Whatever the issue, let freedom offer us a hundred choices, instead of having government force one answer on everyone. – Harry Browne

626. I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution. – Harry Browne

627. Immigrants used to come to America seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government. Now they come looking for free health care, free education, and a free lunch. – Harry Browne

628. The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it. – Harry Browne

629. Republicans campaign like Libertarians and govern like Democrats. – Harry Browne

630. Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free. – Harry Browne

631. The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience. – Albert Camus

632. A society that puts equality … ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. – Milton Friedman

633. Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatens, quacks, and hustlers. – Dr. Walter Williams

634. Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. – Sallust

635. It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. – Thomas Sowell

636. Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them. – Walter Mondale

637. A society based on the freedom to choose is better than a society based on the principles of socialism, communism and coercion. – Milton Friedman

638. Political leaders in capitalist countries who cheer the collapse of socialism in other countries continue to favor socialist solutions in their own. They know the words, but they have not learned the tune. – Milton Friedman

639. We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ... – Bill Clinton (USA TODAY, 11 March 1993, page 2A)

640. Americans are so enamoured of equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. – Alexis de Tocqueville

641. The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. – John F. Kennedy

642. In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance. – Thomas Jefferson, 1824

643. Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. – Plato (427-347 B.C.)

644. Give a good man great powers and crooks grab his job. – Rick Gaber

645. Politicians, like bombers, seldom see their victims. – Donald Boudreaux, Chairman, George Mason University Department of Economics

646. For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise. – Harry Browne

647. Patrick Henry did not say, "Give me absolute safety or give me death." – John Stossel, ABC News journalist

648. The Declaration, after all, catalogued the assaults on our freedoms committed by Britain's King George III. What has been built up over the last two and a quarter centuries is a structure that dwarfs George III's regime. – K.E. Grubbs, Jr., Investor's Business Daily, 7/3/01

649. Our country's founders cherished liberty, not democracy. – US House Congressional Resolution 48 "A Republic; not a Democracy", sponsored by Ron Paul, 3/6/01.

650. There's no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom. – Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964 (1909-1998)

651. A people incapable of protecting themselves will lose their rights as a free people, becoming either servile dependents of the state or of the criminal predators who are their de facto masters. – Robert Cottrol, George Washington University law professor

652. The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best. – Thomas Sowell

653. The illegal drug trade is the financial engine that fuels many terrorist organizations around the world, including Osama bin Laden. – Dennis Hastert, House Speaker

654. It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law … that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. – H. L. Mencken

655. Most people want security in this world, not liberty. – H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

656. For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more. – Gore Vidal

657. Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitution was not – and is not – a grant of rights to the citizenry. Instead, the Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power. – Jacob Hornberger, 11/01

658. When freedom prevails, the ingenuity and inventiveness of people creates incredible wealth. This is the source of the natural improvement of the human condition. – Brian S. Wesbury

659. To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. – Elizabeth Cady Stanton

660. To be governed … is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled – by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

661. There seems to be an attitude that government ownership of land is good as long as you call it "open space" … All it is is socialism. – Douglas Bruce, Colorado tax-reduction activist

662. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production. – Ayn Rand

663. The "private sector" of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and...the "public sector" is, in fact, the coercive sector. – Henry Hazlitt

664. Americans have the mistaken viewpoint that Lady Liberty is only a peacetime luxury who is ill-equipped to fight the nasties. Therefore, they reason, we need an equally nasty Big Brother. Americans have forgotten that Lady Liberty is one ferocious mother when protecting her children. – Mary Ruwart

665. Try to halt violence by restricting gun ownership and you won't halt violence. But you will create entire classes of new criminals – people who make paperwork errors, violate technical specification of the law, or rebel against the new restrictions. And you'll create new bureaus, new enforcement arms, new prisons to punish them. You'll make hordes of lawyers and bureaucrats very happy. Organized criminals will be grateful to the naive moral crusaders ("useful idiots") as they profit by selling an illegal product. And ordinary street criminals will bless fools, legislators, and "leaders" for making their job so much safer. – JPFO's "Bill of RIghts Sentinel", Fall 2001.

666. What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion. – Ayn Rand

667. For libertarians, freedom entails the right of people to live their lives any way they choose, so long as their conduct is peaceful. For conservatives, freedom entails the right of government to do just about anything it wants, even if its conduct is violent. – Jacob Hornberger

668. A caged canary is safe but not free. – Walter Williams

669. The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of "freedom". – Joe Sobran

670. There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse. – Thomas Sowell

671. Politicians, like diapers, have to be changed frequently – and for the very same reason. – Anonymous

672. The reason welfare is bad is not because it costs too much, nor because it "undermines the work ethic," but because it is intrinsically at odds with the way human beings come to live satisfying lives. – Charles Murray

673. Public Schools too often fail because they are shielded from the very force that improves performance and sparks innovation in nearly every other human enterprise – competition. – Robert Lutz/Clark Durant

674. He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them. – Spinoza

675. The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly, and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly. – Thomas Sowell

676. If politicians were serious about day care for children, instead of just sloganizing about it, nothing they could do would improve the quality of child care more than by lifting the heavy burden of taxation that forces so many families to have both parents working. – Thomas Sowell

677. The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, capable not only of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting 100 impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations. – Adam Smith

678. Education – compulsory schooling, compulsory learning – is a tyranny and a crime against the human mind and spirit. Let all those escape it who can, any way they can. – John Holt

679. The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline. – Milton Friedman

680. The public school system: "Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority." – Walter Karp, Editor Harper's Magazine

681. The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good. – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826 3rd US President & Founding Father)

682. "Democracy – A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic – negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard for consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy." – 1928 U.S. Army Training Manual

683. … so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. – Voltairine de Cleyre

684. Arms are the only true badge of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave. – Andrew Fletcher 1698

685. Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised. – Milton Friedman

686. Whenever we depart from voluntary cooperation and try to do good by using force, the bad moral value of force triumphs over good intentions. – Milton Friedman

687. The elementary truth is that the Great Depression was produced by government mismanagement [of money]. It was not produced by the failure of private enterprise. – Milton Friedman

688. The essential notion of a capitalist society … is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force. – Milton Friedman

689. Consider Social Security. The young have always contributed to the support of the old. Earlier, the young helped their own parents out of a sense of love and duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else's parents out of compulsion and fear. The voluntary transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken those bonds. – Milton Friedman

690. The American people are becoming more and more afraid of, and are running away from, their own revolution. – Leonard E. Read

691. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. – John Stuart Mill

692. I shall exert every faculty I possess in aiding to prevent the Constitution from being nullified, destroyed, or impaired; and even though I should see it fail, I will still, with a voice feeble, perhaps, but earnest as ever issued from human lips, and with extinguish, call on the people to come to its rescue. – Daniel Webster

693. The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks … It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. – Samuel Adams

694. The fact throughout history is that whenever government dominates the economic affairs of its citizenry, a free society is eroded, then destroyed, and a minority government ensues. Personal liberty without economic liberty is an absolute contradiction; the one cannot exist without the other. – William E. Simon

695. Freedom is not a luxury for a few wealthy nations; as many of our liberal pundits try to tell us, but a necessity for the poor and hungry. – Edward P. Coleson

696. Were it necessary to bring a majority into a comprehension of the libertarian philosophy, the cause of liberty would be utterly hopeless. Every significant movement in history has been led by one or just a few individuals with a small minority of energetic supporters. – Leonard E. Read

697. Man must have the right of choice, even to choose wrong, if he shall ever learn to choose right. – Josiah C. Wedgwood

698. Central planning will eventually destroy individual liberty by concentrating all political power in one person or in a committee; furthermore, it will eventually end our prosperity by laying the dead hand of state control on the economy. – Robert M. Thornton

699. The greatest threat to the future of our nation – to our freedom – is not foreign military aggression … but the growing dependence of the people on a paternalistic government. A nation is no stronger than its people and the best measure of their strength is how they accept responsibility. There will never be a great society unless the materialism of the welfare state is replaced by individual initiative and responsibility. – Charles B. Shuman

700. The king has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent Swarms of Officers to harass our People and eat out their substance. – U.S. Declaration of Independence

701. Few of us seem to want to keep government out of our personal affairs and responsibilities. Many of us seem to favor various types of government guaranteed and compulsory "security." We say that we want personal freedom, but we demand government housing, government price controls, government-guaranteed jobs and wages. We boast that we are responsible persons, but we vote for candidates who promise us special privileges, government pensions, government subsidies, and government electricity. – Dean Russell

702. The beneficial effect of state intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and so to speak, visible, while its evil effects are gradual and indirect and lay out of sight … Hence the majority of mankind must almost of necessity look with undue favor upon governmental intervention. – A. V. Dicey

703. The right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone. – Justice Louis Brandeis

704. It must be obvious that liberty necessarily means freedom to choose foolishly as well as wisely; freedom to choose evil as well as good; freedom to enjoy the rewards of good judgment, and freedom to suffer the penalties of bad judgment. If this is not true, the word "freedom" has no meaning. – Ben Moreell

705. There is nothing new in state interventionism. It is as old and reactionary as societal organization itself. Always, when it permeates the body politic, it kills the nation. – Spruille Braden

706. Throughout forty centuries of human experience, price controls at their best have always been a miserable failure. At their worst, they have led to famine and bloodshed – to defeat and to disaster. – Irving S. Olds

707. Somehow, the fact that more poor people are on welfare, receiving more generous payments, does not seem to have made this country a nice place to live – not even for the poor on welfare, whose condition seems not noticeably better than when they were poor and off welfare. Something appears to have gone wrong; a liberal and compassionate social policy has bred all sorts of unanticipated and perverse consequences. – Irving Kristol

708. Given man's nature, freedom will always be in jeopardy, and the only question that need concern each of us is if and how well we took our stand in its defense during the short period of time when we were potentially a part of the struggle. – Benjamin Rogge

709. It seems that wherever the Welfare State is involved, the moral precept, "Thou shalt not steal," becomes altered to say: "Thou shalt not steal, except for what thou deemest to be a worthy cause, where thou thinkest that thou canst use the loot for a better purpose than wouldst the victim of the theft." – F. A. Harper

710. We must remember that the principal instrument of government is coercion and that our government officials are no more moral, omnipotent, nor omniscient than are any of the rest of us. Once we understand the basic principles which must be observed if freedom is to be safeguarded against government, we may become more hesitant in turning our personal problems and responsibilities over to that agency of coercion, with its insatiable appetite for power. – W. C. Mullendore

711. Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. – James Madison

712. Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence. – Abraham Lincoln

713. The essential quality of a free economy is that it cannot be planned. It leaves the solution of problems to the inspiration of the individuals in the untrammeled population. When something approaching a free economy has existed, it has always worked better than the schemes of any planners. – Thomas H. Barber

714. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. – Frédéric Bastiat

715. The proliferation of bureaucrats and its invariable accompaniment, much heavier tax levies on the productive part of the population, are the recognizable signs, not of a great, but of a decaying society. Historians know that both phenomena were especially marked in the declining eras of the Roman Empire in the West and of its successor state, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. – William Henry Chamberlin

716. Government-to-government foreign aid promotes statism, centralized planning, socialism, dependence, pauperization, inefficiency, and waste. It prolongs the poverty it is designed to cure. Voluntary private investment in private enterprise, on the other hand, promotes capitalism, production, independence, and self-reliance. – Henry Hazlit

717. Do not consider Collectivists as "sincere but deluded idealists". The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not "idealistic," no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. – Ayn Rand

718. Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?" – Thomas Paine

719. Painful as it may be to hear it, there's nothing special about the people of this country that sets them apart from the other people of the world. It is the Bill of Rights, and only the Bill of Rights, that keeps us from becoming the world's biggest banana republic. The moment we forget that, the American Dream is over. – Alexander Hope, "Looking Forward"

720. Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. – Henry Grady Weaver, author of a classic book on freedom, The Mainspring of Human Progress

721. The greatest productive force is human selfishness. – Robert Heinlein

722. I do not challenge the dedication and sincerity of those who disagree with the freedom philosophy and confidently promote government solutions for all our ills. I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas. – Ron Paul

723. If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another. – Milton Friedman

724. If you don't risk anything, you risk even more. – Erica Jong

725. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others – with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means. – Henry Grady Weaver, author of a classic book on freedom, The Mainspring of Human Progress

726. Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. – Mark Twain

727. There is no limit to the ingenuity of man if it is properly and vigorously applied under conditions of peace and justice. – Winston Churchill

728. Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing. – George Bernard Shaw

729. Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut. – Daniel Greenberg
730. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. – John Henry Boetker

731. There is only one success - To be able to spend your life in your own way. – Christopher Morley

732. If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies. – Milton Friedman - Economist. Awarded 1976 Nobel Prize in economics.

733. They told me if I voted for Goldwater, he would get us into a war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater and that's what happened. – William F. Buckley, Jr. (founder of National Review)

734. A traffic jam is a collision between free enterprise and socialism. Free enterprise produces automobiles faster than socialism can build roads and road capacity. – Andrew Galambos

735. "Let me tell you how it will be. There's one for you, nineteen for me. 'Cause I'm the taxman." – George Harrison, (From song "Taxman" on The Beatles album Revolver 1966)

736. The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects – his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity. – Henry Hazlitt

737. Libertarians believe the answer to America's political problems is the same commitment to freedom that earned America its greatness: a free-market economy and the abundance and prosperity it brings; a dedication to civil liberties and personal freedom that marks this country above all others; and a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade as prescribed by America's founders. – The Libertarian Party: A Short History, 2000

738. We're told cars are wasteful. Wasteful of what? Oil did a lot of good sitting in the ground for millions of years. We're told cars should be replaced with mass transportation. But it's hard to reach the drive through window at McDonald's from a speeding train. And we're told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine? – P.J. O'Rourke

739. When politics are used to allocate resources, the resources all end up being allocated to politics." – P.J. O'Rourke

740. This country was founded by religious nuts with guns. – P.J. O'Rourke

741. When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads. – Ron Paul, M.D., Republican congressman from Texas and Libertarian Party candidate for President in 1988

742. Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact that they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times. – Lawrence W. Reed, economist, in The Freeman

743. Those (who) seek to establish systems of Government based on the regimentation of all Human Beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order." – Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of The United States

744. Liberals love to say things like, "We're just asking everyone to pay their fair share." But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave. The Internal Revenue service is not asking anybody to do anything. It confiscates your assets and puts you behind bars if you don't pay. – Thomas Sowell, Forbes, July 1994

745. Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them. – Lysander Spooner

746. The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster. – Ludwig von Mises

747. Economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics. – Ludwig von Mises

748. Who the hell is FICA and who said he could have any of my paycheck! – From the movie Ferris Buehler's Day Off

749. Dependence leads to subservience. – Thomas Jefferson

750. Libertarians have quietly become America's best organized and most significant third party. Unlike flash-in-the-pan parties organized around cults of personality like Ross Perot's and Ralph Nader's, Libertarians have organized at the grass roots for the long haul. They are fast approaching the point where they may force the major parties to reckon with Libertarian ideas. – Bob Ewegen, The Denver Post, 11/24/01

751. When democratic governments create economic calamity, free markets get the blame. – Jack Kemp

752. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred. – Thomas Jefferson

753. I can think of few plainer, more direct abridgments of the freedoms of the First Amendment than to compel persons to support candidates, parties, ideologies or causes that they are against. – Justice Black Lathrop v. Donohue, 367 U.S. 820, 873 (1961) (Black, J. dissenting).

754. The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit. – Samuel Gompers

755. Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth. – Rudolph Rummel

756. When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered. – Dorothy Thompson, newspaper columnist

757. What pays under capitalism is satisfying the common man, the customer. The more people you satisfy, the better for you. – Ludwig von Mises

758. According to the Tax Foundation, taxes now consume more than 38% of the average family's budget. That is more than is spent on food, clothing, housing, and transportation combined. Compare this to the plight of medieval serfs. They only had to give the lord of the manor one-third of their output -- and they were considered slaves. So what does that make us? – Daniel Mitchell, The Washington Times, 3/9/99

759. The same government that brought you urban renewal is likely to make an even worse mess of suburban renewal. – Steven Hayward, The National Review, 3/22/99

760. Our government, taxes, and ideas of freedom are already duplicates of the Old World. Our politicians determine how we should live our lives – and our individual liberties are sacrificed for the benefit of the Fatherland. – Harry Browne

761. He who disdains the fall in infant mortality and the gradual disappearance of famines and plagues may cast the first stone upon the materialism of the economists. – Ludwig von Mises

762. Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men. – Mortimer Adler (1902-2001)

763. Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered. – Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

764. The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny. – William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), Life, 1848

765. A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. – Ramsey Clark, U.S. Attorney General, New York Times, 10/02/77

766. The Bill of Rights is a born rebel. It reeks with sedition. In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority … It is the one guarantee of human freedom to the American people. – Frank I. Cobb (1869-1923), LaFollette's Magazine, 01/20

767. Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive. – Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998), Freedom and Order, 1966

768. Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment. – Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998), Freedom, Loyalty and Dissent, 1954

769. It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition that he may abuse it. – Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), Address, First Protectorate Parliament, 1654

770. Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use this same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like. – Alan Dershowitz, in The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason, 82 Mich L. Rev., 204 (Dan Gifford), 1995

771. The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen – a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life. – William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Osborne v. United States

772. It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy arrest. – William O. Douglas (1898-1980), Henry v. United States, 1959

773. Of all the tyrannies on human kind
     the worst is that which persecutes the mind.
     – John Dryden (1631-1700), The Hind and the Panther, 1687

774. Abuse of power isn't limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we're not vigilant. – Clint Eastwood, Parade Magazine, 1/12/97

775. Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them. – Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969), U.S. President, Reader's Digest, 12/63

776. Here in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels – men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. – Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), U.S. President, Speech, Columbia University, 1954

777. Man exists for his own sake and not to add a laborer to the State. – Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Journal, 1839

778. He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid. – Epictetus (ca 55-135 A.D.), Discourses, ca 100 A.D.

779. Complete and accurate surveillance as a means of control is probably a practical impossibility. What is much more likely is a loss of privacy and constant inconvenience as the wrong people gain access to information, as one wastes time convincing the inquisitors that one is in fact innocent, or as one struggles to untangle the errors of the errant machine. – Victor Ferkiss, Technological Man: The Myth and the Reality, 1969

780. We are willing enough to praise freedom when it is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship. – E. M. Forster (1879-1970), Two Cheers for Democracy, 1951

781. "For your own good" is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction. – Janet Frame, Faces In The Water, 1982

782. Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one's belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one's right to believe, and obey, his own conscience. – Victor Frankl (1905-1997), The Will To Meaning

783. The more laws the more offenders. – Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), Gnomologia, 1732

784. The individual is the true reality of life. A cosmos in himself, he does not exist for the State, nor for that abstraction called "society" or the "nation," which is only a collection of individuals. – Emma Goldman (1869-1940), The Place of the Individual in Society

785. There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another … All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. – Emma Goldman (1869-1940), My Disillusionment in Russia, 1923

786. The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press have not been granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are based upon accepted thought, but the right to say the things which displease, the right to say the things which convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, the right to say things, even though they do a wrong. – Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), Seventy Years of Life and Labor, 1925

787. I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution. – Ulysses S. Grant (1882-1885), U.S. President, Inaugural Address, 4 March 1869

788. Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought. – Graham Greene (1904-1991)

789. The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians. – Angelica Grimke (1805-1879), Anti-Slavery Examiner, September 1836

790. Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. – A. Whitney Griswold (1909-1963), New York Times, 24 February 1959

791. Whenever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. – Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), Almansor: A Tragedy, 1823

792. To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or knaves. – Claude-Adrien Helvetius

793. What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition. – Learned Hand (1872-1961), Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, United States v. Kirschenblatt, 1926

794. I cannot assent to the view, if it be meant that the legislature may impair or abridge the rights of a free press and of free speech whenever it thinks that the public welfare requires that it be done. The public welfare cannot override constitutional privilege. – John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Patterson v. Chicago

795. In view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. – John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896

796. The liberty of the individual is the greatest thing of all, it is on this and this alone that the true will of the people can develop. – Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870), From the Other Shore, 1849

797. A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to. – Granville Hicks (1901-1982)

798. Where men cannot freely convey their thoughts to one another, no other liberty is secure. – William E. Hocking (1873-1966), Freedom of the Press, 1947

799. There can be no freedom without freedom to fail. – Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), The Ordeal of Change, 1964

800. If there is any principle of the constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought – not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate. – Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, United States v. Schwimmer, 1929

801. Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves the necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. – Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr. (1809-1884), Elsie Venner, 1861

802. Truth, in its struggles for recognition, passes through four distinct stages. First, we say it is damnable, dangerous, disorderly, and will surely disrupt society. Second, we declare it is heretical, infidelic and contrary to the Bible. Third, we say it is really a matter of no importance either one way or the other. Fourth, we aver that we have always upheld it and believed it. – Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915), Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams, 1923

803. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency. – Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court, Home Building & Loan Assn v. Blairsdell, 1934

804. The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our history abundantly attest. – Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Lovell v. City of Griffin, 1938

805. I believe the State exists for the development of individual lives, not individuals for the development of the state. – Julian Huxley (1878-1975)

806. Free speech is meaningless unless it tolerates the speech that we hate. – Henry J. Hyde, U.S. Congressman, Speech, 5/3/91

807. It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. – Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, American Communications Assn v. Douds, 1950

808. The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy. One's right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote; they depend on no elections. – Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, West Virginia Board of Education vs. Barnette, 1943

809. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1846), U.S. President, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782

810. The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere. – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1846), U.S. President, Letter to Abigail Adams, 22 February 1787

811. We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear – unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called "the insolence of elected persons" – in word, free men … – Gerald W. Johnson (1890-1980), American Freedom and the Press, 1958

812. Every man should know that his conversations, his correspondence, and his personal life are private. – Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973), Remarks, 3/10/67

813. A shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. – Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Modern Man in Search of a Soul, 1933

814. The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. – John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), U.S. President, Speech, University of California, 3/23/63

815. At the heart of western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man … is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society. – Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968), U.S. Senator, Speech, University of Capetown, 6/6/66

816. Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grand-children are once more slaves. – D. H. Lawrence (1885-1938), 1915

817. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution. – Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1861

818. In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs. – Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society, 1937

819. To argue against any breach of liberty from the ill use that may be made of it, is to argue against liberty itself, since all is capable of being abused. – Lord George Lyttleton (1709-1773)

820. What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose; the right to create for yourself the alternative of choice. Without the responsibility and exercise of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing. – Archibald Macleish (1882-1982), 12/04/37

821. If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. – Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1969

822. To change masters is not to be free. – Jose Marti y Perez (1853-1895)

823. Tolerance is a better guarantee of freedom than brotherly love; for a man may love his brother so much that he feels himself thereby appointed his brother's keeper. – Everett Dean Martin (1880-1941), Liberty, 1930

824. No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore our belief in our own guidance. – Henry Miller (1891-1980), The Wisdom of the Heart, 1941

825. I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether things are so. – Michel de Montaigne (1532-1592), Essays

826. There is no crueler tyranny that that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. – Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), The Spirit of the Laws, 1748

827. You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. – John Morley (1838-1923), Critical Miscellanies

828. In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary. – Kathleen Norris

829. The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm. – P. D. Ouspensky (1878-1947), A New Model of the Universe, 1931

830. A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it. – William Penn (1644-1718), Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims

831. No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents. – Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), in Liberty and the Great Libertarians (C. Spradling)

832. A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns. – Mario Puzo, The Godfather

833. If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance, we must provide a safe place for their perception. – Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), U.S. President, Speech, 6/30/38

834. One evening, when I was yet in my nurse's arms, I wanted to touch the tea urn, which was boiling merrily … My nurse would have taken me away from the urn, but my mother said "Let him touch it." So I touched it – and that was my first lesson in the meaning of liberty. – John Ruskin (1819-1900), The Story of Arachne, 1870

835. There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all. – Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Arizona v. Hicks, 3/3/87

836. There is no "slippery slope" toward loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders. – Alan K. Simpson, U.S. Senator, New York Times, 9/26/82

837. The liberty the citizen enjoys is to be measured not by governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the paucity of restraints it imposes upon him. – Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), Social Statics, 1850

838. A man's liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefited. – Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), Social Statics, 1850

839. The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it's invalid on its face. – Potter Stewart (1915-1985), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Walker v. Birmingham, 1967

840. Laws are like cobwebs which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. – Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Gullivers Travels, 1726

841. Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation by others, thus affording them the possibility of dignity; they loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, thus confronting them with the possibility of insignificance. – Thomas Szasz, The Untamed Tongue, 1990

842. Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority. – William Howard Taft (1857-1930), U.S. President, Veto Message, Arizona Enabling Act, 1911

843. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than any [constitutional] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. – Roger B. Taney (1777-1864), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Ex parte Milligan, 1866

844. Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. – Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice

845. I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights. – Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice

846. There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for the crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have. – Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), U.S. President, Message, Veto of the McCarran Act, 9/22/50

847. Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship. – Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), U.S. President, Speech, Columbia University, 4/28/59

848. From the utopian viewpoint, the United States constitution is a singularly hard-bitten and cautious document, for it breathes the spirit of skepticism about human altruism and incorporates a complex system of checks, balances and restrictions, so that everybody is holding the reins on everybody else. – Chad Walsh, From Utopia to Nightmare, 1962

849. But when no risk is taken there is no freedom. It is thus that, in an industrial society, the plethora of laws made for our personal safety convert the land into a nursery, and policemen hired to protect us become selfserving busybodies. – Alan Watts (1915-1973), Tao: The Watercourse Way, 1975

850. Live free or die. – New Hampshire State Motto

851. Tax reform means, "Don't tax you, don't tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree." – Russell Long

852. The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. – Milton Friedman

853. Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them. – Lily Tomlin

854. The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of governmental power. – General Douglas MacArthur

855. The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. – U.S. Senator William Borah

856. When a self-governing people confer upon their government the power to take from some and give to others, the process will not stop until the last bone of the last taxpayer is picked bare. – Howard Kershner

857. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. . .I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. – President Thomas Jefferson

858. The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the concentration of power, we are resisting the processes of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties. – President Woodrow Wilson

859. The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. – Albert Einstein, scientist

860. When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of a free government. – President Grover Cleveland

861. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part. – Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father

862. Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. – President Calvin Coolidge

863. Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it. – Milton Friedman, Nobel prize-winning economist

864. "Need" now means wanting someone else's money. "Greed" means wanting to keep your own. "Compassion" is when a politician arranges the transfer. – Joseph Sobran, columnist.

865. Form 1040 was chosen by the IRS because for every $50 you earn, you get 10 and they get 40. – Jay Leno

866. The War on Drugs is a price support system for terrorists and drug pushers. It turns ordinary, cheap plants like marijuana and poppies into fantastically lucrative black market products. Without the War on Drugs, the financial engine that fuels terrorist organizations would sputter to a halt. – Ron Crickenberger, Libertarian Party Political Director 2/4/02

867. Whenever there is some trouble in any area of the economy, the simplest solution to many people is "Let the government fix it." Yet … every time the government uses its money or its power to favor this group or that … the net result is such a web of supports, subsidies, interventions and controls that it is almost impossible for a nation to find its way back into a dynamic system of really free enterprise. – Lawrence Fertig

868. More worrisome is the notion that our civil liberties are subject to cancellation in times of crisis. Our Constitution seeks to protect rights the Framers deemed inalienable. It faces its gravest tests in times of crisis. – Clint Bolick Reason Magazine, 12/02

869. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence "democracy," and the other, "tyranny." – Karl Popper

870. The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. – James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union

871. The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism … – U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis, Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

872. Libertarianism is the philosophy which says that you can run your life better than the government can, and you have the right to be left alone in order to do it. – Anonymous

873. There once was a man from Nantucket,
     Who wanted to sell me a bucket,
     But he could not, because,
     There were too many laws,
     So he threw up his hands and said, "Vote Libertarian!" – Anonymous

874. Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from. – Thomas Sowell

875. During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. – George Orwell

876. Gun registration is a gateway drug. – Mark Gilmore

877. Those who beat their swords into plough shares shall plough for those who don't. – Anonymous

878. Letting lawyers make laws is like letting doctors make diseases. – Anonymous

879. Legalize Freedom: Vote Libertarian. – Anonymous

880. The Constitution is the Contract with America. – Anonymous

881. There may be two libertarians in the world who agree on absolutely everything, but I am not one of them. – Anonymous

882. My freedom is more important than your great idea. – Anonymous

883. If 50 million people say a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing.– David Severn

884. As the growing emphasis on feelings crowds out reason, facts will play a smaller role in public discourse. – Paul Craig Roberts

885. Democrats can never get any sleep because they are afraid somebody somewhere is making too much money. Republicans can never get any sleep because they are afraid somebody somewhere is having too much fun. – Anonymous

886. In a democracy, two wolves and a sheep take a majority vote on what's for supper. In a constitutional republic, the wolves are forbidden on voting on what's for supper, and the sheep are well armed. – Anonymous

887. … the American Colonists under King George III had it pretty good compared to us. They would wonder why we haven't taken up arms and seceded yet. – Lew Goldberg

888. The Constitution poses no threat to our current form of government. – Joseph Sobran

889. Anything called a "program" is unconstitutional. – Joseph Sobran

890. How about a chip for everyone, either in their right hand or in their forehead, to make sure no one gets away with anything? Problem is … while "they" are keeping track of us, who will be keeping track of "them"? – Cheryl DeJesus

891. Control's real name is bondage. The logical conclusion would be, if giving up some rights produces a better society, then by giving up all our rights we could produce a perfect society. – Citizens' Rule Book

892. The poorest man may, in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow though it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement. – William Pitt

893. The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened. – Norman Thomas

894. The Ten "Cannots" of Political Economy:

     You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
     You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
     You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
     You cannot help the wage-earner by tearing down the wage-payer.
     You cannot further the brotherhood of mankind by encouraging class hatred.
     You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
     You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
     You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
     You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative.
     You cannot help man permanently by doing for them what they could do and should do for themselves.
     – Although often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, he did not say this. The exact origin of this quote is unknown.

895. Our Constitution is not a body of law to govern the people; it was formulated to govern the government, to make government the servant and not the master of the people. – William F. Jasper

896. Six Miracles of Socialism:

     There is no unemployment, but no one works.
     No one works, but everyone gets paid.
     Everyone gets paid, but there is nothing to buy with the money.
     No one can buy anything, but everyone owns everything.
     Everyone owns everything, but no one is satisfied.
     No one is satisfied, but 99 percent of the people vote for the system. – Anonymous

897. Why Common Thieves Are Better Than Socialists:

     Thieves have the guts to do the job themselves.
     Thieves don't steal in the name of "justice".
     Thieves don't masquerade as "liberals".
     Thieves don't comprise a unified political mob of millions.
     Thieves don't loath freedom and individuality.
     Thieves don't undermine the Constitution.
     Thieves don't promote mind control via "political correctness" and "hate" crimes.
     Thieves don't own/control the "establishment" media.
     Thieves don't indoctrinate our children to be unquestioning drones of the state.
     Thieves can be arrested.
     – Mark Gilmore

898. Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. – Frederic Bastiat

899. The Five Iron Laws of Big Government:
     1. Big Government doesn't work.
     2. Big Government makes things worse, often hurting the very people it is intended to help.
     3. Big Government creates new problems.
     4. Big Government is costly and wasteful.
     5. Big Government diverts money and energy from positive, productive uses.

     That's why we must make government small! – Small Government Act to End the Income Tax in Massachusetts 02/06/02

900. Always behave like a duck – keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath. – Jacob Braude

901. In order to prevent democracy from becoming a tyranny over minorities, individual rights must supersede all democratic voting and all regulations. Rights must come first. Laws should come second, and only to protect those rights; nothing more. – Stuart K. Hayashi

902. Not in government or force, not in slavery or war, but in the creative, and thereby spiritual, power of freedom, shall our inspiration be found. – F.A. Harper, founder Institute for Humane Studies

903. Giving a politician access to your wallet is like giving a dog access to your refrigerator. – Tim Barber

904. Everyone wants to save the planet but no one wants to help Mom clean the dishes." – P.J. O'Rourke, in All the Trouble in the World

905. State-mandated compassion produces, not love for ones fellow man, but hatred and resentment. – Lizard

906. It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny. – James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat, 1838

907. Choose loss rather than shameful gains. – Greek proverb

908. A vote is "wasted" when someone fails to vote their conscience. – Jesse Ventura

909. I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. – John Kennedy, 1962 dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners

910. Each and every time someone says "there ought to be a law" they are saying that men with guns should enforce their will on innocent others. – Michael Barnett

911. No nation was ever ruined by trade. – Benjamin Franklin

912. Nationalized health is synonymous with delays, waiting lists, rationing, and high taxes. – Dr. Christopher Lyon

913. Political correctness is tyranny with manners. – Charlton Heston, speaking before the Arizona State Legislature

914. The whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups. – Henry Hazlitt in Economics in One Lesson

915. The Second Amendment is the Equal Rights Amendment. – Jannalee Tobias

916. My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. – Thomas Jefferson.

917. The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime. – James Bovard, Lost Rights

918. There's nothing that does so much harm as good intentions. – Dr. Milton Friedman, as interviewed in "Is America No. 1?" by John Stossel.

919. It's illegal to say to a voter "Here's $100, vote for me." So what do the politicians do? They offer the $100 in the form of Health Care, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Food Stamps, tobacco subsidies, grain payments, NEA payments, and jobs programs. – Don Farrar - average guy, age 51

920. Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen. – Ayn Rand

921. If workers struggle for higher wages, this is hailed as "social gains", if businessmen struggle for higher profits, this is damned as "selfish greed". – Ayn Rand

922. Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man's well-being is not their goal. – Ayn Rand, Theory and Practice

923. It is a free market that makes monopolies impossible. – Ayn Rand

924. Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other. – Oscar Ameringer

925. Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better. – Albert Camus

926. The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. – Winston Churchill

927. Jury: Twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer. – Robert Frost

928. Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. – Mahatma Gandhi

929. If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. – Thomas Jefferson

930. The public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas. – John Kane

931. Politics is the means by which the will of the few becomes the will of the many. – Howard Koch

932. Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions -- it only guarantees equality of opportunity. – Irving Kristol

933. In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. – Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

934. Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. – Robert Orben

935. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. – George Orwell 1984

936. Every nation ridicules other nations -- and all are right. – Arthur Schopenhauer

937. Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. – I. F. Stone

938. It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. – Alfred Adler

939. My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. – Ashleigh Brilliant

940. A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is statistics. – Josef Stalin

941. The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. – David Friedman

942. You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty. – Henrik Ibsen

943. Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. – Bertrand Russell

944. When the rich make war it's the poor that die. – Jean-Paul Sartre

945. Remember, to them it is us who are the enemy. – N. F. Simpson

946. Draft beer, not people. – Anonymous

947. It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. – Anonymous

948. Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we've used the ones we have? – Anonymous

949. Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. – John F. Kennedy

950. You [should] not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered – Lyndon Johnson, former President of the U.S.

951. The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves. – John Locke, "A Treatise Concerning Civil Government"

952. Don't ever think you know what's right for the other person. He might start thinking he knows what's right for you. – Paul Williams, "Das Energi"

953. America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards. – Claire Wolfe

954. Since there is no such entity as "the public," since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that "the public interest" supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others. – Ayn Rand

955. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." – Dosteovsky's Grand Inquisitor

956. Since outright slavery has been discredited, "democracy" is the only remaining rationale for state compulsion that most people will accept. – Joseph Sobran in The Myth of 'Limited Government'

957. Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves. – Joseph Sobran in The Myth of 'Limited Government'

958. To entrust the government with the power of determining the education which our children receive is entrusting our servant with the power to be our master. – David Nasaw

959. Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think. – Chinese proverb

960. The common denominator in all government activity is the use of force: Government either forces you to do things, forces you not to do things, or forces you to pay for things. – Doug Newman

961. Our current philosophy of government may be summarized six words: If it sounds good, do it. – Doug Newman

962. All the fiery rhetoric of the Founders was directed at a "tyrant" who taxed his subjects at a rate of about three percent. Today, we in "the land of the free" are taxed at about 50 percent when you add federal, state, and local taxes. What kind of government would do this? A dictatorship would. – Doug Newman

963. Electing even a few Libertarians to a governing board, is akin to having a designated driver in a roomful of drunks. – Doug Klippel, LP County Chair, Jacksonville, FL

964. If the government can't keep drugs away from inmates who are locked in steel cages, surrounded by barbed wire, watched by armed guards, drug-tested, strip-searched, X-rayed, and videotaped – how can it possibly stop the flow of drugs to an entire nation? – Ron Crickenberger

965. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. – Manifesto of the Communist Party - Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

966. If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future. – Winston Churchill

967. The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. – Linus Pauling

968. Mystical references to "society" and its programs to "help" may warm the hearts of the gullible, but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats. – Thomas Sowell

969. We don't have a budget crisis. We have a spending crisis. – Jonathan Hill, Citizens for a Sound Economy

970. Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come. – Chinese proverb

971. There is a word sweeter than mother, home or heaven. That word is liberty. – Epitaph of Matilda Joslyn Gage, suffragist and abolitionist (1826-1898)

972. We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know. – W. H. Auden

973. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. – Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

974. The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right. – William Safire

975. Truth is not determined by majority vote. – Doug Gwyn

976. If you can't answer a man's argument, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names. – Elbert Hubbard

977. If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. – Graham Summer

978. Before you criticize people, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you've got a mile-long head start. And you have their shoes. – The Lion

979. When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If you're going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce. – Life's Little Instruction Book

980. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. – Theodore Roosevelt

981. Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. – Galbraith's Law

982. If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. – Isaac Newton

983. Avoid suspicion: when you're walking through your neighbor's melon patch, don't tie your shoe. – Chinese Proverb

984. You should emulate your heroes, but don't carry it too far. Especially if they're dead. – Anonymous

985. After each war there is a little less democracy to save. – Brooks Atkinson

986. Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner. – James Fenimore Cooper, American author, 1789-1851

987. War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means. – Carl von Clausewitz

988. There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism -- by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide. – Ayn Rand, LA Times, 9/2/62

989. Laws that forbid the carrying of arms, disarm only those who are neither inclined, nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. – Thomas Jefferson, 1764

990. If you have ever seen a four-year-old trying to lord it over a two-year-old, then you know what the basic problem of human nature is – and why government keeps growing larger and ever more intrusive. – Thomas Sowell

991. There are many paths to libertarianism. Many reasons for becoming a libertarian. Ethical: Embracing the "Non-Aggression Principle". Opposition to the use of force. Pragmatic: Freedom works. Freedom is practical and effective and efficient. Utilitarian: Freedom provides the greatest good for the greatest number. Egoistic: Freedom benefits you. Freedom is in your self-interest. Altruistic: Freedom benefits others. Freedom is in their interest. Outcome: Freedom produces results that you want. It maximizes individual choice. Freedom promotes and rewards personal responsibility. Freedom creates prosperity. – Michael Cloud

992. We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas. – H.L. Mencken

993. Property rights are not the rights of property; they are the rights of humans with regard to property. They are a particular kind of human right. – David Friedman

994. The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. – James Madison (1751-1836)

995. It is better to correct your own faults than those of another. – Democritus

996. In most instances, all an argument proves is that two people are present. – Tony Petito

997. [Statists] believe that government should make decisions for individuals. Since individuals usually prefer to make their own decisions, coercion and compulsion become necessary correctives. – Theodore Forstmann (From remarks delivered during the 1997 Shavano Institute for National Leadership)

998. Answer fools with silence. – Iranian Proverb

999. Democracy says it is acceptable to take money or property from a nonconsenting individual because he is outnumbered. – Unknown

1000. Isn't it about time we found Congress in contempt of The People? – Anonymous

1001. What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race. – Thomas Sowell

1002. BATF=Bad Attitude Towards Freedom – Anonymous

1003. If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other's throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace. – Voltaire

1004. Writing to Washington won't help; he's dead! – Anonymous

1005. A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless. – Justice Atonin Scalia

1006. Orwell is starting to look like an optimist! – Anonymous

1007. What men value in this world is not rights but privileges. – H.L. Mencken

1008. FBI=Freedom Bashers, Inc. – Anonymous

1009. Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action. – Ayn Rand

1010. Defend America against the government. – Anonymous

1011. A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim. – L Neil Smith

1012. When only the police have guns, it's called a police state. – Anonymous

1013. The government is not your daddy. The government is not your mommy. – Anonymous

1014. Work harder, millions on welfare on depending upon you. – Anonymous

1015. Criminals obey "gun control" laws in the same manner politicians follow their oaths of office. – Anonymous

1016. To permit is to control. – Unknown

1017. This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. – Unknown

1018. If there's anything a public servant hates to do it's something for the public. – Anonymous

1019. The end of the law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. – John Locke

1020. If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. – Thomas Jefferson

1021. An elective despotism was not the government we fought for. – Thomas Jefferson

1022. Republicans don't want anyone having more fun than they do, and the Democrats don't want anyone making more money than they do. Libertarians want you to make money and have fun. – Andre Marrou, LP Presidential candidate

1023. I don't want my children fed or clothed by the state, but I would prefer that to their being educated by the state. – Max Victor Belz, Grain dealer, Grundy County, Iowa

1024. The early American knew that freedom was nothing more than the absence of external restraint on behavior; the government could not give you freedom, it could only take it away. – Frank Chodorov, Time for Secession

1025. The American experiment has come and gone. Whatever freedoms the people still might have as their own, are monitored and registered and taxed at virtually every turn. – Jeff Baxter

1026. Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom. – F.A. Hayek

1027. The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. – Alexis de Tocqueville

1028. Many people today think that the government's job is to take care of us. But I agree with the Delcaration of Independence, which says that the government's job is to secure our rights (our inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). – Tom Parker

1029. An inherent weakness of a pure democracy is that half the voters are below average intelligence. – Unknown

1030. Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. – Woodrow Wilson

1031. The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively. – Walter Lippmann

1032. Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief. – Arthur Schnitzler

1033. I cannot undertake to lay my finger upon an article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – James Madison

1034. It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle. – Alexis De Tocquiville

1035. In a society obsessed with arranging every detail of existance, the unintended is ominous. – Unknown

1036. The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. – Alan Ashley-Pit

1037. Government is, at every level, a means to gather in the labor and wealth of the people, and then instruct the people about new restrictions or monitoring of their lives. – Jeff Baxter

1038. In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. – Leo Tolstoy

1039. Nobody can be trusted with unlimited power. The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom. – Rudolph Rummel

1040. Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small steps. – David Lloyd George

1041. If a donkey bray at you, don't bray at him. – George Herbert

1042. The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy. – Unknown

1043. The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights. – H.L. Mencken

1044. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized. – Lysander Spooner

1045. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage. – Walter Williams

1046. Blind belief can be comforting, but it can easily cripple reason and productivity, and stop intellectual progress. – Dr. James Randi

1047. Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. – Thomas Jefferson

1048. The plans differ; the planners are all alike… – Frederic Bastiat

1049. We want our rulers to be quarterbacks rather than merely referees. – Doug Newman

1050. "Solve" and "Problems" are not in the constitution. – Doug Newman

1051. There are three things which I do not want the government choosing for me: my doctor, my school, and my God. – Doug Newman

1052. Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women? – Martin Luther

1053. If you feel driven to feed the poor, get your checkbook out and keep your tyrannical mouth shut about it. – Lew Goldberg

1054. Politics is a clash of interests masquerading as a clash of principles. – Anonymous

1055. Can't feed'em? Then don't breed'em. – Anonymous

1056. A personal note to the Founding Fathers: We're sorry. We blew it. You made it possible for us to live free and we blew it. We've given up nearly every personal liberty in the name of a false sense of security sold to the masses by the same type of maniacal government about which you warned us and against which you fought so bravely. We now have to ask permission to take a leak on an airline flight. We never deserved you. – Phil Murphy 7/4/02

1057. Democracy is indispensable to Socialism. – V.I. Lenin

1058. Democracy is the road to Socialism. – Karl Marx

1059. Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid behavior. – Dee Hock, Founder and CEO Emeritus of Visa Corp

1060. There cannot be a good tax nor a just one; every tax rests its case on compulsion. – Frank Chodorov (1887-1966), American Essayist and Journalist

1061. The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments. – Henry Clay (1777-1852), US Senator

1062. I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds … I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution. – Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th US President

1063. The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President

1064. You can't say you love your country and hate your government. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President

1065. If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President

1066. I can spend your money better than you can. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President

1067. Any president that lies to the American people should have to resign. – Bill Clinton, 42nd US President

1068. Look not to the politicians; look to yourselves. – Richard Cobden (1804-1865), Member of Parliament

1069. Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty. – Calvin Coolidge, 30th US President

1070. If you kill one person you are a murderer. If you kill ten people you are a monster. If you kill ten thousand you are a national hero. – Vassilis Epaminondou, Greek Social Reformer

1071. The gentle government that promises to hold your hand as you cross the street refuses to let go on the other side. – Theodore J. Forstmann, American Business Executive and Philanthropist

1072. Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you. – Benjamin Franklin

1073. Adam Smith's key insight was that both parties to an exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation is strictly voluntary, no exchange can take place unless both parties do benefit. – Milton Friedman

1074. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. – Milton Friedman

1075. We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes non-work. – Milton Friedman

1076. What kind of a society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm. – Milton Friedman

1077. Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy – all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values. – Milton Friedman

1078. History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. – Milton Friedman

1079. When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it. When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on. When a man spends someone else's money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn't care at all how much he spends. And when a man spends someone else's money on someone else, he does't care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that's government for you. – Milton Friedman

1080. Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed. – Robert A. Heinlein

1081. Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry. – Thomas Jefferson

1082. The most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the "best" sources. – Walter Karp (1934-1989), American Journalist and Political Theorist

1083. Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of our people. – JFK

1084. There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. – F.A. Hayek

1085. The supply of government exceeds the demand. – Lewis H. Lapham II, Editor, Harper's Magazine, and Author

1086. War has become a spectator sport for Americans. – Rear Admiral Gene R. LaRocque, Co-founder, Center for Defense Information

1087. To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying. – Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), Member of Continental Congress, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Senator

1088. Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure. – Robert LeFevre (1911-1986), Political Theorist, Educator, Journalist and Author

1089. Give peace a chance. – John Lennon

1090. Democracy: The state of affairs in which you consent to having your pocket picked, and elect the best man to do it. – Benjamin Lichtenberg

1091. Successful … politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. – Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), American Journalist and Author

1092. Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience … – John Locke (1632-1704), English Political Philosopher

1093. The end of the law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. – John Locke (1632-1704), English Political Philosopher

1094. Politicians say they're beefing up our economy. Most don't know beef from pork. – Harold Lowman

1095. Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it. –

1096. No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation. – General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), Supreme Allied Commander, General of the U.S. Army

1097. It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen. – George E. MacDonald (1824-1905), Scottish Novelist

1098. It is no more the function of government to impose a moral code than to impose a religious code. And for the same reason. [1947] – Robert M. MacIver (1882-1970), Scottish Sociologist

1099. … The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature … the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war. – James Madison (1751-1836), 4th U.S. President

1100. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. – James Madison (1751-1836), 4th U.S. President

1101. Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos. – John Marshall (1755-1835), Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court

1102. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government … – US Constitution, Article 4, Section 4.

1103. The word "Democracy" cannot be found in the American Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution, or in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, or the Constitutions of any of the States. – Unknown

1104. Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds. – Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), U.S. Supreme Court

1105. Unless a good deed is voluntary, it has no moral significance. – Everett Dean Martin (1880-1941), Political Philosopher

1106. Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. – Guy de Maupassant (1850-1892), French Author

1107. I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. – H.L. Mencken

1108. The average man doesn't want to be free. He simply wants to be safe. – H.L. Mencken

1109. Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, no matter what name it is called. – John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Economist and Philosopher

1110. The true remedy for most evils is none other than liberty, unlimited and complete liberty, liberty in every field of human endeavor. – Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912), Belgian Economist and Philosopher

1111. A right without an attendant responsibility is as unreal as a sheet of paper which has only one side. – Felix Morley (1894-1981), American Journalist, Educator and Author

1112. It is a reality attested by all history that if a republic assumes imperial functions it will not remain a republic. – Felix Morley (1894-1981), American Journalist, Educator and Author

1113. It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government. – Thomas Paine (1737-1809), American Revolutionary and Author

1114. A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state. – Isabel Paterson (1886-1961), American Author

1115. The degree of a country's freedom is the degree of its prosperity. – Ayn Rand (1905-1982), Novelist and Philosopher

1116. As government expands, liberty contracts. – Ronald W. Reagan, 40th U.S. President

1117. It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright. – Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), American Economist, Historian, Political Theorist, and Author

1118. It is easy to be conspicuously "compassionate" if others are being forced to pay the cost. – Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), American Economist, Historian, Political Theorist, and Author

1119. The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State. – Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), American Economist, Historian, Political Theorist, and Author

1120. War does not determine who is right–only who is left. – Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), English Philosopher, Author, 1950 Nobel Prize-Winner in Literature

1121. Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country – Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), English Philosopher, Author, 1950 Nobel Prize-Winner in Literature

1122. The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage. – Thucydides (460-400 B.C.), Greek Historian

1123. The man who asks of freedom anything other than itself is born to be a slave. – Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), French Philosopher and Author

1124. The program of [classical] liberalism, condensed into a single word, would have to read: property. – Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Austrian Economist and Author

1125. This, then, is freedom in the external life of man–that he is independent of the arbitrary power of his fellows. – Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Austrian Economist and Author

1126. The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty. – Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Austrian Economist and Author

1127. The state is essentially an apparatus of compulsion and coercion. The characteristic feature of its activities is to compel people through the application or the threat of force to behave otherwise than they would like to behave. – Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Austrian Economist and Author

1128. The rights of the individual should be the primary object of all governments. – Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814), American Playwright, Poet, Historian

1129. The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure. – George Washington

1130. When the fox administers justice, the chickens will always be found guilty. – Cat Farmer

1131. The main point of a constitution is to put limits on what aspects of life are subject to majority rule. – Ronald Bailey

1132. If none were to have Liberty but those who understand what it is, there would not be many freed Men in the world. – Lord Halifax

1133. When the people have no tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one. – Lord Lytton

1134. It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. – James Madison

1135. The desire of businessmen for profits is what drives prices down unless forcibly prevented from engaging in price competition, usually by governmental activity. – Thomas Sowell

1136. It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. – Ayn Rand

1137. The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic. – H.L. Mencken

1138. Where Liberty dwells, there is my country. – Benjamin Franklin

1139. Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. – Robert Heinlein

1140. All the Congress, all the accountants and tax lawyers, all the judges, and a convention of wizards all cannot tell for sure what the income tax law says. – Walter B. Wriston

1141. It's easier to scare someone than to persuade him. – Edwin Feulner, president of The Heritage Foundation

1142. 8 words summarize the American philosophy of life: Live and let live; Let's make a deal. 8 words summarize American foreign policy: We're better than you; Do it our way. – Gary North

1143. lib·er·tar·i·an: One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state. – American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1144. The Senate voted 97-0 for an anti-spam bill to stop those annoying things you get on your computer. The senators made it very clear that when you start misleading the American people and start taking their money over false promises, that's our turf, buddy! – Jay Leno

1145. As you may have heard, the U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? Think about it – it was written by very smart people, it's served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we're not using it anymore. – Jay Leno

1146. Word for today: Eleutherophobia. e·leuth·er·o·pho·bi·a – n. 1. The fear of freedom. – From www.panphobia.com

1147. In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car. – Lawrence Summers

1148. A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government. – Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

1149. Suppose the Second amendment said "A well-educated electorate being necessary for self-governance in a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed." Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read? – Robert Levy, Georgetown University professor

1150. The government's War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice. – Harry Browne

1151. An inevitable consequence of socialism is the division of society into two groups: those who are consuming government "services" and those who are paying for them. – Lee Robinson

1152. Private enterprise creates; government destroys. That is the great economic lesson of our times and all times. – Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

1153. Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

1154. It is much cheaper and enormously more profitable for the special interests to purchase the regulatory favors of Washington's political harlots than to compete in a fair, unsubsidized markeplace. – Lee Robinson

1155. Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help... – Gandhi

1156. ... an increase in the power of the State ... does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress... – Gandhi

1157. The intent of the Second Amendment is to arm the people to frighten government and to keep it in check. – Ted Lang

1158. Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to F. W. Gilmer, 1816

1159. Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. – Thomas Jefferson

1160. If you are not outraged you are not paying attention – Unknown

1161. Socialists like to tout their confiscation and redistribution schemes as noble and caring, but we should ask if theft is ever noble or caring. – Robert Hawes

1162. The greatest gift of freedom is that it allows us to govern ourselves, and the greatest burden of freedom is that it requires us to govern ourselves. – Robert Hawes

1163. A great danger that we face in our modern world is to get so caught up in the pursuit of the blessings that freedom has given us that we come to take freedom itself for granted, and thus fail to see to its maintenance. – Robert Hawes

1164. All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void. – Marbury vs Madison

1165. Can you think of a single area of government in which George Bush hasn't already made things worse than Bill Clinton did? – Harry Browne in Bill Clinton on Steroids (1/22/04)

1166. Everyone is entitled to his own opnion, but not his own facts. – Daniel Patrick Moynihan

1167. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. – Daniel Webster

1168. Profit is a signal that valuable services are being rendered to people on a voluntary basis. – Lew Rockwell

1169. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. – Lew Rockwell

1170. 98% of Americans support the use of mass transit by others. – The Onion (satire newspaper)

1171. You don't need a degree in political science to know what freedom is. – Andrew Wiegand

1172. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. – Thomas Jefferson

1173. As our rights fade out, we accept perpetual war for perpetual peace, the two parties fuse into one, and the government becomes more powerful than at any time in our history. – Kevin Maley

1174. Even the lion has to defend himself against flies. – Anonymous

1175. The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty – and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies. – H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, Feb. 12, 1923

1176. Expecting the government to fight the deficit is like expecting the Mafia to fight crime. – Anonymous

1177. 80% of success is showing up. – Woody Allen

1178. F x S=k. The product of freedom and security is a constant. – Anonymous

1179. Four Boxes of Freedom: Soap, Ballot, Jury, Cartridge. – Anonymous

1180. Freedom is still the most radical idea of all. – Anonymous

1181. At the day of judgment we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done. – Thomas A Kempis

1182. Have no fear. The next President will promise not to raise taxes. – Anonymous

1183. Old MacDonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement. – Anonymous

1184. Rather suffer an injustice than commit one. – Anonymous

1185. Space has no beginning or end and goes on to infinity with no limits! Like taxes, but on a much smaller scale. – Anonymous

1186. Syntax? Why not, they tax everything else. – Anonymous

1187. Taxes are not for the benefit of the taxed. – Anonymous

1188. Taxpayers don't have to take a civil service exam to work for the government. – Anonymous

1189. The chief purpose of government it to perpetuate the government. – Anonymous

1190. The politicians' three R's: this is Ours, that is Ours, everything is Ours. – Anonymous

1191. The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits. – Anonymous

1192. Time cuts down all, Both great and small. – Anonymous

1193. Things happen the day you decide you're going to make them happen. – Pam Lontos

1194. Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true. – Anonymous

1195. Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents? – Anonymous

1196. A soft answer turneth away wrath. – Anonymous

1197. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. – Anonymous

1198. Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead. – Anonymous

1199. By forcing an individual to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, it violates the ideals of justice and liberty that the flag is meant to represent. –ACLU

1200. Publics schools are institutions of coercion. Students are coerced to attend them. Parents are coerced to pay for them. – Gary Reed

1201. A proliferation of new laws creates a proliferation of new loopholes.

1202. A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. – Oscar Wilde

1203. Any system that takes responsibility away from people, dehumanizes them.

1204. Ask more questions than you answer.

1205. Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed.

1206. Being right is seldom enough. Even the best ideas must be packaged and sold.

1207. Better to be 10% effective doing something worthwhile than 100% in something worthless.

1208. Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.

1209. Change your thoughts and you change your world.

1210. small government is beautiful – Carla Howell

1211. All generalizations are false. There are absolutely no absolutes. You can be sure that nothing is certain. It's really bad, even evil, to make or pronounce moral judgments. – FreedomKeys.com

1212. What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else. – Tom Clancy on Kudlow and Cramer 9/2/03

1213. The majority of Americans get their news and information about what is going on with their government from entities that are licensed by and subject to punishment at the hands of that very government. – Neal Boortz

1214. What the government gives, it must first take away. – John S. Coleman

1215. Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. – Thomas Jefferson

1216. With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. – James Madison

1217. The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. – Abraham Lincoln

1218. I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. – Booker T. Washington

1219. Write a wise saying and your name will live forever. – Unknown

1220. The reverse side also has a reverse side. – Unknown

1221. You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. – Jeannette Rankin

1222. I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. – Bill Cosby

1223. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. – E. F. Schumacher

1224. We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. – Will Rogers

1225. The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. – Bertrand Russell

1226. Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they? – George Carlin

1227. The problem with political jokes is they get elected. – Henry Cate VII

1228. When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself public property. – Thomas Jefferson

1229. It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose." – Darrin Weinberg

1230. Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse. – Adlai E. Stevenson

1231. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. – Stanislaw J. Lec

1232. A problem well stated is a problem half solved. – C.F. Kettering

1233. I hear and I forget. I see and I believe. I do and I understand. – Confucius (B.C. 551-479)

1234. I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem. – Ashleigh Brilliant

1235. The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." – Thomas Jefferson

1236. The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. – Friedrich A. Hayek, in "The Road to Serfdom"

1237. The fatal flaw in socialism is twofold: first, the conceit inherent in the desire to plan the lives of others; second, the force necessary to impose that plan on unwilling subjects. This is not a formula for freedom but for tyranny. – Jim Peron in The Ideals of Tyranny

1238. Remember that the key words in the sentence "I want to help you" is "I want". – G James

1239. Liberty is born of self-interest. It effects goodwill to all through its practice, and it generates goodwill in everyone as a consequence. – Richard Rieben

1240. If voting made a difference, they would make it illegal. – Donal Scannell, at the Conference on World Affairs, Boulder CO, 4/6/04

1241. The greatest danger is from legal drugs. – Terry McNally, at the Conference on World Affairs, Boulder CO, 4/6/04

1242. Poverty is the greatest cause of terrorism. – Azmat Hassan, at the Conference on World Affairs, Boulder CO, 4/6/04

1243. In almost all matters, the real question should be: why are we letting government handle this? – Harry Browne

1244. From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either the one or the other, but not both at the same time. – Friedrich von Hayek

1245. That measures of this nature [the draft] should be debated at all in the councils of a free government is cause of dismay. The question is nothing less than whether the most essential rights of personal liberty shall be surrendered and despotism embraced in its worst form. – Daniel Webster

1246. The Constitution: it's not just a good idea, it's the law. – Michael Badnarik, 2004 LP Presidential candidate

1247. The root source of wealth is human ingenuity. This has no known bounds, so the amount of wealth in existence can always be increased. That's why capitalism is called "making money". – Marc Geddes

1248. I'd rather live free with some peril than be a protected slave of government. – Dave Duffy

1249. Democracy is not a system of liberty, but a form of tyranny: the tyranny of the majority. – Robert Garmong

1250. A hallmark of democracy is pressure-group warfare, as each group seeks to claim the status of a majority and exploit all the rest. – Robert Garmong

1251. It makes no difference, in principle, if this "collective will" is divined by the edicts of a dictator or by majority vote – so long as the rights of the individual may still be sacrificed. – Robert Garmong

1252. Individualists unite! – Treveor Sutherland, Hamilton County TN LP Chairman

1253. A constitution is the law governing government. – Wesley F. Deitchler, LP News 5/04

1254. The government that we gave limited power to – to protect our rights – has grown into a hideous behemoth that continually increases its power and now enslaves the people, and causes strife throughout the world. – Tom Parker

1255. Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. – Groucho Marx

1256. Many say that since all the signers of the Constitution were Christian, this is a Christian country. However, they were all white males as well. Are we a White Male Country? – "bostnfound", in a Free State Project forum, 7/04

1257. Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. – Thomas Jefferson

1258. Most people ... aren't just ignorant or stupid: they genuinely prefer government control of their own and their neighbors' lives. We can hand out flyers for the rest of our lives, publish as many books as we like, make speeches until we're blue in the face, and most of them aren't going to change their minds. While they disagree among themselves about the details, authoritarians of one sort or another constitute an overwhelming majority. – Max Orhai, Liberty Magazine, 6/04, page 23

1259. Benevolence comes from within as a reflection of our personal, individual sense of well-being. To force it, externally – through moral intimidation (altruism), social intimidation (duty), or at the point of a gun (legislation) – debilitates our personal sense of well-being and negates the source of benevolence. – Richard Rieben (4/7/04)

1260. How many libertarians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
      None. The free market will handle it. :-)

1261. It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world. The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. – George Washington

1262. I can now comprehend the fact that there is no possibility of freedom in this Country. It's too late. Call me a bad American, but I am ashamed and hang my head low when I think of what America has become. … The experiment is over, freedom lost, tyranny won. – Mike Wasdin, 9/7/04

1263. Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. – James Madison

1264. Unlike the world of free-markets, in political government when some individuals win, other individuals lose. – Robert Klassen, 10/3/02

1265. When a majority rules, a minority is ruled. – Robert Klassen, 10/3/02

1266. The price of a "free" public education is freedom. – Capitalism.org

1267. All wars are fought over one premise; my god is better than yours. – Mike Wasdin

1268. It is commonly believed that the rights of the American people come from the Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth. – Jacob G. Hornberger [Our rights are inalieanable; they exist independently of government, not because of government.]

1269. Borrow, spend, tax and ... promise, promise, promise is the formula for a long and successful political career. – Hal O'Boyle

1270. We get to go to the polls every couple of years and choose between two flavors of the same gruel. The inmates get to elect the guards. Then, having exercised our rights as free citizens of a great social democracy, we go back to obeying orders. – Hal O'Boyle

1271. The government says: You are free to do anything we want. – Anonymous

1272. The political ballot box stands for – willingness to be ruled by somebody other than yourself. – Alvin Lowi, Jr.

1273. If voting could change things, it would be illegal. – Unknown

1274. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. – Unknown

1275. The next time some academics tell you how important "diversity" is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department. – Thomas Sowell

1276. We've been thoroughly trained in government institutions where every day for twelve of our most impressionable years we took a loyalty oath before starting our work. Hal O'Boyle

1277. To protect us from terrorists our government treats us like terrorists. Hal O'Boyle

1278. Government failure is always used as an excuse for government expansion. Government thrives on crisis and incompetence. – Jim Babka of DownsizeDC.org

1279. Politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. – Ambrose Bierce

1280. If we all stop voting, will they just go away? – Bumper Sticker

1281. The price of empire is terrorism. – Greenbacks

1282. We have been living amidst one of the great revolutions of human history, and we hardly know it: the penetration of the State into every aspect of human life and society. Some people regard this as good and "progressive," others regard it as tyrannical; but either way, it's a fact, a transformation as great as, say, the Industrial Revolution. Absolutely nothing is now beyond the scope of State power. – Joseph Sobran, 1/27/04

1283. The chances of your being harmed by terrorists are mathematically minute. The chance of your being robbed by your own government? That's easy: 100 per cent. – Joseph Sobran, 1/1/04

1284. A limited government is a contradiction in terms. – Robert LeFevre, The Fundamentals of Liberty

1285. The most destructive thing governments do is divide people against each other, all in competition over the reins of the state. – Anthony Gregory

1286. The war on "terror" will never be over, it will just change locations. Like the war on drugs, prostitution, pornography, and the many others that will follow, it is a war on humanity. These wars will never be won; the State will just keep creating new boogiemen to frighten us with. The sheep will anxiously anticipate the next fall guy the State offers up as a sacrifice for the war on whatever happens to be next. Be careful, the next pawn could be me or you. – Mike Wasdin

1287. The seeds of today's runaway government were planted when it was decided that government should help those who can't help themselves. From that modest, compassionate beginning to today's out-of-control mega-state, there's a straight, unbroken line. Once the door was open, once it was settled that the government should help some people at the expense of others, there was no stopping it. – Harry Browne .

1288. When you think of the good old days, think one word: dentistry. – P. J. O'Rourke

1289. Vows made in a storm are forgotten in calms. – Old English saying

1290. If the Tenth Amendment were still taken seriously, most of the federal government's present activities would not exist. That's why no one in Washington ever mentions it. – Thomas E. Woods, Jr. in The Policitally Incorrect Guide to American History

1291. The problem is big government. If whoever controls government can impose his way upon you, you have to fight constantly to prevent the control from being harmful. With small, limited government, it doesn't much matter who controls it, because it can't do you much harm. – Harry Browne

1292. It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. – Baseball legend Yogi Berra

1293. A country that goes out of its way to imprison the innocent has no business preaching democracy to the world. – Paul Craig Roberts

1294. The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this. – Rep. Ron Paul in Democracy Is Not Freedom

1295. Popular suffrage is in itself no guarantee of freedom. People can vote themselves into slavery. – Frank Chodorov

1296. There's small choice in rotten apples. – William Shakespeare

1297. How to obtain freedom has been, and is, mankind's most important quest. – John A Pugsley, intro to "None of the Above".

1298. All of political history history can be summed up as a struggle to throw the bad guys out and put the good guys in. – John A Pugsley, intro to "None of the Above".

1299. A democracy is rule by the majority; a republic is the rule of law. This is a very critical distinction. – Steven LaTulippe

1300. Voting is the opiate of the masses. – Steven LaTulippe

1301. Popular suffrage is in itself no guarantee of freedom. People can vote themselves into slavery. – Frank Chodorov

1302. As the state grows, one's sense of self-ownership is destroyed, liberty is traded for "security," the human spirit diminishes, and the citizenry increasingly thinks and behaves like dependent children. – Eric Englund in Income Taxes, Obesity, and Other Maladies of Nanny Statism 2/28/05.

1303. To shackle future generations, with such monstrous debt and liabilities [$50 trillion+ of unfunded federal liabilities], is tantamount to selling them into tax slavery. – Eric Englund in Income Taxes, Obesity, and Other Maladies of Nanny Statism 2/28/05.

1304. We cannot restore traditional American freedom unless we limit the government's power to tax. No tinkering with this, that, or the other law will stop the trend toward socialism. We must repeal the Sixteenth Amendment. – Frank Chodorov in The Income Tax: Root of all Evil (PDF)

1305. Government is force, and politics is the process of deciding who gets to use it on whom. This is not the best way to solve problems. – Richard Grant, The Incredible Bread Machine, 1999

1306. The good governor should have a broken leg and keep at home. – Cervantes

1307. A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. – Lysander Spooner

1308. People do not walk barefoot because there are no government shoe factories. – Anonymous

1309. What difference is it to me if a decision is forced upon me by a dictator or by half of my neighbors? Either way my right to free, peaceful action has been nullified. – Stephen H. Foerster

1310. An anarchist is anyone who believes in less government than you do. – Robert LeFevre

1311. You don't need a treaty to have free trade. – Murray Rothbard

1312. Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America. – Thomas L. Johnson

Here it is. I find in reading the book rather than watching the movie it's easier to understand that english slang. If you scroll to the bottom theres actually a complete list of all the weird things they say and their meanings, so thats pretty cool. Anyway, this book is the shit. So read it.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (UK Version)

 

 

Part 1

 

1

 

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is

Pete, Georgie, and Dim.  Dim being really dim, and we sat in

the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do

with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.

The Ko Part 1 rova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O

my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like,

things changing so skorry these days and everybody very

quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither.

Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else.  They

had no license for selling liquor, but there was no law yet

against prodding some of the new veshches which they used

to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vel-

locet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other vesh-

ches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen

minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and Saints in

your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg.  Or you

could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this

would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty

twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this even-

ing I'm starting off the story with.

Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need

from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to

tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his

blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor

to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey-haired

ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till's guts.  But, as

they say, money isn't everything.

The four of us were dressed in the height of fashion,

which in those days was a pair of black very tight tights with

the old jelly mould, as we called it, fitting on the crotch

underneath the tights, this being to protect and also a sort of

a design you could viddy clear enough in a certain light, so

that I had one in the shape of a spider, Pete had a rooker (a

hand, that is), Georgie had a very fancy one of a flower, and

poor old Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a clown's

litso (face, that is).  Dim not ever having much of an idea of

things and being, beyond all shadow of a doubting thomas,

the dimmest of we four.  Then we wore waisty jackets without

lapels but with these very big built-up shoulders ('pletchoes'

we called them) which were a kind of a mockery of having real

shoulders like that.  Then, my brothers, we had these off-white

cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel or spud with a

sort of a design made on it with a fork.  We wore our hair not

too long and we had flip horrorshow boots for kicking.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

There were three devotchkas sitting at the counter all

together, but there were four of us malchicks and it was

usually like one for all and all for one.  These sharps were

dressed in the heighth of fashion too, with purple and green

and orange wigs on their gullivers, each one not costing less

than three or four weeks of those sharps' wages, I should

reckon, and make-up to match (rainbows round the glazzies,

that is, and the rot painted very wide).  Then they had long

black very straight dresses, and on the groody part of them

they had little badges of like silver with different malchicks'

names on them - Joe and Mike and suchlike.  These were sup-

posed to be the names of the different malchicks they'd

spatted with before they were fourteen.  They kept looking

our way and I nearly felt like saying the three of us (out of the

corner of my rot, that is) should go off for a bit of pol and

leave poor old Dim behind, because it would be just a matter

of kupetting Dim a demi-litre of white but this time with a

dollop of synthemesc in it, but that wouldn't really have been

playing like the game.  Dim was very very ugly and like his

name, but he was a horrorshow filthy fighter and very handy

with the boot.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

The chelloveck sitting next to me, there being this long big

plushy seat that ran round three walls, was well away with his

glazzies glazed and sort of burbling slovos like "Aristotle

wishy washy works outing cyclamen get forficulate smartish".

He was in the land all right, well away, in orbit, and I knew

what it was like, having tried it like everybody else had done,

but at this time I'd got to thinking it was a cowardly sort of a

veshch, O my brothers.  You'd lay there after you'd drunk the

old moloko and then you got the messel that everything all

round you was sort of in the past.  You could viddy it all right,

all of it, very clear - tables, the stereo, the lights, the sharps

and the malchicks - but it was like some veshch that used to

be there but was not there not no more.  And you were sort of

hypnotized by your boot or shoe or a finger-nail as it might

be, and at the same time you were sort of picked up by the old

scruff and shook like you might be a cat.  You got shook and

shook till there was nothing left.  You lost your name and

your body and your self and you just didn't care, and you

waited until your boot or finger-nail got yellow, then

yellower and yellower all the time.  Then the lights started

cracking like atomics and the boot or finger-nail or, as it

might be, a bit of dirt on your trouser-bottom turned into a

big big big mesto, bigger than the whole world, and you were

just going to get introduced to old Bog or God when it was

all over.  You came back to here and now whimpering sort of,

with your rot all squaring up for a boohoohoo.  Now that's

very nice but very cowardly.  You were not put on this earth

just to get in touch with God.  That sort of thing could sap all

the strength and the goodness out of a chelloveck.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

The stereo was on and you got the idea that the singer's

goloss was moving from one part of the bar to another,

flying up to the ceiling and then swooping down again and

whizzing from wall to wall.  It was Berti Laski rasping a real

starry oldie called 'You Blister My Paint'.  One of the three

ptitsas at the counter, the one with the green wig, kept push-

ing her belly out and pulling it in in time to what they called

the music.  I could feel the knives in the old moloko starting

to prick, and now I was ready for a bit of twenty-to-one.  So I

yelped: "Out out out out!" like a doggie, and then I cracked

this veck who was sitting next to me and well away and

burbling a horrorshow crack on the ooko or earhole, but he

didn't feel it and went on with his "Telephonic hardware and

when the farfarculule gets rubadubdub".  He'd feel it all right

when he came to, out of the land.

"Where out?" said Georgie.

"Oh, just to keep walking," I said, "and viddy what turns up,

O my little brothers."

So we scatted out into the big winter nochy and walked

down Marghanita Boulevard and then turned into Boothby

Avenue, and there we found what we were pretty well looking

for, a malenky jest to start off the evening with.  There was a

doddery starry schoolmaster type veck, glasses on and his rot

open to the cold nochy air.  He had books under his arm and a

crappy umbrella and was coming round the corner from the

Public Biblio, which not many lewdies used these days.  You

never really saw many of the older bourgeois type out after

nightfall those days, what with the shortage of police and we

fine young malchickiwicks about, and this prof type chello-

veck was the only one walking in the whole of the street.  So

we goolied up to him, very polite, and I said: "Pardon me,

brother."

He looked a malenky bit poogly when he viddied the four

of us like that, coming up so quiet and polite and smiling, but

he said: "Yes?  What is it?" in a very loud teacher-type goloss,

as if he was trying to show us he wasn't poogly.  I said:

"I see you have books under your arm, brother.  It is indeed

a rare pleasure these days to come across somebody that still

reads, brother."

"Oh," he said, all shaky.  "Is it?  Oh, I see."  And he kept look-

ing from one to the other of we four, finding himself now like

in the middle of a very smiling and polite square.

"Yes," I said.  "It would interest me greatly, brother, if you

would kindly allow me to see what books those are that you

have under your arm.  I like nothing better in this world than a

good clean book, brother."

"Clean," he said.  "Clean, eh?"  And then Pete skvatted these

three books from him and handed them round real skorry.

Being three, we all had one each to viddy at except for Dim.

The one I had was called 'Elementary Crystallography', so I

opened it up and said: "Excellent, really first-class," keeping

turning the pages.  Then I said in a very shocked type goloss:

"But what is this here?  What is this filthy slovo?  I blush to

look at this word.  You disappoint me, brother, you do

really."

"But," he tried, "but, but."

"Now," said Georgie, "here is what I should call real dirt.

There's one slovo beginning with an f and another with a c."

He had a book called 'The Miracle of the Snowflake.'

"Oh," said poor old Dim, smotting over Pete's shoulder and

going too far, like he always did, "it says here what he done to

her, and there's a picture and all.  Why," he said, "you're

nothing but a filthy-minded old skitebird."

"An old man of your age, brother," I said, and I started to

rip up the book I'd got, and the others did the same with the

ones they had.  Dim and Pete doing a tug-of-war with 'The

Rhombohedral System'.  The starry prof type began to creech:

"But those are not mine, those are the property of the mu-

nicipality, this is sheer wantonness and vandal work," or some

such slovos.  And he tried to sort of wrest the books back off

of us, which was like pathetic.  "You deserve to be taught a

lesson, brother," I said, "that you do."  This crystal book I had

was very tough-bound and hard to razrez to bits, being real

starry and made in days when things were made to last like,

but I managed to rip the pages up and chuck them in handfuls

of like snowflakes, though big, all over this creeching old

veck, and then the others did the same with theirs, old Dim

just dancing about like the clown he was.  "There you are," said

Pete.  "There's the mackerel of the cornflake for you, you dirty

reader of filth and nastiness."

"You naughty old veck, you," I said, and then we began to

filly about with him.  Pete held his rookers and Georgie sort

of hooked his rot wide open for him and Dim yanked out his

false zoobies, upper and lower.  He threw these down on the

pavement and then I treated them to the old boot-crush,

though they were hard bastards like, being made of some new

horrorshow plastic stuff.  The old veck began to make sort of

chumbling shooms - "wuf waf wof" - so Georgie let go of

holding his goobers apart and just let him have one in the

toothless rot with his ringy fist, and that made the old veck

start moaning a lot then, then out comes the blood, my

brothers, real beautiful.  So all we did then was to pull his

outer platties off, stripping him down to his vest and long

underpants (very starry; Dim smecked his head off near), and

then Pete kicks him lovely in his pot, and we let him go.  He

went sort of staggering off, it not having been too hard of a

tolchock really, going "Oh oh oh", not knowing where or

what was what really, and we had a snigger at him and then

riffled through his pockets, Dim dancing round with his

crappy umbrella meanwhile, but there wasn't much in them.

There were a few starry letters, some of them dating right

back to 1960 with "My dearest dearest" in them and all that

chepooka, and a keyring and a starry leaky pen.  Old Dim gave

up his umbrella dance and of course had to start reading one

of the letters out loud, like to show the empty street he could

read.  "My darling one," he recited, in this very high type

goloss, "I shall be thinking of you while you are away and

hope you will remember to wrap up warm when you go out

at night."  Then he let out a very shoomny smeck - "Ho ho ho"

- pretending to start wiping his yahma with it.  "All right," I

said.  "Let it go, O my brothers."  In the trousers of this starry

veck there was only a malenky bit of cutter (money, that is) -

not more than three gollies - so we gave all his messy little

coin the scatter treatment, it being hen-korm to the amount

of pretty polly we had on us already.  Then we smashed the

umbrella and razrezzed his platties and gave them to the

blowing winds, my brothers, and then we'd finished with the

starry teacher type veck.  We hadn't done much, I know, but

that was only like the start of the evening and I make no appy

polly loggies to thee or thine for that.  The knives in the milk

plus were stabbing away nice and horrorshow now.

The next thing was to do the sammy act, which was one

way to unload some of our cutter so we'd have more of an

incentive like for some shop-crasting, as well as it being a way

of buying an alibi in advance, so we went into the Duke of

New York on Amis Avenue and sure enough in the snug there

were three or four old baboochkas peeting their black and

suds on SA (State Aid).  Now we were the very good mal-

chicks, smiling good evensong to one and all, though these

wrinkled old lighters started to get all shook, their veiny old

rookers all trembling round their glasses, and making the suds

spill on the table.  "Leave us be, lads," said one of them, her

face all mappy with being a thousand years old, "we're only

poor old women."  But we just made with the zoobies, flash

flash flash, sat down, rang the bell, and waited for the boy to

come.  When he came, all nervous and rubbing his rookers on

his grazzy apron, we ordered us four veterans - a veteran

being rum and cherry brandy mixed, which was popular just

then, some liking a dash of lime in it, that being the Canadian

variation.  Then I said to the boy:

"Give these poor old baboochkas over there a nourishing

something.  Large Scotchmen all round and something to take

away."  And I poured my pocket of deng all over the table, and

the other three did likewise, O my brothers.  So double

firegolds were bought in for the scared starry lighters, and

they knew not what to do or say.  One of them got out

"Thanks, lads," but you could see they thought there was

something dirty like coming.  Anyway, they were each given a

bottle of Yank General, cognac that is, to take away, and I

gave money for them to be delivered each a dozen of black

and suds that following morning, they to leave their stinking

old cheenas' addresses at the counter.  Then with the cutter

that was left over we did purchase, my brothers, all the meat

pies, pretzels, cheese-snacks, crisps and chocbars in that

mesto, and those too were for the old sharps.  Then we said:

"Back in a minoota," and the old ptitsas were still saying:

"Thanks, lads," and "God bless you, boys," and we were going

out without one cent of cutter in our carmans.

"Makes you feel real dobby, that does," said Pete.  You could

viddy that poor old Dim the dim didn't quite pony all that,

but he said nothing for fear of being called gloopy and a

domeless wonderboy.  Well, we went off now round the

corner to Attlee Avenue, and there was this sweets and cancers

shop still open.  We'd left them alone near three months now</b>

and the whole district had been very quiet on the whole, so

the armed millicents or rozz patrols weren't round there

much, being more north of the river these days.  We put our

maskies on - new jobs these were, real horrorshow, wonder-

fully done really; they were like faces of historical per-

sonalities (they gave you the names when you bought) and I

had Disraeli, Pete had Elvis Presley, Georgie had Henry VIII

and poor old Dim had a poet veck called Peebee Shelley; they

were a real like disguise, hair and all, and they were some very

special plastic veshch so you could roll it up when you'd done

with it and hide it in your boot - then three of us went in.

Pete keeping chasso without, not that there was anything to

worry about out there.  As soon as we launched on the shop

we went for Slouse who ran it, a big portwine jelly of a veck

who viddied at once what was coming and made straight for

the inside where the telephone was and perhaps his well-oiled

pooshka, complete with six dirty rounds.  Dim was round that

counter skorry as a bird, sending packets of snoutie flying and

cracking over a big cut-out showing a sharp with all her

zoobies going flash at the customers and her groodies near

hanging out to advertise some new brand of cancers.  What

you could viddy then was a sort of a big ball rolling into the

inside of the shop behind the curtain, this being old Dim and

Slouse sort of locked in a death struggle.  Then you could

slooshy panting and snoring and kicking behind the curtain

and veshches falling over and swearing and then glass going

smash smash smash.  Mother Slouse, the wife, was sort of

froze behind the counter.  We could tell she would creech

murder given one chance, so I was round that counter very

skorry and had a hold of her, and a horrorshow big lump she

was too, all nuking of scent and with flipflop big bobbing

groodies on her.  I'd got my rooker round her rot to stop her

belting out death and destruction to the four winds of

heaven, but this lady doggie gave me a large foul big bite on it

and it was me that did the creeching, and then she opened up

beautiful with a flip yell for the millicents.  Well, then she had

to be tolchocked proper with one of the weights for the

scales, and then a fair tap with a crowbar they had for opening

cases, and that brought the red out like an old friend.  So we

had her down on the floor and a rip of her platties for fun and

a gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning.  And, viddying

her lying there with her groodies on show, I wondered should

I or not, but that was for later on in the evening.  Then we

cleaned the till, and there was flip horrorshow takings that

nochy, and we had a few packs of the very best top cancers

apiece, then off we went, my brothers.

"A real big heavy great bastard he was," Dim kept saying.  I

didn't like the look of Dim: he looked dirty and untidy, like a

veck who'd been in a fight, which he had been, of course, but

you should never look as though you have been.  His cravat

was like someone had trampled on it, his maskie had been

pulled off and he had floor-dirt on his litso, so we got him in

an alleyway and tidied him up a malenky bit, soaking our

tashtooks in spit to cheest the dirt off.  The things we did for

old Dim.  We were back in the Duke of New York very skorry

and I reckoned by my watch we hadn't been more than ten

minutes away.  The starry old baboochkas were still there on

the black and suds and Scotchmen we'd bought them, and we

said: "Hallo there, girlies, what's it going to be?"  They started

on the old "Very kind, lads, God bless you, boys," and so we

rang the collocol and brought a different waiter in this time

and we ordered beers with rum in, being sore athirst, my

brothers, and whatever the old ptitsas wanted.  Then I said to

the old baboochkas: "We haven't been out of here, have we?

Been here all the time, haven't we?"  They all caught on real

skorry and said:

"That's right, lads.  Not been out of our sight, you haven't.

God bless you, boys," drinking.

Not that it mattered much, really.  About half an hour went

by before there was any sign of life among the millicents, and

then it was only two very young rozzes that came in, very

pink under their big copper's shlemmies.  One said:

"You lot know anything about the happenings at Slouse's

shop this night?"

"Us?"  I said, innocent.  "Why, what happened?"

"Stealing and roughing.  Two hospitalizations.  Where've

you lot been this evening?"

"I don't go for that nasty tone," I said.  "I don't care much

for these nasty insinuations.  A very suspicious nature all this

betokeneth, my little brothers."

"They've been in here all night, lads," the old sharps started

to creech out.  "God bless them, there's no better lot of boys

living for kindness and generosity.  Been here all the time they

have.  Not seen them move we haven't."

"We're only asking," said the other young millicent.  "We've

got our job to do like anyone else."  But they gave us the nasty

warning look before they went out.  As they were going out

we handed them a bit of lip-music: brrrrzzzzrrrr.  But, myself, I

couldn't help a bit of disappointment at things as they were

those days.  Nothing to fight against really.  Everything as easy

as kiss-my-sharries.  Still, the night was still very young.

 

 

2

 

When we got outside of the Duke of New York we viddied by

the main bar's long lighted window, a burbling old pyahnitsa

or drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and

going blerp blerp in between as though it might be a filthy old

orchestra in his stinking rotten guts.  One veshch I could never

stand was that.  I could never stand to see a moodge all filthy

and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be,

but more especially when he was real starry like this one was.

He was sort of flattened to the wall and his platties were a

disgrace, all creased and untidy and covered in cal and mud

and filth and stuff.  So we got hold of him and cracked him

with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still went on

singing.  The song went:

 

    And I will go back to my darling, my darling,

    When you, my darling, are gone.

 

But when Dim fisted him a few times on his filthy drunkard's

rot he shut up singing and started to creech: "Go on, do me in,

you bastard cowards,  I don't want to live anyway, not in a

stinking world like this one."  I told Dim to lay off a bit then,

because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy what

some of these starry decreps had to say about life and the

world.  I said: "Oh.  And what's stinking about it?"

He cried out: "It's a stinking world because it lets the young

get on to the old like you done, and there's no law nor order

no more."  He was creeching out loud and waving his rookers

and making real horrorshow with the slovos, only the odd

blurp blurp coming from his keeshkas, like something was

orbiting within, or like some very rude interrupting sort of a

moodge making a shoom, so that this old veck kept sort of

threatening it with his fists, shouting: "It's no world for any

old man any longer, and that means that I'm not one bit

scared of you, my boyos, because I'm too drunk to feel the

pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I'll be glad to be dead."

We smecked and then grinned but said nothing, and then he

said: "What sort of a world is it at all?  Men on the moon and

men spinning round the earth like it might be midges round a

lamp, and there's not more attention paid to earthly law nor

order no more.  So your worst you may do, you filthy cow-

ardly hooligans."  Then he gave us some lip-music -

"Prrrrzzzzrrrr" - like we'd done to those young millicents, and

then he started singing again:

    Oh dear dear land, I fought for thee

    And brought thee peace and victory -

 

So we cracked into him lovely, grinning all over our litsos,

but he still went on singing.  Then we tripped him so he laid

down flat and heavy and a bucketload of beer-vomit came

whooshing out.  That was disgusting so we gave him the boot,

one go each, and then it was blood, not song nor vomit, that

came out of his filthy old rot.  Then we went on our way.

It was round by the Municipal Power Plant that we came

across Billyboy and his five droogs.  Now in those days, my

brothers, the teaming up was mostly by fours or fives, these

being like auto-teams, four being a comfy number for an

auto, and six being the outside limit for gang-size.  Sometimes

gangs would gang up so as to make like malenky armies for

big night-war, but mostly it was best to roam in these like

small numbers.  Billyboy was something that made me want to

sick just to viddy his fat grinning litso, and he always had this

von of very stale oil that's been used for frying over and over,

even when he was dressed in his best platties, like now.  They

viddied us just as we viddied them, and there was like a very

quit kind of watching each other now.  This would be real,

this would be proper, this would be the nozh, the oozy, the

britva, not just fisties and boots.  Billyboy and his droogs

stopped what they were doing, which was just getting ready

to perform something on a weepy young devotchka they had

there, not more than ten, she creeching away but with her

platties still on.  Billyboy holding her by one rooker and his

number-one, Leo, holding the other.  They'd probably just

been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before getting down

to a malenky bit of ultra-violence.  When they viddied us a-

coming they let go of this boo-hooing little ptitsa, there

being plenty more where she came from, and she ran with her

thin white legs flashing through the dark, still going "Oh oh

oh".  I said, smiling very wide and droogie: "Well, if it isn't fat

stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison.  How art thou, thou

globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil?  Come and get one in

the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou."

And then we started.

There were four of us to six of them, like I have already

indicated, but poor old Dim, for all his dimness, was worth

three of the others in sheer madness and dirty fighting.  Dim

had a real horrorshow length of oozy or chain round his

waist, twice wound round, and he unwound this and began to

swing it beautiful in the eyes or glazzies.  Pete and Georgie had

good sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine starry

horrorshow cut-throat britva which, at that time, I could flash

and shine artistic.  So there we were dratsing away in the dark,

the old Luna with men on it just coming up, the stars stabbing

away as it might be knives anxious to join in the dratsing.

With my britva I managed to slit right down the front of one

of Billyboy's droog's platties, very very neat and not even

touching the plott under the cloth.  Then in the dratsing this

droog of Billyboy's suddenly found himself all opened up like

a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor old yarbles show-

ing, and then he got very razdraz, waving and screaming

and losing his guard and letting in old Dim with his chain

snaking whisssssshhhhhhhhh, so that old Dim chained him

right in the glazzies, and this droog of Billyboy's went totter-

ing off and howling his heart out.  We were doing very hor-

rorshow, and soon we had Billyboy's number-one down

underfoot, blinded with old Dim's chain and crawling and

howling about like an animal, but with one fair boot on the

gulliver he was out and out and out.

Of the four of us Dim, as usual, came out the worst in point

of looks, that is to say his litso was all bloodied and his

platties a dirty mess, but the others of us were still cool and

whole.  It was stinking fatty Billyboy I wanted now, and there I

was dancing about with my britva like I might be a barber on

board a ship on a very rough sea, trying to get in at him with a

few fair slashes on his unclean oily litso.  Billyboy had a nozh,

a long flick-type, but he was a malenky bit too slow and heavy

in his movements to vred anyone really bad.  And, my

brothers, it was real satisfaction to me to waltz - left two

three, right two three - and carve left cheeky and right cheeky,

so that like two curtains of blood seemed to pour out at the

same time, one on either side of his fat filthy oily snout in the

winter starlight.  Down this blood poured in like red curtains,

but you could viddy Billyboy felt not a thing, and he went

lumbering on like a filthy fatty bear, poking at me with his

nozh.

Then we slooshied the sirens and knew the millicents were

coming with pooshkas pushing out of the police-auto-

windows at the ready.  That weepy little devotchka had told

them, no doubt, there being a box for calling the rozzes not

too far behind the Muni Power Plant.  "Get you soon, fear

not," I called, "stinking billygoat.  I'll have your yarbles off

lovely."  Then off they ran, slow and panting, except for

Number One Leo out snoring on the ground, away north

towards the river, and we went the other way.  Just round the

next turning was an alley, dark and empty and open at both

ends, and we rested there, panting fast then slower, then

breathing like normal.  It was like resting between the feet of

two terrific and very enormous mountains, these being the

flatblocks, and in the windows of all the flats you could

viddy like blue dancing light.  This would be the telly.  Tonight

was what thy called a worldcast, meaning that the same pro-

gramme was being viddied by everybody in the world that

wanted to, that being mostly the middle-aged middle-class

lewdies.  There would be some big famous stupid comic

chelloveck or black singer, and it was all being bounced off

the special telly satellites in outer space, my brothers.  We

waited panting, and we could slooshy the sirening millicents

going east, so we knew we were all right now.  But poor old

Dim kept looking up at the stars and planets and the Luna

with his rot wide open like a kid who'd never viddied any such

things before, and he said:

"What's on them, I wonder.  What would be up there on

things like that?"

I nudged him hard, saying: "Come, gloopy bastard as thou

art.  Think thou not on them.  There'll be life like down here

most likely, with some getting knifed and others doing the

knifing.  And now, with the nochy still molodoy, let us be on

our way, O my brothers."  The others smecked at this, but

poor old Dim looked at me serious, then up again at the stars

and the Luna.  So we went on our way down the alley, with the

worldcast blueing on on either side.  What we needed now was

an auto, so we turned left coming out of the alley, knowing

right away we were in Priestly Place as soon as we viddied the

big bronze statue of some starry poet with an apey upper lip

and a pipe stuck in a droopy old rot.  Going north we came to

the filthy old Filmdrome, peeling and dropping to bits

through nobody going there much except malchicks like me

and my droogs, and then only for a yell or a razrez or a bit of

in-out-in-out in the dark.  We could viddy from the poster on

the Filmdrome's face, a couple of fly-dirtied spots trained on

it, that there was the usual cowboy riot, with the archangels

on the side of the US marshal six-shooting at the rustlers out

of hell's fighting legions, the kind of hound-and-horny veshch

put out by Statefilm in those days.  The autos parked by the

sinny weren't all that horrorshow, crappy starry veshches

most of them, but there was a newish Durango 95 that I

thought might do.  Georgie had one of these polyclefs, as they

called them, on his keyring, so we were soon aboard - Dim

and Pete at the back, puffing away lordly at their cancers - and

I turned on the ignition and started her up and she grumbled

away real horrorshow, a nice warm vibraty feeling grumbling

all through your guttiwuts.  Then I made with the noga,

and we backed out lovely, and nobody viddied us take off.

We fillied round what was called the backtown for a bit,

scaring old vecks and cheenas that were crossing the roads

and zigzagging after cats and that.  Then we took the road

west.  There wasn't much traffic about, so I kept pushing the

old noga through the floorboards near, and the Durango 95

ate up the road like spaghetti.  Soon it was winter trees and

dark, my brothers, with a country dark, and at one place I ran

over something big with a snarling toothy rot in the head-

lamps, then it screamed and squelched under and old Dim at

the back near laughed his gulliver off - "Ho ho ho" - at that.

Then we saw one young malchick with his sharp, lubbilubbing

under a tree, so we stopped and cheered at them, then we

bashed into them both with a couple of half-hearted tol-

chocks, making them cry, and on we went.  What we were after

now was the old surprise visit.  That was a real kick and good

for smecks and lashings of the ultra-violent.  We came at last

to a sort of village, and just outside this village was a small

sort of a cottage on its own with a bit of garden.  The Luna

was well up now, and we could viddy this cottage fine and clear

as I eased up and put the brake on, the other three giggling like

bezoomny, and we could viddy the name on the gate of this

cottage veshch was HOME, a gloomy sort of a name.  I got out

of the auto, ordering my droogs to shush their giggles and act

like serious, and I opened this malenky gate and walked up to

the front door.  I knocked nice and gentle and nobody came,

so I knocked a bit more and this time I could slooshy some-

body coming, then a bolt drawn, then the door inched open

an inch or so, then I could viddy this one glazz looking out

at me and the door was on a chain.  "Yes?  Who is it?"  It

was a sharp's goloss, a youngish devotchka by her sound, so

I said in a very refined manner of speech, a real gentleman's

goloss:

"Pardon, madam, most sorry to disturb you, but my friend

and me were out for a walk, and my friend has taken bad all of

a sudden with a very troublesome turn, and he is out there on

the road dead out and groaning.  Would you have the good-

ness to let me use your telephone to telephone for an am-

bulance?"

"We haven't a telephone," said this devotchka.  "I'm sorry,

but we haven't.  You'll have to go somewhere else."  From

inside this malenky cottage I could slooshy the clack clack

clacky clack clack clackity clackclack of some veck typing

away, and then the typing stopped and there was this

chelloveck's goloss calling: "What is it, dear?"

"Well," I said, "could you of your goodness please let him

have a cup of water?  It's like a faint, you see.  It seems as

though he's passed out in a sort of a fainting fit."

The devotchka sort of hesitated and then said: "Wait."  Then

she went off, and my three droogs had got out of the auto

quiet and crept up horrorshow stealthy, putting their maskies

on now, then I put mine on, then it was only a matter of me

putting in the old rooker and undoing the chain, me having

softened up this devotchka with my gent's goloss, so that she

hadn't shut the door like she should have done, us being

strangers of the night.  The four of us then went roaring in,

old Dim playing the shoot as usual with his jumping up and

down and singing out dirty slovos, and it was a nice malenky

cottage, I'll say that.  We all went smecking into the room

with a light on, and there was this devotchka sort of cower-

ing, a young pretty bit of sharp with real horrorshow

groodies on her, and with her was this chelloveck who was

her moodge, youngish too with horn-rimmed otchkies on

him, and on a table was a typewriter and all papers scattered

everywhere, but there was one little pile of paper like that

must have been what he'd already typed, so here was another

intelligent type bookman type like that we'd fillied with some

hours back, but this one was a writer not a reader.  Anyway, he

said:

"What is this?  Who are you?  How dare you enter my house

without permission."  And all the time his goloss was trem-

bling and his rookers too.  So I said:

"Never fear.  If fear thou hast in thy heart, O brother, pray

banish it forthwith."  Then Georgie and Pete went out to find

the kitchen, while old Dim waited for orders, standing next to

me with his rot wide open.  "What is this, then?"  I said, picking

up the pile like of typing from off of the table, and the horn-

rimmed moodge said, dithering:

"That's just what I want to know.  What is this?  What do

you want?  Get out at once before I throw you out."  So poor

old Dim, masked like Peebee Shelley, had a good loud smeck

at that, roaring like some animal.

"It's a book," I said.  "It's a book what you are writing."  I

made the old goloss very coarse.  "I have always had the strong-

est admiration for them as can write books."  Then I looked

at its top sheet, and there was the name - A  C L O C K W O R K

O R A N G E - and I said: "That's a fair gloopy title.  Who ever

heard of a clockwork orange?"  Then I read a malenky bit out

loud in a sort of very high type preaching goloss: " - The

attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and

capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the

bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and

conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this

I raise my sword-pen - "  Dim made the old lip-music at that and

I had to smeck myself.  Then I started to tear up the sheets and

scatter the bits over the floor, and this writer moodge went

sort of bezoomny and made for me with his zoobies clenched

and showing yellow and his nails ready for me like claws.  So

that was old Dim's cue and he went grinning and going er er

and a a a for this veck's dithering rot, crack crack, first left

fistie then right, so that our dear old droog the red - red vino

on tap and the same in all places, like it's put out by the same

big firm - started to pour and spot the nice clean carpet and

the bits of this book that I was still ripping away at, razrez

razrez.  All this time this devotchka, his loving and faithful

wife, just stood like froze by the fireplace, and then she

started letting out little malenky creeches, like in time to the

like music of old Dim's fisty work.  Then Georgie and Pete

came in from the kitchen, both munching away, though with

their maskies on, you could do that with them on and no

trouble.  Georgie with like a cold leg of something in one

rooker and half a loaf of kleb with a big dollop of maslo on it

in the other, and Pete with a bottle of beer frothing its gulli-

ver off and a horrorshow rookerful of like plum cake.  They

went haw haw haw, viddying old Dim dancing round and

fisting the writer veck so that the writer veck started to platch

like his life's work was ruined, going boo hoo hoo with a

very square bloody rot, but it was haw haw haw in a muffled

eater's way and you could see bits of what they were eating.  I

didn't like that, it being dirty and slobbery, so I said:

"Drop that mounch.  I gave no permission.  Grab hold of this

veck here so he can viddy all and not get away."  So they put

down their fatty pishcha on the table among all the flying

paper and they clopped over to the writer veck whose horn-

rimmed otchkies were cracked but still hanging on, with old

Dim still dancing round and making ornaments shake on the

mantelpiece (I swept them all off then and they couldn't shake

no more, little brothers) while he fillied with the author of 'A

Clockwork Orange', making his litso all purple and dripping

away like some very special sort of a juicy fruit.  "All right,

Dim," I said.  "Now for the other veshch, Bog help us all."  So he

did the strong-man on the devotchka, who was still creech

creech creeching away in very horrorshow four-in-a-bar,

locking her rookers from the back, while I ripped away at this

and that and the other, the others going haw haw haw still,

and real good horrorshow groodies they were that then exhi-

bited their pink glazzies, O my brothers, while I untrussed and

got ready for the plunge.  Plunging, I could slooshy cries of

agony and this writer bleeding veck that Georgie and Pete held

on to nearly got loose howling bezoomny with the filthiest

of slovos that I already knew and others he was making up.

Then after me it was right old Dim should have his turn, which

he did in a beasty snorty howly sort of a way with his Peebee

Shelley maskie taking no notice, while I held on to her.  Then

there was a changeover, Dim and me grabbing the slobbering

writer veck who was past struggling really, only just coming

out with slack sort of slovos like he was in the land in a milk-

plus bar, and Pete and Georgie had theirs.  Then there was like

quiet and we were full of like hate, so smashed what was left

to be smashed - typewriter, lamp, chairs - and Dim, it was

typical of old Dim, watered the fire out and was going to dung

on the carpet, there being plenty of paper, but I said no.  "Out

out out out," I howled.  The writer veck and his zheena were

not really there, bloody and torn and making noises.  But

they'd live.

So we got into the waiting auto and I left it to Georgie to

take the wheel, me feeling that malenky bit shagged, and we

went back to town, running over odd squealing things on the

way.

 

 

3

 

We yeckated back townwards, my brothers, but just outside,

not far from what they called the Industrial Canal, we viddied

the fuel needle had like collapsed, like our own ha ha ha

needles had, and the auto was coughing kashl kashl kashl.  Not

to worry overmuch, though, because a rail station kept

flashing blue - on off on off - just near.  The point was

whether to leave the auto to be sobiratted by the rozzes or,

us feeling like in a hate and murder mood, to give it a fair

tolchock into the starry watersfor a nice heavy loud plesk

before the death of the evening.  This latter we decided on, so

we got out and, the brakes off, all four tolchocked it to the

edge of the filthy water that was like treacle mixed with

human hole products, then one good horrorshow tolchock

and in she went.  We had to dash back for fear of the filth

splashing on our platties, but splussshhhh and glolp she went,

down and lovely.  "Farewell, old droog," called Georgie, and

Dim obliged with a clowny great guff - "Huh huh huh huh."

Then we made for the station to ride the one stop to Center,

as the middle of the town was called.  We paid our fares nice

and polite and waited gentlemanly and quiet on the platform,

old Dim fillying with the slot machines, his carmans being full

of small malenky coin, and ready if need be to distribute

chocbars to the poor and starving, though there was none

such about, and then the old espresso rapido came lumbering

in and we climbed aboard, the train looking to be near empty.

To pass the three-minute ride we fillied about with what they

called the upholstery, doing some nice horrorshow tearing-

out of the seats' guts and old Dim chaining the okno till the

glass cracked and sparkled in the winter air, but we were all

feeling that bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it having been

an evening of some small energy expenditure, my brothers,

only Dim, like the clowny animal he was, full of the joys-of,

but looking all dirtied over and too much von of sweat on

him, which was one thing I had against old Dim.

We got out at Center and walked slow back to the

Korova Milkbar, all going yawwwww a malenky bit and exhi-

biting to moon and star and lamplight our back fillings, be-

cause we were still only growing malchicks and had school in

the daytime, and when we got into the Korova we found it

fuller than when we'd left earlier on.  But the chelloveck that

had been burbling away, in the land, on white and synthemesc

or whatever, was still on at it, going: "Urchins of deadcast in

the way-ho-hay glill platonic time weatherborn."  It was prob-

able that this was his third or fourth lot that evening, for he

had that pale inhuman look, like he'd become a 'thing', and like

his litso was really a piece of chalk carved.  Really, if he wanted

to spend so long in the land, he should have gone into one of

the private cubies at the back and not stayed in the big mesto,

because here some of the malchickies would filly about with

him a malenky bit, though not too much because there were

powerful bruiseboys hidden away in the old Korova who

could stop any riot.  Anyway, Dim squeezed in next to this

veck and, with his big clown's yawp that showed his hanging

grape, he stabbed this veck's foot with his own large filthy

sabog.  But the veck, my brothers, heard nought, being now all

above the body.

It was nadsats milking and coking and fillying around

(nadsats were what we used to call the teens), but there were a

few of the more starry ones, vecks and cheenas alike (but not

of the bourgeois, never them) laughing and govoreeting at the

bar.  You could tell them from their barberings and loose platties

(big stringy sweaters mostly) that they'd been on rehearsals at

the TV studios around the corner.  The devotchkas among them

had these very lively litsos and wide big rots, very red, show-

ing a lot of teeth, and smecking away and not caring about

the wicked world one whit.  And then the disc on the stereo

twanged off and out (it was Johnny Zhivago, a Russky

koshka, singing 'Only Every Other Day'), and in the like inter-

val, the short silence before the next one came on, one of

these devotchkas - very fair and with a big smiling red rot and

in her late thirties I'd say - suddenly came with a burst of

singing, only a bar and a half and as though she was like giving

an example of something they'd all been govoreeting about,

and it was like for a moment, O my brothers, some great bird

had flown into the milkbar, and I felt all the little malenky

hairs on my plott standing endwise and the shivers crawling

up like slow malenky lizards and then down again.  Because I

knew what she sang.  It was from an opera by Friedrich Gitter-

fenster called 'Das Bettzeug', and it was the bit where she's

snuffing it with her throat cut, and the slovos are 'Better like

this maybe'.  Anyway, I shivered.

But old Dim, as soon as he'd slooshied this dollop of song

like a lomtick of redhot meat plonked on your plate, let off

one of his vulgarities, which in this case was a lip-trump fol-

lowed by a dog-howl followed by two fingers pronging twice

at the air followed by a clowny guffaw.  I felt myself all of a

fever and like drowning in redhot blood, slooshying and

viddying Dim's vulgarity, and I said: "Bastard.  Filthy drooling

mannerless bastard."  Then I leaned across Georgie, who was

between me and horrible Dim, and fisted Dim skorry on the

rot.  Dim looked very surprised, his rot open, wiping the

krovvy off of his goober with his rook and in turn looking

surprised at the red flowing krovvy and at me.  "What for did

you do that for?" he said in his ignorant way.  Not many

viddied what I'd done, and those that viddied cared not.  The

stereo was on again and was playing a very sick electronic

guitar veshch.  I said:

"For being a bastard with no manners and not the dook of

an idea how to comport yourself publicwise, O my

brother."

Dim put on a hound-and-horny look of evil, saying: "I

don't like you should do what you done then.  And I'm not

your brother no more and wouldn't want to be."  He'd taken a

big snotty tashtook from his pocket and was mopping the red

flow puzzled, keeping on looking at it frowning as if he

thought that blood was for other vecks and not for him.  It

was like he was singing blood to make up for his vulgarity

when that devotchka was singing music.  But that devotchka

was smecking away ha ha ha now with her droogs at the bar,

her red rot working and her zoobies ashine, not having no-

ticed Dim's filthy vulgarity.  It was me really Dim had done

wrong to.  I said:

 "if you don't like this and you wouldn't want that, then you

know what to do, little brother."  Georgie said, in a sharp way

that made me look:

"All right.  Let's not be starting."

"That's clean up to Dim," I said.  "Dim can't go on all his

jeezny being as a little child."  And I looked sharp at Georgie.

Dim said, and the red krovvy was easing its flow now:

"What natural right does he have to think he can give the

orders and tolchock me whenever he likes?  Yarbles is what I

say to him, and I'd chain his glazzies out as soon as look."

"Watch that," I said, as quiet as I could with the stereo

bouncing all over the walls and ceiling and the in-the-land

veck beyond Dim getting loud now with his "Spark nearer,

ultoptimate", I said: "Do watch that, O Dim, if to continue to

be on live thou dost wish."

"Yarbles," said Dim, sneering, "great bolshy yarblockos to

you.  What you done then you had no right.  I'll meet you with

chain or nozh or britva any time, not having you aiming tol-

chocks at me reasonless, it stands to reason I won't have

it."

"A nozh scrap any time you say," I snarled back.  Pete said:

"Oh now, don't, both of you malchicks.  Droogs, aren't we?

It isn't right droogs should behave thiswise.  See, there are

some loose-lipped malchicks over there smecking at us, leer-

ing like.  We mustn't let ourselves down."

"Dim," I said, "has got to learn his place.  Right?"

"Wait," said Georgie.  "What is all this about place?  This is the

first I ever hear about lewdies learning their place."

Pete said: "If the truth is known, Alex, you shouldn't have

given old Dim that uncalled-for tolchock.  I'll say it once and

no more.  I say it with all respect, but if it had been me you'd

given it to you'd have to answer.  I say no more."  And he

drowned his litso in his milk-glass.

I could feel myself getting all razdraz inside, but I tried to

cover it, saying calm: "There has to be a leader.  Discipline

there has to be.  Right?"  None of them skazatted a word or

nodded even.  I got more razdraz inside, calmer out.  "I," I said,

"have been in charge long now.  We are all droogs, but some-

body has to be in charge.  Right?  Right?"  They all like nodded,

wary like.  Dim was osooshing the last of the krovvy off.  It

was Dim who said now:

"Right, right.  Doobidoob.  A bit tired, maybe, everybody is.

Best not to say more."  I was surprised and just that malenky

bit poogly to sloosh Dim govoreeting that wise.  Dim said:

"Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways.  Right?"  I

was very surprised.  The other two nodded, going right right

right.  I said:

"You understand about that tolchock on the rot, Dim.

It was the music, see.  I get all bezoomny when any veck

interferes with a ptitsa singing, as it might be.  Like that

then."

"Best we go off homeways and get a bit of spatchka," said

Dim.  "A long night for growing malchicks.  Right?"  Right right

nodded the other two.  I said:

"I think it best we go home now.  Dim has made a real

horrorshow suggestion.  If we don't meet day-wise, O my

brothers, well then - same time same place tomorrow?"

"Oh yes," said Georgie.  "I think that can be arranged."

"I might," said Dim, "be just that malenky bit late.  But same

place and near same time tomorrow surely."  He was still

wiping at his goober, though no krovvy flowed any longer

now.  "And," he said, "it is to be hoped there won't be no more

of them singing ptitsas in here."  Then he gave his old Dim guff,

a clowny big hohohohoho.  It seemed like he was too dim to

take much offence.

So off we went our several ways, me belching arrrrgh on

the cold coke I'd peeted.  I had my cut-throat britva handy in

case any of Billyboy's droogs should be around near the flat-

block waiting, or for that matter any of the other bandas or

gruppas or shaikas that from time to time were at war with

one.  Where I lived was with my dadda and mum in the flats of

Municipal Flatblock 18A, between Kingsley Avenue and Wil-

sonsway.  I got to the big main door with no trouble, though I

did pass one young malchick sprawling and creeching and

moaning in the gutter, all cut about lovely, and saw in the

lamplight also streaks of blood here and there like signatures,

my brothers, of the night's fillying.  And too I saw just by 18A

a pair of devotchka's neezhnies doubtless rudely wrenched off

in the heat of the moment, O my brothers.  And so in.  In the

hallway was the good old municipal painting on the walls -

vecks and ptitsas very well developed, stern in the dignity of

labour, at workbench and machine with not one stitch of

platties on their well-developed plotts.  But of course some of

the malchicks living in 18A had, as was to be expected, em-

bellished and decorated the said big painting with handy

pencil and ballpoint, adding hair and stiff rods and dirty bal-

looning slovos out of the dignified rots of these nagoy (bare,

that is) cheenas and vecks.  I went to the lift, but there was no

need to press the electric knopka to see if it was working or

not, because it had been tolchocked real horrorshow this

night, the metal doors all buckled, some feat of rare strength

indeed, so I had to walk the ten floors up.  I cursed and panted

climbing, being tired in plott if not so much in brain.  I wanted

music very bad this evening, that singing devotchka in the

Korova having perhaps started me off.  I wanted like a big feast

of it before getting my passport stamped, my brothers, at

sleep's frontier and the stripy shest lifted to let me through.

I opened the door of 10-8 with my own little klootch, and

inside our malenky quarters all was quiet, the pee and em both

being in sleepland, and mum had laid out on the table on

malenky bit of supper - a couple of lomticks of tinned sponge-

meat with a shive or so of kleb and butter, a glass of the old

cold moloko.  Hohoho, the old moloko, with no knives or

synthemesc or drencrom in it.  How wicked, my brothers,

innocent milk must always seem to me now.  Still I drank and

ate growling, being more hungry than I thought at first, and I

got fruit-pie from the larder and tore chunks off it to stuff

into my greedy rot.  Then I tooth-cleaned and clicked, cleaning

out the old rot with my yahzick or tongue, then I went into

my own little room or den, easing off my platties as I did so.

Here was my bed and my stereo, pride of my jeezny, and my

discs in their cupboard, and banners and flags on the wall,

these being like remembrances of my corrective school life

since I was eleven, O my brothers, each one shining and blaz-

oned with name or number: SOUTH 4; METRO COR-

SKOL BLUE DIVISION; THE BOYS OF ALPHA.

The little speakers of my stereo were  all arranged round the

room, on ceiling, walls, floor, so, lying on my bed slooshying

the music, I was like netted and meshed in the orchestra.  Now

what I fancied first tonight was this new violin concerto by

the American Geoffrey Plautus, played by Odysseus Choerilos

with the Macon (Georgia) Philharmonic, so I slid it from

where it was neatly filed and switched on and waited.

Then, brothers, it came.  Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven.  I lay all

nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow,

glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of

lovely sounds.  Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made

flesh.  The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and

behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and

there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out

again crunched like candy thunder.  Oh, it was wonder of

wonders.  And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or

like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense

now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and

those strings were like a cage of silk around my bed.  Then flute

and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick

thick toffee gold and silver.  I was in such bliss, my brothers.

Pee and em in their bedroom next door had learnt now not to

knock on the wall with complaints of what they called noise.

I had taught them.  Now they would take sleep-pills.  Perhaps,

knowing the joy I had in my night music, they had already

taken them.  As I slooshied, my glazzies tight shut to shut in

the bliss that was better than any synthemesc Bog or God, I

knew such lovely pictures.  There were vecks and ptitsas, both

young and starry, lying on the ground screaming for mercy,

and I was smecking all over my rot and grinding my boot in

their litsos.  And there were devotchkas ripped and creeching

against walls and I plunging like a shlaga into them, and

indeed when the music, which was one movement only, rose

to the top of its big highest tower, then, lying there on my

bed with glazzies tight shut and rookers behind my gulliver, I

broke and spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the bliss of it.

And so the lovely music glided to its glowing close.

After that I had lovely Mozart, the Jupiter, and there were

new pictures of different litsos to be ground and splashed, and

it was after this that I thought I would have just one last disc

only before crossing the border, and I wanted something

starry and strong and very firm, so it was J. S. Bach I had, the

Brandenburg Concerto just for middle and lower strings. 

slooshying with different bliss than before, I viddied again this

name on the paper I'd razrezzed that night, a long time ago it

seemed, in that cottage called HOME.  The name was about a

clockwork orange.  Listening to the J. S. Bach, I began to pony

better what that meant now, and I thought, slooshying away

to the brown gorgeousness of the starry German master, that

I would like to have tolchecked them both harder and ripped

them to ribbons on their own floor.

 

 

4

 

The next morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, my

brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and fashed and

bashed and my glazzies were stuck together real horrorshow

with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to school.  I thought

how I would have a malenky bit longer in the bed, an hour or

two say, and then get dressed nice and easy, perhaps even

having a splosh about in the bath, make toast for myself and

slooshy the radio or read the gazetta, all on my oddy knocky.

And then in the afterlunch I might perhaps, if I still felt like it,

itty off to the old skolliwoll and see what was vareeting in

the great seat of gloopy useless learning, O my brothers.  I

heard my papapa grumbling and trampling and then ittying off

to the dyeworks where he rabbited, and then my mum called

in in a very respectful goloss as she did now I was growing up

big and strong:

"It's gone eight, son.  You don't want to be late again."

So I called back: "A bit of pain in my gulliver.  Leave us be

and I'll try to sleep it off and then I'll be right as dodgers for

this after."  I slooshied her give a sort of a sigh and she said:

"I'll put your breakfast in the oven then, son.  I've got to be

off myself now."  Which was true, there being this law for

everybody not a child nor with child nor ill to go out rab-

biting.  My mum worked at one of the Statemarts, as they

called them, filling up the shelves with tinned soup and beans

and all that cal.  So I slooshied her clank a plate in the gas-

oven like and then she was putting her shoes on and then

getting her coat from behind the door and then sighing again,

then she said: "I'm off now, son."  But I let on to be back in

sleepland and then I did doze off real horrorshow, and I had a

queer and very real like sneety, dreaming for some reason of

my droog Georgie.  In this sneety he'd got like very much

older and very sharp and hard and was govoreeting about

discipline and obedience and how all the malchicks under his

control had to jump hard at it and throw up the old salute

like being in the army, and there was me in line like the rest

saying yes sir and no sir, and the I viddied clear that Georgie

had these stars on his pletchoes and he was like a general.  And

then he brought in old Dim with a whip, and Dim was a lot

more starry and grey and had a few zoobies missing as you

could see when he let out a smeck, viddying me, and then my

droog Georgie said, pointing like at me: "That man has filth

and cal all over his platties," and it was true.  Then I creeched:

"Don't hit, please don't, brothers," and started to run.  And I

was running in like circles and Dim was after me, smecking his

gulliver off, cracking with the old whip, and each time I got a

real horrorshow tolchock with this whip there was like a very

loud electric bell ringringring, and this bell was like a sort

of a pain too.

Then I woke up real skorry, my heart going bap bap bap,

and of course there was really a bell going brrrrr, and it was

our front-door bell.  I let on that nobody was at home, but

this brrrrr still ittied on, and then I heard a goloss shouting

through the door: "Come on then, get out of it, I know

you're in bed."  I recognized the goloss right away.  It was the

goloss of P. R. Deltoid (a real gloopy nazz, that one) what

they called my Post-Corrective Adviser, an overworked veck

with hundreds on his books.  I shouted right right right, in a

goloss of like pain, and I got out of bed and attired myself, O

my brothers, in a very lovely over-gown of like silk, with

designs of like great cities all over this over-gown.  Then I put

my nogas into very comfy wooly toofles, combed my

luscious glory, and was ready for P. R. Deltoid.  When I

opened up he came shambling in looking shagged, a battered

old shlapa on his gulliver, his raincoat filthy.  "Ah, Alex boy,"

he said to me.  "I met your mother, yes.  She said something

about a pain somewhere.  Hence not at schol, yes."

"A rather intolerable pain in the head, brother, sir," I said in

my gentleman's goloss.  "I think it should clear by this after-

noon."

"Or certainly by this evening, yes," said P. R. Deltoid.  "The

evening is the great time, isn't it, Alex boy?  Sit," he said, "sit,

sit," as though this was his domy and me his guest.  And he sat

in this starry rocking-chair of my dad's and began rocking, as

if that was all he had come for.  I said:

"A cup of the old chai, sir?  Tea, I mean."

"No time," he said.  And he rocked, giving me the old glint

under frowning brows, as if with all the time in the world.  "No

time, yes," he said, gloopy.  So I put the kettle on.  Then I

said:

"To what do I owe the extreme pleasure?  Is anything

wrong, sir?"

"Wrong?" he said, very skorry and sly, sort of hunched

looking at me but still rocking away.  Then he caught sight of

an advert in the gazetta, which was on the table - a lovely

smecking young ptitsa with her groodies hanging out to ad-

vertise, my brothers, the Glories of the Jugoslav Beaches.

Then, after sort of eating her up in two swallows, he said:

"Why should you think in terms of there being anything

wrong?  Have you been doing something you shouldn't,

yes?"

"Just a manner of speech," I said, "sir."

"Well," said P. R. Deltoid, "it's just a manner of speech from

me to you that you watch out, little Alex, because next time,

as you very well know, it's not going to be the corrective

school any more.  Next time it's going to be the barry place

and all my work ruined.  If you have no consideration for your

horrible self you at least might have some for me, who have

sweated over you.  A big black mark, I tell you in confidence,

for every one we don't reclaim, a confession of failure for

every one of you that ends up in the stripy hole."

"I've been doing nothing I shouldn't, sir," I said.  "The mil-

licents have nothing on me, brother, sir I mean."

"Cut out this clever talk about millicents," said P. R. Deltoid

very weary, but still rocking.  "Just because the police have not

picked you up lately doesn't, as you very well know, mean

you've not been up to some nastiness.  There was a bit of a

fight last night, wasn't there?  There was a bit of shuffling with

nozhes and bike-chains and the like.  One of a certain fat boy's

friends was ambulanced off late from near the Power Plant

and hospitalized, cut about very unpleasantly, yes.  Your name

was mentioned.  The word has got through to me by the usual

channels.  Certain friends of yours were named also.  There

seems to have been a fair amount of assorted nastiness last

night.  Oh, nobody can prove anything about anybody, as

usual.  But I'm warning you, little Alex, being a good friend to

you as always, the one man in this sick and sore community

who wants to save you from yourself."

"I appreciate all that, sir," I said, "very sincerely."

"Yes, you do, don't you?" he sort of sneered.  "Just watch it,

that's all, yes.  We know more than you think, little Alex."

Then he said, in a goloss of great suffering, but still rocking

away: "What gets into you all?  We study the problem and

we've been studying it for damn well near a century, yes, but

we get no further with our studies.  You've got a good home

here, good loving parents, you've got not too bad of a brain.

Is it some devil that crawls inside you?"

"Nobody's got anything on me, sir," I said.  "I've been out of

the rookers of the millicents for a long time now."

"That's just what worries me," sighed P. R. Deltoid.  "A bit

too long of a time to be healthy.  You're about due now by my

reckoning.  That's why I'm warning you, little Alex, to keep

your handsome young proboscis out of the dirt, yes.  Do I

make myself clear?"

"As an unmuddied lake, sir," I said.  "Clear as an azure sky of

deepest summer.  You can rely on me, sir."  And I gave him a

nice zooby smile.

But when he'd ookadeeted and I was making this very

strong pot of chai, I grinned to myself over this veshch that

P. R. Deltoid and his droogs worried about.  All right, I do

bad, what with crasting and tolchocks and carves with the

britva and the old in-out-in-out, and if I get loveted, well, too

bad for me, O my little brothers, and you can't run a country

with every chelloveck comporting himself in my manner of

the night.  So if I get loveted and it's three months in this

mesto and another six in that, and the, as P. R. Deltoid so

kindly warns, next time, in spite of the great tenderness of my

summers, brothers, it's the great unearthly zoo itself, well, I

say: "Fair, but a pity, my lords, because I just cannot bear to

be shut in.  My endeavour shall be, in such future as stretches

out its snowy and lilywhite arms to me before the nozh

overtakes or the blood spatters its final chorus in twisted

metal and smashed glass on the highroad, to not get loveted

again."  Which is fair speeching.  But, brothers, this biting of

their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is what turns

me into a fine laughing malchick.  They don't go into the cause

of goodness, so why the other shop?  If lewdies are good

that's because they like it, and I wouldn't ever interfere with

their pleasures, and so of the other shop.  And I was patron-

izing the other shop.  More, badness is of the self, the one, the

you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old

Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty.  But the not-self

cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the

judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they

cannot allow the self.  And is not our modern history, my

brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big

machines?  I am serious with you, brothers, over this.  But

what I do I do because I like to do.

So now, this smiling winter morning, I drink this very

strong chai with moloko and spoon after spoon after spoon

of sugar, me having a sladky tooth, and I dragged out of the

oven the breakfast my poor old mum had cooked for me.  It

was an egg fried, that and no more, but I made toast and ate

egg and toast and jam, smacking away at it while I read the

gazetta.  The gazetta was the usual about ultra-violence and

bank robberies and strikes and footballers making everybody

paralytic with fright by threatening to not play next Saturday

if they did not get higher wages, naughty malchickiwicks as

they were.  Also there were more space-trips and bigger stereo

TV screens and offers of free packets of soapflakes in ex-

change for the labels on soup-tins, amazing offer for one

week only, which made me smeck.  And there was a bolshy big

article on Modern Youth (meaning me, so I gave the old bow,

grinning like bezoomny) by some very clever bald chelloveck.

I read this with care, my brothers, slurping away at the old

chai, cup after tass after chasha, crunching my lomticks of

black toast dipped in jammiwam and eggiweg.  This learned

veck said the usual veshches, about no parental discipline, as

he called it, and the shortage of real horrorshow teachers

who would lambast bloody beggary out of their innocent

poops and make them go boohoohoo for mercy.  All this was

gloopy and made me smeck, but it was like nice to go on

knowing one was making the news all the time, O my

brothers.  Every day there was something about Modern

Youth, but the best veshch they ever had in the old gazetta

was by some starry pop in a doggy collar who said that in his

considered opinion and he was govoreeting as a man of Bog

IT WAS THE DEVIL THAT WAS ABROAD and was

like ferreting his way into like young innocent flesh, and it was

the adult world that could take the responsibility for this with

their wars and bombs and nonsense.  So that was all right.  So

he knew what he talked of, being a Godman.  So we young

innocent malchicks could take no blame.  Right right right.

When I'd gone erk erk a couple of razzes on my full inno-

cent stomach, I started to get out day platties from my ward-

robe, turning the radio on.  There was music playing, a very

nice malenky string quartet, my brothers, by Claudius Bird-

man, one that I knew well.  I had to have a smeck, though,

thinking of what I'd viddied once in one of these like articles

on Modern Youth, about how Modern Youth would be better

off if A Lively Appreciation Of The Arts could be like en-

couraged.  Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like

quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more

Civilized.  Civilized my syphilised yarbles.  Music always sort of

sharpened me up, O my brothers, and made me feel like

old Bog himself, ready to make with the old donner and blit-

zen and have vecks and ptitsas creeching away in my ha ha

power.  And when I'd cheested up my litso and rookers a bit

and done dressing (my day platties were like student-wear:  the

old blue pantalonies with sweater with A for Alex) I thought

here at last was time to itty off to the disc-bootick (and

cutter too, my pockets being full of pretty polly) to see about

this long-promised and long-ordered stereo Beethoven

Number Nine (the Choral Symphony, that is), recorded on

Masterstroke by the Esh Sham Sinfonia under L. Muhaiwir.  So

out I went, brothers.

The day was very different from the night.  The night be-

longed to me and my droogs and all the rest of the nadsats,

and the starry bourgeois lurked indoors drinking in the

gloopy worldcasts, but the day was for the starry ones, and

there always seemed to be more rozzes or millicents about

during the day, too.  I got the autobus from the corner and

rode to Center, and then I walked back to Taylor Place, and

there was the disc-bootick I favoured with my inestimable

custom, O my brothers.  It had the gloopy name of MEL-

ODIA, but it was a real horrorshow mesto and skorry, most

times, at getting the new recordings.  I walked in and the only

other customers were two young ptitsas sucking away at ice-

sticks (and this, mark, was dead cold winter and sort of

shuffling through the new pop-discs - Johnny Burnaway,

Stash Kroh, The Mixers, Lay Quit Awhile With Ed And Id

Molotov, and all the rest of that cal).  These two ptitsas

couldn't have been more than ten, and they too, like me, it

seemed, evidently, had decided to take the morning off from

the old skolliwoll.  They saw themselves, you could see, as real

grown-up devotchkas already, what with the old hip-swing

when they saw your Faithful Narrator, brothers, and padded

groodies and red all ploshed on their goobers.  I went up to

the counter, making with the polite zooby smile at old Andy

behind it (always polite himself, always helpful, a real hor-

rorshow type of a veck, though bald and very very thin).  He

said:

"Aha.  I know what you want, I think.  Good news, good

news.  It has arrived."  And with like big conductor's rookers

beating time he went to get it.  The two young ptitsas started

giggling, as they will at that age, and I gave them a like cold

glazzy.  Andy was back real skorry, waving the great shiny

white sleeve of the Ninth, which had on it, brothers, the

frowning beetled like thunderbolted litso of Ludwig van him-

self.  "Here," said Andy.  "Shall we give it the trial spin?"  But I

wanted it back home on my stereo to slooshy on my oddy

knocky, greedy as hell.  I fumbled out the deng to pay and one

of the little ptitsas said:

"Who you getten, bratty?  What biggy, what only?"  These

young devotchkas had their own like way of govoreeting.

"The Heaven Seventeen?  Luke Sterne?  Goggly Gogol?"  And

both giggled, rocking and hippy.  Then an idea hit me and

made me near fall over with the anguish and ecstasy of it, O

my brothers, so I could not breathe for near ten seconds.  I

recovered and made with my new-clean zoobies and said:

"What you got back home, little sisters, to play your fuzzy

warbles on?"  Because I could viddy the discs they were buying

were these teeny pop veshches.  "I bet you got little save tiny

portable like picnic spinners."  And they sort of pushed their

lower lips out at that.  "Come with uncle," I said, "and hear all

proper.  Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones.  You are

invited."  And I like bowed.  They giggled again and one said:

"Oh, but we're so hungry.  Oh, but we could so eat."  The

other said: "Yah, she can say that, can't she just."  So I said:

"Eat with uncle.  Name your place."

Then they viddied themselves as real sophistoes, which was

like pathetic, and started talking in big-lady golosses about

the Ritz and the Bristol and the Hilton and Il Ristorante Gran-

turco.  But I stopped that with "Follow uncle," and I led them

to the Pasta Parlour just round the corner and let them fill

their innocent young litsos on spaghetti and sausages and

cream-puffs and banana-splits and hot choc-sauce, till I near

sicked with the sight of it, I, brothers, lunching but frugally off

a cold ham-slice and a growling dollop of chilli.  These two

young ptitsas were much alike, though not sisters.  They had

the same ideas or lack of, and the same colour hair - a like

dyed strawy.  Well, they would grow up real today.  Today I

would make a day of it.  No school this afterlunch, but edu-

cation certain, Alex as teacher.  Their names, they said, were

Marty and Sonietta, bezoomny enough and in the heighth of

their childish fashion, so I said:

"Righty right, Marty and Sonietta.  Time for the big spin.

Come."  When we were outside on the cold street they

thought they would not go by autobus, oh no, but by taxi, so

I gave them the humour, though with a real horrorshow in-

grin, and I called a taxi from the rank near Center.  The driver,

a starry whiskery veck in very stained platties, said:

"No tearing up, now.  No nonsense with them seats.  Just re-

upholstered they are."  I quieted his gloopy fears and off we

spun to Municipal Flatblock 18A, these two bold little ptitsas

giggling and whispering.  So, to cut all short, we arrived, O my

brothers, and I led the way up to 10-8, and they panted and

smecked away the way up, and then they were thirsty, they

said, so I unlocked the treasure-chest in my room and gave

these ten-year-young devotchkas a real horrorshow Scotch-

man apiece, though well filled with sneezy pins-and-needles

soda.  They sat on my bed (yet unmade) and leg-swung, smeck-

ing and peeting their highballs, while I spun their like pathetic

malenky discs through my stereo.  Like peeting some sweet

scented kid's drink, that was, in like very beautiful and lovely

and costly gold goblets.  But they went oh oh oh and said,

"Swoony" and "Hilly" and other weird slovos that were the

heighth of fashion in that youth group.  While I spun this cal

for them I encouraged them to drink and have another, and

they were nothing loath, O my brothers.  So by the time their

pathetic pop-discs had been twice spun each (there were two:

'Honey Nose', sung by Ike Yard, and 'Night After Day After

Night', moaned by two horrible yarbleless like eunuchs whose

names I forget) they were getting near the pitch of like young

ptitsa's hysterics, what with jumping all over my bed and me in

the room with them.

What was actually done that afternoon there is no need to

describe, brothers, as you may easily guess all.  Those two

were unplattied and smecking fit to crack in no time at all, and

they thought it the bolshiest fun to viddy old Uncle Alex

standing there all nagoy and pan-handled, squirting the hypo-

dermic like some bare doctor, then giving myself the old jab

of growling jungle-cat secretion in the rooker.  Then I pulled

the lovely Ninth out of its sleeve, so that Ludwig van was now

nagoy too, and I set the needle hissing on to the last move-

ment, which was all bliss.  There it was then, the bass strings

like govoreeting away from under my bed at the rest of the</b>

orchestra, and then the male human goloss coming in and

telling them all to be joyful, and then the lovely blissful tune

all about Joy being a glorious spark like of heaven, and then I

felt the old tigers leap in me and then I leapt on these two

young ptitsas.  This time they thought nothing fun and

stopped creeching with high mirth, and had to submit to the

strange and weird desires of Alexander the Large which, what

with the Ninth and the hypo jab, were choodessny and zam-

mechat and very demanding, O my brothers.  But they were

both very very drunken and could hardly feel very much.

When the last movement had gone round for the second

time with all the banging and creeching about Joy Joy Joy

Joy, then these two young ptitsas were not acting the big lady

sophisto no more.  They were like waking up to what was

being done to their malenky persons and saying that they

wanted to go home and like I was a wild beast.  They looked

like they had been in some big bitva, as indeed they had, and

were all bruised and pouty.  Well, if they would not go to

school they must stil have their education.  And education

they had had.  They were creeching and going ow ow ow as

they put their platties on, and they were like punchipunching

me with their teeny fists as I lay there dirty and nagoy and fair

shagged and fagged on the bed.  This young Sonietta was cre-

eching: "Beast and hateful animal.  Filthy horror."  So I let them

get their things together and get out, which they did, talking

about how the rozzes should be got on to me and all that cal.

Then they were going down the stairs and I dropped off to

sleep, still with the old Joy Joy Joy Joy crashing and howling away.

 

 

5

 

What happened, though, was that I woke up late (near seven-

thirty by my watch) and, as it turned out, that was not so

clever.  You can viddy that everything in this wicked world

counts.  You can pony that one thing always leads to another.

Right right right.  My stereo was no longer on about Joy and I

Embrace Ye O Ye Millions, so some veck had dealt it the off,

and that would be either pee or em, both of them now being

quite clear to the slooshying in the living-room and, from the

clink clink of plates and slurp slurp of peeting tea from cups,

at their tired meal after the day's rabbiting in factory the one,

store the other.  The poor old.  The pitiable starry.  I put on my

over-gown and looked out, in guise of loving only son, to

say:

"Hi hi hi, there.  A lot better after the day's rest.  Ready now

for evening work to earn that little bit."  For that's what they

said they believed I did these days.  "Yum, yum, mum.  Any of

that for me?"  It was like some frozen pie that she'd unfroze

and then warmed up and it looked not so very appetitish, but

I had to say what I said.  Dad looked at me with a not-so-

pleased suspicious like look but said nothing, knowing he

dared not, and mum gave me a tired like little smeck, to thee

fruit of my womb my only son sort of.  I danced to the bath-

room and had a real skorry cheest all over, feeling dirty and

gluey, then back to my den for the evening's platties.  Then,

shining, combed, brushed and gorgeous, I sat to my lomtick

of pie.  Papapa said:

"Not that I want to pry, son, but where exactly is it you go

to work of evenings?"

"Oh," I chewed, "it's mostly odd things, helping like.  Here

and there, as it might be."  I gave him a straight dirty glazzy, as

to say to mind his own and I'd mind mine.  "I never ask for

money, do I?  Not money for clothes or for pleasures?  All

right, then, why ask?"

My dad was like humble mumble chumble.  "Sorry, son," he

said.  "But I get worried sometimes.  Sometimes I have dreams.

You can laugh if you like, but there's a lot in dreams.  Last

night I had this dream with you in it and I didn't like it one

bit."

"Oh?"  He had gotten me interessovatted now, dreaming of

me like that.  I had like a feeling I had had a dream, too, but I

could not remember proper what.  "Yes?"  I said, stopping

chewing my gluey pie.

"It was vivid," said my dad.  "I saw you lying on the street and

you had been beaten by other boys.  These boys were like the

boys you used to go around with before you were sent to

that last Corrective School."

"Oh?"  I had an in-grin at that, papapa believing I had really

reformed or believing he believed.  And then I remembered my

own dream, which was a dream of that morning, of Georgie

giving his general's orders and old Dim smecking around

toothless as he wielded the whip.  But dreams go by opposites

I was once told.  "Never worry about thine only son and heir,

O my father," I said.  "Fear not.  He canst taketh care of himself,

verily."

and you couldn't fight back."  That was real opposites, so I had

another quiet malenky grin within and then I took all the deng

out of my carmans and tinkled it on the saucy table-cloth.  I

said:

"Here, dad, it's not much.  It's what I earned last night.  But

perhaps for the odd peet of Scotchman in the snug some-

where for you and mum."

"Thanks, son," he said.  "But we don't go out much now.  We

daren't go out much, the streets being what they are.  Young

hooligans and so on.  Still, thanks.  I'll bring her home a bottle

of something tomorrow."  And he scooped this ill-gotten

pretty into his trouser carmans, mum being at the cheesting of

the dishes in the kitchen.  And I went out with loving smiles all

round.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs of the flatblock I

was somewhat surprised.  I was more than that.  I opened my

rot like wide in the old stony gapes.  They had come to meet

me.  They were waiting by the all scrawled-over municipal

wall-painting of the nagoy dignity of labour, bare vecks and

cheenas stern at the wheels of industry, like I said, with all this

dirt pencilled from their rots by naughty malchicks.  Dim had a

big thick stick of black greasepaint and was tracing filthy

slovos real big over our municipal painting and doing the old

Dim guff - wuh huh huh - while he did it.  But he turned round

when Georgie and Pete gave me the well hello, showing their

shining droogy zoobies, and he horned out: "He are here, he

have arrived, hooray," and did a clumsy turnitoe bit of danc-

ing.

"We got worried," said Georgie.  "There we were awaiting

and peeting away at the old knify moloko, and you might

have been like offended by some veshch or other, so round

we come to your abode.  That's right, Pete, right?"

"Oh, yes, right," said Pete.

"Appy polly loggies," I said careful.  "I had something of a pain

in the gulliver so had to sleep.  I was not wakened when I gave

orders for wakening.  Still, here we all are, ready for what

the old nochy offers, yes?"  I seemed to have picked up that

yes? from P. R. Deltoid, my Post-Corrective Adviser.  Very

strange.

"Sorry about the pain," said Georgie, like very concerned.

"Using the gulliver too much like, maybe.  Giving orders and

discipline and such, perhaps.  Sure the pain is gone?  Sure you'll

not be happier going back to the bed?"  And they all had a bit

of a malenky grin.

"Wait," I said.  "Let's get things nice and sparkling clear.  This

sarcasm, if I may call it such, does not become you, O my

little friends.  Perhaps you have been having a bit of a quiet

govoreet behind my back, making your own little jokes and

such-like.  As I am your droog and leader, surely I am entitled

to know what goes on, eh?  Now then, Dim, what does that

great big horsy gape of a grin portend?"  For Dim had his rot

open in a sort of bezoomny soundless smeck.  Georgie got in

very skorry with:

"All right, no more picking on Dim, brother.  That's part of

the new way."

"New way?" I said.  "What's this about a new way?  There's

been some very large talk behind my sleeping back and no

error.  Let me slooshy more."  And I sort of folded my rookers

and leaned comfortable to listen against the broken banister-

rail, me being still higher than them, droogs as they called

themselves, on the third stair.

"No offence, Alex," said Pete, "but we wanted to have things

more democratic like.  Not like you like saying what to do and

what not all the time.  But no offence."

George said: "Offence is neither here nor elsewhere.  It's the

matter of who has ideas.  What ideas has he had?"  And he kept

his very bold glazzies turned full on me.  "It's all the small stuff,

malenky veshches like last night.  We're growing up, brothers."

"More," I said, not moving.  "Let me slooshy more."

"Well," said Georgie, "if you must have it, have it then.  We

itty round, shop-crasting and the like, coming out with a piti-

ful rookerful of cutter each.  And there's Will the English in

the Muscleman coffee mesto saying he can fence anything that

any malchick cares to try to crast.  The shiny stuff, the ice," he

said, still with these like cold glazzies on me.  "The big big big

money is available is what Will the English says."

"So," I said, very comfortable out but real razdraz within.

"Since when have you been consorting and comporting with

Will the English?"

"Now and again," said Georgie, "I get around all on my oddy

knocky.  Like last Sabbath for instance.  I can live my own

jeezny, droogy, right?"</p>

I didn't care for any of this, my brothers.  "And what will

you do," I said, "with the big big big deng or money as you so

highfaluting call it?  Have you not every veshch you need?  If

you need an auto you pluck it from the trees.  If you need

pretty polly you take it.  Yes?  Why this sudden shilarny for

being the big bloated capitalist?"

"Ah," said Georgie, "you think and govoreet sometimes like

a little child."  Dim went huh huh huh at that.  "Tonight," said

Georgie, "we pull a mansize crast."

So my dream had told truth, then.  Georgie the general

saying what we should do and what not do, Dim with the whip

as mindless grinning bulldog.  But I played with care, with great

care, the greatest, saying, smiling: "Good.  Real horrorshow.

Initiative comes to them as wait.  I have taught you much,

little droogie.  Now tell me what you have in mind, Georgie-

boy."

"Oh," said Georgie, cunning and crafty in his grin, "the old

moloko-plus first, would you not say?  Something to sharpen

us up, boy, but you especially, we having the start on you."

"You have govoreeted my thoughts for me," I smiled away.

"I was about to suggest the dear old Korova.  Good good

good.  Lead, little Georgie."  And I made with a like deep bow,

smiling like bezoomny but thinking all the time.  But when we

got into the street I viddied that thinking is for the gloopy

ones and that the oomny ones use like inspiration and what

Bog sends.  For now it was lovely music that came to my aid.

There was an auto ittying by and it had its radio on, and I

could just slooshy a bar or so of Ludwig van (it was the Violin

Concerto, last movement), and I viddied right at once what to

do.  I said, in like a thick deep goloss:  "Right, Georgie, now,"

and I whisked out my cut-throat britva.  Georgie said: "Uh?"

but he was skorry enough with his nozh, the blade coming

sloosh out of the handle, and we were on to each other.  Old

Dim said: "Oh no, not right that isn't, and made to uncoil the

chain round his tally, but Pete said, putting his rooker firm on

old Dim: "Leave them.  It's right like that."  So then Georgie and

Your Humble did the old quiet cat-stalk, looking for openings,

knowing each other's style a bit too horrorshow really.  Georgie

now and then going lurch lurch with his shining nozh but not

no wise connecting.  And all the time lewdies passed by and

viddied all this but minded their own, it being perhaps a

common street-sight.  But then I counted odin dva tree and

went ak ak ak with the britva, though not at litso or glazzies

but at Georgie's nozh-holding rooker and, my little brothers,

he dropped.  He did.  He dropped his nozh with a tinkle tankle

on the hard winter sidewalk.  I had just ticklewickled his fingers

with my britva, and there he was looking at the malenky

dribble of krovvy that was redding out in the lamplight.  "Now,"

I said, and it was me that was starting, because Pete had given

old Dim the soviet not to uncoil the oozy from round his

tally and Dim had taken it, "now, Dim, let's thou and me have

all this now, shall us?"  Dim went, "Aaaaaaarhgh," like some

bolshy bezoomny animal, and snaked out the chain from his

waist real horrorshow and skorry, so you had to admire.  Now

the right style for me here was to keep low like in frog-dancing

to protect litso and glazzies, and this I did, brothers, so that

poor old Dim was a malenky bit surprised, him being accus-

tomed to the straight face-on lash lash lash.  Now I will say

that he whished me horrible on the back so that it stung like

bezoomny, but that pain told me to dig in skorry once and for

all and be done with old Dim.  So I swished with the britva at

his left noga in its very tight tight and I slashed two inches of

cloth and drew a malenky drop of krovvy to make Dim real

bezoomny.  Then while he went hauwwww hauwww hauwww

like a doggie I tried the same style as for Georgie, banking all

on one move - up, cross, cut - and I felt the britva go just deep

enough in the meat of old Dim's wrist and he dropped his

snaking oozy yelping like a little child.  Then he tried to drink

in all the blood from his wrist and howl at the same time, and

there was too much krovvy to drink and he went bubble

bubble bubble, the red like fountaining out lovely, but not for

very long.  I said:

"Right, my droogies, now we should know.  Yes, Pete?"

"I never said anything," said Pete.  "I never govoreeted one

slovo.  Look, old Dim's bleeding to death."

"Never," I said.  "One can die but once.  Dim died before he

was born.  That red red krovvy will soon stop."  Because I had

not cut into the like main cables.  And I myself took a clean

tashtook from my carman to wrap round poor old dying

Dim's rooker, howling and moaning as he was, and the

krovvy stopped like I said it would, O my brothers.  So they

knew now who was master and leader, sheep, thought I.

It did not take long to quieten these two wounded soldiers</p>

down in the snug of the Duke of New York, what with large

brandies (bought with their own cutter, me having given all to

my dad, and a wipe with tashtooks dipped in the water-jug.

The old ptitsas we'd been so horrorshow to last night were

there again, going, "Thanks, lads" and "God bless you, boys"

like they couldn't stop, though we had not repeated the old

sammy act with them.  But Pete said: "What's it to be, girls?"

and bought black and suds for them, him seeming to have a

fair amount of pretty polly in his carmans, so they were on

louder than ever with their "God bless and keep you all,lads"

and "We'd never split on you, boys" and "The best lads breath-

ing, that's what you are."  At last I said to Georgie:

"Now we're back to where we were, yes?  Just like before

and all forgotten, right?"

"Right right right," said Georgie.  But old Dim still looked a

bit dazed and he even said: "I could have got that big bastard,

see, with my oozy, only some veck got in the way," as though

he'd been dratsing not with me but with some other malchick.

I said:

"Well, Georgieboy, what did you have in mind?"

"Oh," said Georgie, "not tonight.  Not this nochy, please."

"You're a big strong chelloveck," I said, "like us all.  We're

not little children, are we, Georgieboy?  What, then, didst

thou in thy mind have?"

"I could have chained his glazzies real horrorshow," said

Dim, and the old baboochkas were stil on with their "Thanks,

lads."

"It was this house, see," said Georgie.  "The one with the two

lamps outside.  The one with the gloopy name like."

"What gloopy name?"

"The Mansion or the Manse or some such piece of gloop.

Where this very starry ptitsa lives with her cats and all these

very starry valuable veshches."

"Such as?"

"Gold and silver and like jewels.  It was Will the English who

like said."

"I viddy," I said.  "I viddy horrorshow."  I knew where he

meant - Oldtown, just beyond Victoria Flatblock.  Well, the

real horrorshow leader knows always when like to give and

show generous to his like unders.  "Very good, Georgie," I said.

"A good thought, and one to be followed.  Let us at once itty."

And as we were going out the old baboochkas said: "We'll say

nothing, lads.  Been here all the time you have, boys."  So I

said: "Good old girls.  Back to buy more in ten minutes."  And

so I led my three droogs out to my doom.

 

 

6

 

Just past the Duke of New York going east was offices and

then there was the starry beat-up biblio and then was the

bolshy flatblock called Victoria Flatblock after some victory

or other, and then you came to the like starry type houses of

the town in what was called Oldtown.  You got some of the

real horrorshow ancient domies here, my brothers, with

starry lewdies living in them, thin old barking like colonels

with sticks and old ptitsas who were widows and deaf starry

damas with cats who, my brothers, had felt not the touch of

any chelloveck in the whole of their pure like jeeznies.  And

here, true, there were starry veshches that would fetch their

share of cutter on the tourist market - like pictures and jewels

and other starry pre-plastic cal of that type.  So we came nice

and quiet to this domy called the Manse, and there were globe

lights outside on iron stalks, like guarding the front door on

each side, and there was a light like dim on in one of the

rooms on the ground level, and we went to a nice patch of

street dark to watch through the window what was ittying on.

This window had iron bars in front of it, like the house was a

prison, but we could viddy nice and clear what was ittying on.

What was ittying on was that this starry ptitsa, very grey in

the voloss and with a very liny like litso, was pouring the old

moloko from a milk-bottle into saucers and then setting

these saucers down on the floor, so you could tell there were

plenty of mewing kots and koshkas writhing about down

there.  And we could viddy one or two, great fat scoteenas,

jumping up on to the table with their rots open going mare

mare mare.  And you could viddy this old baboochka talking

back to them, govoreeting in like scoldy language to her

pussies.  In the room you could viddy a lot of old pictures on

the walls and starry very elaborate clocks, also some like

vases and ornaments that looked starry and dorogoy.  Georgie

whispered: "Real horrorshow deng to be gotten for them,

brothers.  Will the English is real anxious."  Pete said: "How in?"

Now it was up to me, and skorry, before Georgie started

telling us how.  "First veshch," I whispered, "is to try the regular

way, the front.  I will go very polite and say that one of my

droogs has had a like funny fainting turn on the street.  Georgie

can be ready to show, when she opens, thatwise.  Then to

ask for water or to phone the doc.  Then in easy."  Georgie

said:

"She may not open."  I said:

"We'll try it, yes?"  And he sort of shrugged his pletchoes,

making with a frog's rot.  So I said to Pete and old Dim: "You

two droogies get either side of the door.  Right?"  They

nodded in the dark right right right.  "So,"  I said to Georgie,

and I made bold straight for the front door.  There was a

bellpush and I pushed, and brrrrrrr brrrrr sounded down the

hall inside.  Alike sense of slooshying followed, as though the

ptitsa and her koshkas all had their ears back at the brrrrrr

brrrrrr, wondering.  So I pushed the old zvonock a malenky bit

more urgent.  I then bent down to the letter-slit and called

through in a refined like goloss: "Help, madam, please.  My

friend has just had a funny turn on the street.  Let me phone a

doctor, please."  Then I could viddy a light being put on in the

hall, and then I could hear the old baboochka's nogas

going flip flap in flip-flap slippers to nearer the front door,

and I got the idea, I don't know why, that she had a big fat

pussycat under each arm.  Then she called out in a very sur-

prising deep like goloss:

"Go away.  Go away or I shoot."  Georgie heard that and

wanted to giggle.  I said, with like suffering and urgency in my

gentleman's goloss:

"Oh, please help, madam.  My friend's very ill."

"Go away," she called.  "I know your dirty tricks, making me

open the door and then buy things I don't want.  Go away.  I

tell you."  That was real lovely innocence, that was.  "Go away,"

she said again, "or I'll set my cats on to you."  A malenky bit

bezoomny she was, you could tell that, through spending her

jeezny all on her oddy knocky.  Then I looked up and I viddied

that there was a sash-window above the front door and that

it would be a lot more skorry to just do the old pletcho climb

and get in that way.  Else there'd be this argument all the long

nochy.  So I said:

"Very well, madam.  If you won't help I must take my

suffering friend elsewhere."  And I winked my droogies all away

quiet, only me crying out: "All right, old friend, you will surely

meet some good samaritan some place other.  This old lady

perhaps cannot be blamed for being suspicious with so many

scoundrels and rogues of the night about.  No, indeed not."

Then we waited again in the dark and I whispered: "Right.

Return to the door.  Me stand on Dim's pletchoes.  Open that

window and me enter, droogies.  Then to shut up that old

ptitsa and open up for all.  No trouble."  For I was like showing

who was leader and the chelloveck with the ideas.  "See," I said.

"Real horrorshow bit of stonework over that door, a nice

hold for my nogas."  They viddied all that, admiring perhaps I

thought, and said and nodded Right right right in the dark.

So back tiptoe to the door.  Dim was our heavy strong

malchick and Pete and Georgie like heaved me up on to Dim's

bolshy manly pletchoes.  All this time, O thanks to worldcasts

on the gloopy TV and, more, lewdies' night-fear through lack

of night-police, dead lay the street.  Up there on Dim's plet-

choes I viddied that this stonework above the door would

take my boots lovely.  I kneed up, brothers, and there I was.

The window, as I had expected, was closed, but I outed with

my britva and cracked the glass of the window smart with the

bony handle thereof.  All the time below my droogies were

hard breathing.  So I put in my rooker through the crack and

made the lower half of the window sail up open silver-

smooth and lovely.  And I was, like getting into the bath, in.

And there were my sheep down below, their rots open as they

looked up, O brothers.

I was in bumpy darkness, with beds and cupboards and

bolshy heavy stoolies and piles of boxes and books about.

But I strode manful towards the door of the room I was in,

seeing a like crack of light under it.  The door went

squeeeeeeeeeeak and then I was on a dusty corridor with

other doors.  All this waste, brothers, meaning all these

rooms and but one starry sharp and her pussies, but perhaps

the kots and koshkas had like separate bedrooms, living on

cream and fish-heads like royal queens and princes.  I could

hear the like muffled goloss of this old ptitsa down below

saying: "Yes yes yes, that's it," but she would be govoreeting to

these mewing sidlers going maaaaaaa for more moloko.

Then I saw the stairs going down to the hall and I thought to

myself that I would show these fickle and worthless droogs of

mine that I was worth the whole three of them and more.  I

would do all on my oddy knocky.  I would perform the old

ultra-violence on the starry ptitsa and on her pusspots if need

be, then I would take fair rookerfuls of what looked like real

polezny stuff and go waltzing to the front door and open up

showering gold and silver on my waiting droogs.  They must

learn all about leadership.

So down I ittied, slow and gentle, admiring in the stairwell

grahzny pictures of old time - devotchkas with long hair and

high collars, the like country with trees and horses, the holy

bearded veck all nagoy hanging on a cross.  There was a real

musty von of pussies and pussy-fish and starry dust in this

domy, different from the flatblocks.  And then I was down-

stairs and I could viddy the light in this front room where she

had been doling moloko to the kots and koshkas.  More, I

could viddy these great overstuffed scoteenas going in and

out with their tails waving and like rubbing themselves on the

door-bottom.  On a like big wooden chest in the dark hall I

could viddy a nice malenky statue that shone in the light of

the room, so I crasted this for my own self, it being like a

young thin devotchka standing on one noga with her rookers

out, and I could see this was made of silver.  So I had this

when I ittied into the lit-up room, saying: "Hi hi hi.  At last we

meet.  Our brief govoreet through the letter-hole was not,

shall we say, satisfactory, yes?  Let us admit not, oh verily not,

you stinking starry old sharp."  And I like blinked in the light at

this room and the old ptitsa in it.  It was full of kots and

koshkas all crawling to and fro over the carpet, with bits of

fur floating in the lower air, and these fat scoteenas were all

different shapes and colours, black, white, tabby, ginger, tor-

toise-shell, and of all ages, too, so that there were kittens

fillying about with each other and there were pussies full-

grown and there were real dribbling starry ones very bad-

tempered.  Their mistress, this old ptitsa, looked at me fierce

like a man and said:

"How did you get in?  Keep your distance, you villainous

young toad, or I shall be forced to strike you."

I had a real horrorshow smeck at that, viddying that she

had in her veiny rooker a crappy wood walking-stick which

she raised at me threatening.  So, making with my shiny

zoobies, I ittied a bit nearer to her, taking my time, and on the

way I saw on a like sideboard a lovely little veshch, the love-

liest malenky veshch any malchick fond of music like myself

could ever hope to viddy with his own two glazzies, for it was

like the gulliver and pletchoes of Ludwig van himself, what

they call a bust, a like stone veshch with stone long hair and

blind glazzies and the big flowing cravat.  I was off for that

right away, saying: "Well, how lovely and all for me."  But

ittying towards it with my glazzies like full on it and my

greedy rooker held out, I did not see the milk saucers on the

floor and into one I went and sort of lost balance.  "Whoops,"

I said, trying to steady, but this old ptitsa had come up behind

me very sly and with great skorriness for her age and then she

went crack crack on my gulliver with her bit of a stick.  So I

found myself on my rookers and knees trying to get up and

saying: "Naughty, naughty naughty."  And then she was going

crack crack crack again, saying: "Wretched little slummy

bedbug, breaking into real people's houses."  I didn't like this

crack crack eegra, so I grasped hold of one end of her stick as

it came down again and then she lost her balance and was

trying to steady herself against the table, but then the table-

cloth came off with a milk-jug and a milk-bottle going all

drunk then scattering white splosh in all directions, then she

was down on the floor, grunting, going: "Blast you, boy, you

shall suffer."  Now all the cats were getting spoogy and running

and jumping in a like cat-panic, and some were blaming each

other, hitting out cat-tolchocks with the old lapa and ptaaaaa

and grrrrr and kraaaaark.  I got up on to my nogas, and there

was this nasty vindictive starry forella with her wattles ashake

and grunting as she like tried to lever herself up from the

floor, so I gave her a malenky fair kick in the litso, and she

didn't like that, crying: "Waaaaah," and you could viddy her

veiny mottled litso going purplewurple where I'd landed the

old noga.

As I stepped back from the kick I must have like trod on the

tail of one of these dratsing creeching pusspots, because I

slooshied a gromky yauuuuuuuuw and found that like fur and

teeth and claws had like fastened themselves around my leg,

and there I was cursing away and trying to shake it off holding

this silver malenky statue in one rooker and trying to climb

over this old ptitsa on the floor to reach lovely Ludwig van in

frowning like stone.  And then I was into another saucer brim-

ful of creamy moloko and near went flying again, the whole

veshch really a very humorous one if you could imagine it

sloochatting to some other veck and not to Your Humble

Narrator.  And then the starry ptitsa on the floor reached over

all the dratsing yowling pusscats and grabbed at my noga, still

going "Waaaaah" at me, and, my balance being a bit gone, I

went really crash this time, on to sploshing moloko and

skriking koshkas, and the old forella started to fist me on the

litso, both of us being on the floor, creeching: "Thrash him,

beat him, pull out his finger-nails, the poisonous young

beetle," addressing her pusscats only, and then, as if like obey-

ing the starry old ptitsa, a couple of koshkas got on to me

and started scratching like bezoomny.  So then I got real be-

zoomny myself, brothers, and hit out at them, but this bab-

oochka said: "Toad, don't touch my kitties," and like

scratched my litso.  So then I screeched: "You filthy old

soomka", and upped with the little malenky like silver statue

and cracked her a fine fair tolchock on the gulliver and that

shut her up real horrorshow and lovely.

Now as I got up from the floor among all the crarking kots

and koshkas what should I slooshy but the shoom of the old

police-auto siren in the distance, and it dawned on me skorry

that the old forella of the pusscats had been on the phone to

the millicents when I thought she'd been govoreeting to the

mewlers and mowlers, her having got her suspicions skorry

on the boil when I'd rung the old zvonock pretending for

help.  So now, slooshying this fearful shoom of the rozz-

van, I belted for the front door and had a rabbiting time un-

doing all the locks and chains and bolts and other protective

veshches.  Then I got it open, and who should be on the door-

step but old Dim, me just being able to viddy the other two of

my so-called droogs belting off.  "Away," I creeched to Dim.

"The rozzes are coming."  Dim said: "You stay to meet them

huh huh huh," and then I viddied that he had his oozy out, and

then he upped with it and it snaked whishhh and he chained

me gentle and artistic like on the glazlids, me just closing

them up in time.  Then I was howling around trying to viddy

with this howling great pain, and Dim said: "I don't like you

should do what you done, old droogy.  Not right it wasn't to

get on to me like the way you done, brat."  And then I could

slooshy his bolshy lumpy boots beating off, him going huh

huh huh into the darkmans, and it was only about seven

seconds after that I slooshied the millicent-van draw up with a

filthy great dropping siren-howl, like some bezoomny animal

snuffing it.  I was howling too and like yawing about and I

banged my gulliver smack on the hall-wall, my glazzies being

tight shut and the juice astream from them, very agonizing.  So

there I was like groping in the hallway as the millicents ar-

rived.  I couldn't viddy them, of course, but I could slooshy

and damn near smell the von of the bastards, and soon I could

feel the bastards as they got rough and did the old twist-arm

act, carrying me out.  I could also slooshy one millicent goloss

saying from like the room I'd come out of with all the kots

and koshkas in it: "She's been nastily knocked but she's

breathing," and there was loud mewing all the time.

"A real pleasure this is," I heard another millicent goloss say

as I was tolchocked very rough and skorry into the auto.

"Little Alex all to our own selves."  I creeched out:

"I'm blind, Bog bust and bleed you, you grahzny bastards."

"Language, language," like smecked a goloss, and then I got

a like backhand tolchock with some ringy rooker or other

full on the rot.  I said:

"Bog murder you, you vonny stinking bratchnies.  Where are

the others?  Where are my stinking traitorous droogs?  One of

my cursed grahzny bratties chained me on the glazzies.  Get

them before they get away.  It was all their idea, brothers.

They like forced me to do it.  I'm innocent, Bog butcher you."

By this time they were all having like a good smeck at me with

the heighth of like callousness, and they'd tolchocked me into

the back of the auto, but I still kept on about these so-called

droogs of mine and then I viddied it would be no good, be-

cause they'd all be back now in the snug of the Duke of New

York forcing black and suds and double Scotchmen down the

unprotesting gorloes of those stinking starry ptitsas and

they saying: "Thanks, lads.  God bless you, boys.  Been here

all the time you have, lads.  Not been out of our sight you

haven't."

All the time we were sirening off to the rozz-shop, me being

wedged between two millicents and being given the odd

thump and malenky tolchock by these smecking bullies.  Then I

found I could open up my glazlids a malenky bit and viddy

like through all tears a kind of steamy city going by, all the

lights like having run into one another.  I could viddy now

through smarting glazzies these two smecking millicents at the

back with me and the thin-necked driver and the fat-necked

bastard next to him, this one having a sarky like govoreet at

me, saying: "Well, Alex boy, we all look forward to a pleasant

evening together, don't we not?"  I said:

"How do you know my name, you stinking vonny bully?

May Bog blast you to hell, grahzny bratchny as you are, you

sod."  So they all had a smeck at that and I had my ooko like

twisted by one of these stinking millicents at the back with

me.  The fat-necked not-driver said:

"Everybody knows little Alex and his droogs.  Quite a

famous young boy our Alex has become."

"It's those others," I creeched.  "Georgie and Dim and Pete.

No droogs of mine, the bastards."

"Well," said the fat-neck, "you've got the evening in front of

you to tell the whole story of the daring exploits of those

young gentlemen and how they led poor little innocent Alex

astray."  Then there was the shoom of another like police siren

passing this auto but going the other way.

"Is that for those bastards?" I said.  "Are they being picked up

by you bastards?"

"That," said fat-neck, "is an ambulance. 

old lady victim, you ghastly wretched scoundrel."

"It was all their fault," I creeched, blinking my smarting glaz-

zies.  "The bastards will be peeting away in the Duke of New

York.  Pick them up blast you, you vonny sods."  And then

there was more smecking and another malenky tolchock, O

my brothers, on my poor smarting rot.  And then we arrived at

the stinking rozz-shop and they helped me get out of the auto

with kicks and pulls and they tolchocked me up the steps and I

knew I was going to get nothing like fair play from these

stinky grahzny bratchnies, Bog blast them.

 

 

7

 

They dragged me into this very bright-lit whitewashed can-

tora, and it had a strong von that was a mixture of like sick

and lavatories and beery rots and disinfectant, all coming

from the barry places near by.  You could hear some of the

plennies in their cells cursing and singing and I fancied I could

slooshy one belting out:

 

    'And I will go back to my darling, my darling,

    When you, my darling, are gone.'

 

But there were the golosses of millicents telling them to shut

it and you could even slooshy the zvook of like somebody

being tolchocked real horrorshow and going

owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss of a drunken

starry ptitsa, not a man.  With me in this cantora were four

millicents, all having a good loud peet of chai, a big pot of it

being on the table and they sucking and belching away over

their dirty bolshy mugs.  They didn't offer me any.  All that they

gave me, my brothers, was a crappy starry mirror to look

into, and indeed I was not your handsome young Narrator

any longer but a real strack of a sight, my rot swollen and my

glazzies all red and my nose bumped a bit also.  They all had a

real horrorshow smeck when they viddied my like dismay, and

one of them said: "Love's young nightmare like."  And then a

top millicent came in with like stars on his pletchoes to show

he was high high high, and he viddied me and said: "Hm."  So

then they started.  I said:

"I won't say one single solitary slovo unless I have my

lawyer here.  I know the law, you bastards."  Of course they all

had a good gromky smeck at that and then the stellar top millicent

said:

"Righty right, boys, we'll start off by showing him that we

know the law, too, but that knowing the law isn't everything."

He had a like gentleman's goloss and spoke in a very weary

sort of a way, and he nodded with a like droogy smile at one

very big fat bastard.  This big fat bastard took off his tunic and

you could viddy he had a real big starry pot on him, then he

came up to me not too skorry and I could get the von of the

milky chai he'd been peeting when he opened his rot in a like

very tired leery grin at me.  He was not too well shaved for a

rozz and you could viddy like patches of dried sweat on his

shirt under the arms, and you could get this von of like

earwax from him as he came close.  Then he clenched his stink-

ing red rooker and let me have it right in the belly, which was

unfair, and all the other millicents smecked their gullivers off

at that, except the top one and he kept on with this weary like

bored grin.  I had to lean against the white-washed wall so

that all the white got on to my platties, trying to drag the old

breath back and in great agony, and then I wanted to sick up

the gluey pie I'd had before the start of the evening.  But I

couldn't stand that sort of veshch, sicking all over the floor,

so I held it back.  Then I saw that this fatty bruiseboy was

turning to his millicent droogs to have a real horrorshow

smeck at what he'd done, so I raised my right noga and before

they could creech at him to watch out I'd kicked him smart

and lovely on the shin.  And he creeched murder, hopping

around.

But after that they all had a turn, bouncing me from one to

the other like some very weary bloody ball, O my brothers,

and fisting me in the yarbles and the rot and the belly and

dealing out kicks, and then at last I had to sick up on the floor

and, like some real bezoomny veck, I evan said: "Sorry,

brothers, that was not the right thing at all.  Sorry sorry

sorry."  But they handed me starry bits of gazetta and made me

wipe it, and then they made me make with the sawdust.  And then

they said, almost like dear old droogs, that I was to sit down

and we'd all have a quiet like govoreet.  And then P. R. Deltoid

came in to have a viddy, his office being in the same building,

looking very tired and grahzny, to say: "So it's happened, Alex

boy, yes?  Just as I thought it would.  Dear dear dear, yes."

Then he turned to the millicents to say: "Evening, inspector.

Evening, sergeant.  Evening, evening, all.  Well, this is the end of

the line for me, yes.  Dear dear, this boy does look messy,

doesn't he?  Just look at the state of him."

"Violence makes violence," said the top millicent in a very

holy type goloss.  "He resisted his lawful arresters."

"End of the line, yes," said P. R. Deltoid again.  He looked at

me with very cold glazzies like I had become a thing and was

no more a bleeding very tired battered chelloveck.  "I suppose

I'll have to be in court tomorrow."

"It wasn't me, brother, sir," I said, a malenky bit weepy.

"Speak up for me, sir, for I'm not so bad.  I was led on by the

treachery of the others,sir."

"Sings like a linnet," said the top rozz, sneery.  "Sings the

roof off lovely, he does that."

"I'll speak," said cold P. R. Deltoid.  "I'll be there tomorrow,

don't worry."

"If you'd like to give him a bash in the chops, sir," said the

top millicent, "don't mind us.  We'll hold him down.  He must

be another great disappointment to you."

P. R. Deltoid then did something I never thought any man

like him who was supposed to turn us baddiwads into real

horrorshow malchicks would do, especially with all those

rozzes around.  He came a bit nearer and he spat.  He spat.  He

spat full in my litso and then wiped his wet spitty rot with the

back of his rooker.  And I wiped and wiped and wiped my spat-

on litso with my bloody tashtook, saying "Thank you, sir,

thank you very much, sir, that was very kind of you, sir, thank

you."  And then P. R. Deltoid walked out without another

slovo.

The millicents now got down to making this long state-

ment for me to sign, and I thought to myself, Hell and blast

you all, if all you bastards are on the side of the Good then

I'm glad I belong to the other shop.  "All right," I said to them,

"you grahzny bratchnies as you are, you vonny sods.  Take it,

take the lot.  I'm not going to crawl around on my brooko

any more, you merzky gets.  Where do you want it taking

from, you cally vonning animals?  From my last corrective?

Horrorshow, horrorshow, here it is, then."  So I gave it to

them, and I had this shorthand milicent, a very quiet and

scared type chelloveck, no real rozz at all, covering page after

page after page after.  I gave them the ultra-violence, the crast-

ing, the dratsing, the old in-out-in-out, the lot, right up to

this night's veshch with the bugatty starry ptitsa with the

mewing kots and koshkas.  And I made sure my so-called

droogs were in it, right up to the shiyah.  When I'd got

through the lot the shorthand millicent looked a bit faint,

poor old veck.  The top rozz said to him, in a kind type goloss:

"Right, son, you go off and get a nice cup of chai for your-

self and then type all that filth and rottenness out with a

clothes-peg on your nose, three copies.  Then they can be

brought to our handsome young friend here for signature.

And you," he said to me, "can now be shown to your bridal

suite with running water and all conveniences.  All right," in

this weary goloss to two of the real tough rozzes, "take him

away."

So I was kicked and punched and bullied off to the cells and

put in with about ten or twelve other plennies, a lot of them

drunk.  There were real oozhassny animal type vecks among

them, one with his nose all ate away and his rot open like a

big black hole, one that was lying on the floor snoring away

and all like slime dribbling all the time out of his rot, and one

that had like done all cal in his pantalonies.  Then there were

two like queer ones who both took a fancy to me, and one of

them made a jump onto my back, and I had a real nasty bit of

dratsing with him and the von on him, like of meth and cheap

scent, made me want to sick again, only my belly was empty

now, O my brothers.  Then the other queer one started putting

his rookers on to me, and then there was a snarling bit of

dratsing between these two, both of them wanting to get at

my plott.  The shoom became very loud, so that a couple of

millicents came along and cracked into these two with like

truncheons, so that both sat quiet then, looking like into

space, and there was the old krovvy going drip drip drip down

the litso of one of them.  There were bunks in this cell, but all

filled.  I climbed up to the top one of one tier of bunks, there

being four in a tier, and there was a starry drunken veck snor-

ing away, most probably heaved up there to the top by the

millicents.  Anyway, I heaved him down again, him not being

all that heavy, and he collapsed on top of a fat drunk chello-

veck on the floor, and both woke and started creeching and

punching pathetic at each other.  So I lay down on this vonny

bed, my brothers, and went to very tired and exhausted and

hurt sleep.  But it was not really like sleep, it was like passing

out to another better world.  And in this other better world, O

my brothers, I was in like a big field with all flowers and trees,

and there was a like goat with a man's litso playing away on a

like flute.  And there rose like the sun Ludwig van himself

with thundery litso and cravat and wild windy voloss, and

then I heard the Ninth, last movement, with the slovos all a

bit mixed-up like they knew themselves they had to be mixed-

up, this being a dream:

 

    Boy, thou uproarious shark of heaven,

    Slaughter of Elysium,

    Hearts on fire, aroused, enraptured,

    We will tolchock you on the rot and kick

    your grahzny vonny bum.

 

But the tune was right, as I knew when I was being woke up

two or ten minutes or twenty hours or days or years later, my

watch having been taken away.  There was a millicent like miles

and miles down below and he was prodding at me with a long

stick with a spike on the end, saying:

"Wake up, son.  Wake up, my beauty.  Wake to real trouble."

I said:

"Why?  Who?  Where?  What is it?"  And the tune of the Joy

ode in the Ninth was singing away real lovely and horrorshow

within,  The millicent said:

"Come down and find out.  There's some real lovely news

for you, my son."  So I scrambled down, very stiff and sore and

not like real awake, and this rozz, who had a strong von of

cheese and onions on him, pushed me out of the filthy snor-

ing cell, and then along corridors, and all the time the old

tune Joy Thou Glorious Spark Of Heaven was sparking away

within.  Then we came to a very neat like cantora with type-

writers and flowers on the desks, and at the like chief desk the

top millicent was sitting, looking very serious and fixing a like

very cold glazzy on my sleepy litso.  I said:

"Well well well.  What makes, bratty.  What gives, this fine

bright middle of the nochy?"  He said:

"I'll give you just ten seconds to wipe that stupid grin off of

your face.  Then I want you to listen."

"Well, what?" I said, smecking.  "Are you not satisfied with

beating me near to death and having me spat upon and making

me confess to crimes for hours on end and then shoving me

among bezoomnies and vonny perverts in that grahzny cell?

Have you some new torture for me, you bratchny?"

"It'll be your own torture," he said, serious.  "I hope to God

it'll torture you to madness."

And then, before he told me, I knew what it was.  The old

ptitsa who had all the kots and koshkas had passed on to a

better world in one of the city hospitals.  I'd cracked her a bit

too hard, like.  Well, well, that was everything.  I thought of all

those kots and koshkas mewling for moloko and getting

none, not any more from their starry forella of a mistress.

That was everything.  I'd done the lot, now.  and me still only

fifteen.

Part Two

 

 

1

 

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

I take it up now, and this is the real weepy and like tragic

part of the story beginning, my brothers and only friends, in

Staja (State Jail, that is) Number 84F.  You will have little

desire to slooshy all the cally and horrible raskazz of the

shock that sent my dad beating his bruised and krovvy rockers

against unfair like Bog in his Heaven, and my mum squaring

her rot for owwwww owwwww owwwww in her mother's grief

at her only child and son of her bosom like letting every-

body down real horrorshow.  Then there was the starry very

grim magistrate in the lower court govoreeting some very

hard slovos against your Friend and Humble Narrator, after

all the cally and grahzny slander spat forth by P. R. Deltoid

and the rozzes, Bog blast them.  Then there was being rem-

anded in filthy custody among vonny perverts and pre-

stoopnicks.  Then there was the trial in the higher court with

judges and a jury, and some very very nasty slovos indeed

govoreeted in a very like solemn way, and then Guilty and my

mum boohoohooing when they said Fourteen Years, O my

brothers.  So here I was now, two years just to the day of

being kicked and clanged into Staja 84F, dressed in the heighth

of prison fashion, which was a one-piece suit of a very filthy

like cal colour, and the number sewn on the groody part just

above the old tick-tocker and on the back as well, so that

going and coming I was 6655321 and not your little droog

Alex not no longer.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

It had not been like edifying, indeed it had not, being in this

grahzny hellhole and like human zoo for two years, being

kicked and tolchocked by brutal bully warders and meeting

vonny leering like criminals, some of them real perverts and

ready to dribble all over a luscious young malchick like your

story-teller.  And there was having to rabbit in the workshop

at making matchboxes and itty round and round and round

the yard for like exercise, and in the evenings sometimes some

starry prof type veck would give a talk on beetles or the Milky

Way or the Glorious Wonders of the Snowflake, and I had a

good smeck at this last one, because it reminded me of that

time of the tolchocking and Sheer Vandalism with that ded

coming from the public biblio on a winter's night when my

droogs were stil not traitors and I was like happy and free.  Of

those droogs I had slooshied but one thing, and that was one

day when my pee and em came to visit and I was told that

Georgie was dead.  Yes, dead, my brothers.  Dead as a bit of

dog-cal on the road.  Georgie had led the other two into a like

very rich chelloveck's house, and there they had kicked and

tolchocked the owner on the floor, and then Georgie had

started to razrez the cushions and curtains, and then old Dim

had cracked at some very precious ornaments, like statues

and so on, and this rich beat-up chelloveck had raged like real

bezoomny and gone for them all with a very heavy iron bar.

His being all razdraz had given him some gigantic strength,

and Dim and Pete had got out through the window, but Georgie

had tripped on the carpet and then brought this terrible

swinging iron bar crack and splodge on the gulliver, and that

was the end of traitorous Georgie.  The starry murderer had

got off with Self Defence, as was really right and proper.

Georgie being killed, though it was more than one year after me

being caught by the millicents, it all seemed right and proper

and like Fate.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

I was in the Wing Chapel, it being Sunday morning, and the

prison charlie was govoreeting the Word of the Lord.  It was

my rabbit to play the starry stereo, putting on solemn music

before and after and in the middle too when hymns were sung.

I was at the back of the Wing Chapel (there were four along

here in Staja 84F) near where the warders or chassos were

standing with their rifles and their dirty bolshy blue brutal

jowls, and I could viddy all the plennies sitting down slooshy-

ing the Slovo of the Lord in their horrible cal-coloured

prison platties, and a sort of filthy von rose from them, not

like real unwashed, not grazzy, but like a special real stinking

von which you only got with the criminal types, my brothers,

a like dusty, greasy, hopeless sort of a von.  And I was thinking

that perhaps I had this von too, having become a real plenny

myself, though still very young.  So it was important to

me, O my brothers, to get out of this stinking grahzny zoo as

soon as I could.  And, as you will viddy if you keep reading on,

it was not long before I did.

"What's it going to be then, eh?" said the prison charlie for

the third raz.  "Is it going to be in and out and in and out of

institutions, like this, though more in than out for most of

you, or are you going to attend to the Divine Word and

realize the punishments that await the unrepentant sinner in

the next world, as well as in this?  A lot of blasted idiots you

are, most of you, selling your birthright for a saucer of cold por-

ridge.  The thrill of theft, or violence, the urge to live easy - is

it worth it when we have undeniable proof, yes yes, incon-

trovertible evidence that hell exists?  I know, I know, my

friends, I have been informed in visions that there is a place,

darker than any prison, hotter than any flame of human fire,

where souls of unrepentant criminal sinners like yourselves -

and don't leer at me, damn you, don't laugh - like yourselves,

I say, scream in endless and intolerable agony, their noses

choked with the smell of filth, their mouths crammed with

burning ordure, their skin peeling and rotting, a fireball spin-

ning in their screaming guts.  Yes, yes, yes, I know"

At this point, brothers, a plenny somewhere or other near

the back row let out a shoom of lip-music - 'Prrrrrp' - and

then the brutal chassos were on the job right away, rushing

real skorry to what they thought was the scene of the

schoom, then hitting out nasty and delivering tolchocks, left

and right.  Then they picked out one poor trembling plenny,

very thin and malenky and starry too, and dragged him off,

but all the time he kept creeching: "It wasn't me, it was him,

see," but that made no difference.  He was tolchocked real

nasty and then dragged out of the Wing Chapel creeching his

gulliver off.

"Now," said the prison charlie, "listen to the Word of the

Lord."  Then he picked up the big book and flipped over the

pages, keeping on wetting his fingers to do this by licking

them splurge splurge.  He was a bolshy great burly bastard

with a very red litso, but he was very fond of myself, me being

young and also now very interested in the big book.  It had

been arranged as part of my like further education to read in

the book and even have music on the chapel stereo while I

was reading, O my brothers.  And that was real horrorshow.

They would like lock me in and let me slooshy holy music by

J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel, and I would read of these starry

yahoodies tolchocking each other and then peeting their

Hebrew vino and getting on to the bed with their wives' like

hand-maidens, real horrorshow.  That kept me going,

brothers.  I didn't so much kopat the later part of the book,

which is more like all preachy govoreeting than fighting and

the old in-out.  But one day the charles said to me, squeezing

me like tight with his bolshy beefy rooker:  "Ah, 6655321,

think on the divine suffering.  Meditate on that, my boy."  And

all the time he had this rich manny von of Scotch on him, and

then he went off to his little cantora to peet some more.  So I

read all about the scourging and the crowning with thorns

and then the cross veshch and all that cal, and I viddied better

that there was something in it.  While the stereo played bits of

lovely Bach I closed my glazzies and viddied myself helping in

and even taking charge of the tolchocking and the nailing in,

being dressed in a like toga that was the heighth of Roman

fashion.  So being in Staja 84F was not all that wasted, and the

Governor himself was very pleased to hear that I had taken to

like Religion, and that was where I had my hopes.

This Sunday morning the charlie read out from the book

about chellovecks who slooshied the slovo and didn't take a

blind bit being like a domy built upon sand, and then the rain

came splash and the old boomaboom cracked the sky and

that was the end of that domy.  But I thought that only a very

dim veck would have built his domy upon sand, and a right lot of

real sneering droogs and nasty neighbours a veck like that

would have, them not telling him how dim he was doing that

sort of building.  Then the charles creeched: "Right, you lot.

We'll end with Hymn Number 435 in the Prisoners' Hymnal."

Then there was a crash and plop and a whish whish while the

plennies picked up and dropped and lickturned the pages of

their grazzy malenky hymnbooks, and the bully fierce warders

creeched: "Stop talking there, bastards.  I'm watching you,

920537."  Of course I had the disc ready on the stereo, and

then I let the simple music for organ only come belting out

with a growwwwowwwwowwww.  Then the plennies started

to sing real horrible:

 

    Weak tea are we, new brewed

    But stirring make all strong.

    We eat no angel's food,

    Our times of trial are long.

 

They sort of howled and wept these stupid slovos with the

charlie like whipping them on with "Louder, damn you, sing

up," and the warders creeching: "Just you wait, 7749222", and

"One on the turnip coming up for you, filth."  Then it was all

over and the charlie said: "May the Holy Trinity keep you

always and make you good, amen," and the shamble out began

to a nice choice bit of Symphony No. 2 by Adrian Schweigsel-

ber, chosen by your Humble Narrator, O my brothers.  What a

lot they were, I thought, as I stood there by the starry chapel

stereo, viddying them all shuffle out going marrrrre and

baaaaaa like animals and up-your-piping with their grahzny

fingers at me, because it looked like I was very special

favoured.  When the last one had slouched out, his rookers

hanging like an ape and the one warder left giving him a fair

loud tolchock on the back of the gulliver, and when I had

turned off the stereo, the charlie came up to me, puffing away

at a cancer, still in his starry bogman's platties, all lacy and

white like a devotchka's.  He said:

"Thank you as always, little 6655321.  And what news have

you got for me today?"  The idea was, I knew, that this charlie

was after becoming a very great holy chelloveck in the world

of Prison Religion, and he wanted a real horrorshow tes-

timonial from the Governor, so he would go and govoreet

quietly to the Governor now and then about what dark plots

were brewing among the plennies, and he would get a lot of

this cal from me.  A lot of it would be all like made up, but

some of it would be true, like for instance the time it had

come through to our cell on the waterpipes knock knock

knockiknockiknock knockiknock that big Harriman was

going to break.  He was going to tolchock the warder at

slop-time and get out in the warder's platties.  Then there was

going to be a big throwing about of the horrible pishcha we

got in the dining-hall, and I knew about that and told.  Then

the charlie passed it on and was complimented like by the

Governor for his Public Spirit and Keen Ear.  So this time I

said, and this was not true:

"Well, sir, it has come through on the pipes that a con-

signment of cocaine has arrived by irregular means and that a

cell somewhere along Tier 5 is to be the centre of dis-

tribution."  I made all that up as I went along, like I made

up so many of these stories, but the prison charlie was very

grateful, saying: "Good, good, good.  I shall pass that on

to Himself," this being what he called the Governor.  Then I

said:

"Sir, I have done my best, have I not?"  I always used my very

polite gentleman's goloss govoreeting with those at the top.

"I've tried, sir, haven't I?"

"I think," said the charlie, "that on the whole you have,

6655321.  You've been very helpful and, I consider, shown a

genuine desire to reform.  You will, if you continue in this

manner, earn your remission with no trouble at all."

"But sir," I said, "how about this new thing they're talking

about?  How about this new like treatment that gets you out

of prison in no time at all and makes sure that you never get

back in again?"

"Oh," he said, very like wary.  "Where did you hear this?

Who's been telling you these things?"

"These things get around, sir," I said.  "Two warders talk, as it

might be, and somebody can't help hearing what they say.  And

then somebody picks up a scrap of newspaper in the work-

shops and the newspaper says all about it.  How about you

putting me in for this thing, sir, if I may make so bold as to

make the suggestion?"

You could viddy him thinking about that while he puffed

away at his cancer, wondering how much to say to me about

what he knew about this veshch I'd mentioned.  Then he said:

"I take it you're referring to Ludovico's Technique."  He was

still very wary.

"I don't know what it's called, sir," I said.  "All I know is that

it gets you out quickly and makes sure that you don't get in

again."

"That is so," he said, his eyebrows like all beetling while he

looked down at me.  "That is quite so, 6655321.  Of course, it's

only in the experimental stage at the moment.  It's very simple

but very drastic."

"But it's being used here, isn't it, sir?" I said.  "Those new like

white buildings by the South wall, sir.  We've watched those

being built, sir, when we've been doing our exercise."

"It's not been used yet," he said, "not in this prison,

6655321.  Himself has grave doubts about it.  I must confess I

share those doubts.  The question is whether such a technique

can really make a man good.  Goodness comes from within,

6655321.  Goodness is something chosen.  When a man cannot

choose he ceases to be a man."  He would have gone on with a

lot more of this cal, but we could slooshy the next lot of

plennies marching clank clank down the iron stairs to come

for their bit of Religion.  He said: "We'll have a little chat

about this some other time.  Now you'd better start the vol-

untary."  So I went over to the starry stereo and put on

J. S. Bach's 'Wachet Auf' Choral Prelude and in these grahzny

vonny bastard criminals and perverts came shambling like a

lot of broke-down apes, the warders or chassos like barking

at them and lashing them.  And soon the prison charlie was

asking them: "What's it going to be then, eh?"  And that's

where you came in.

We had four of these lomticks of like Prison Religion that

morning, but the charles said no more to me about this Lu-

dovico's Technique, whatever it was, O my brothers.  When I'd

finished my rabbit with the stereo he just govoreeted a few

slovos of thanks and then I was privodeeted back to the cell

on Tier 6 which was my very vonny and crammed home.  The

chasso was not really too bad of a veck and he did not tol-

chock or kick me in when he'd opened up, he just said: "Here

we are, sonny, back to the old waterhole."  And there I was

with my new type droogs, all very criminal but, Bog be

praised, not given to perversions of the body.  There was

Zophar on his bunk, a very thin and brown veck who went on

and on and on in his like cancery goloss, so that nobody

bothered to slooshy.  What he was saying now like to nobody

was "And at that time you couldn't get hold of a poggy" (what-

ever that was, brothers), "not if you was to hand over ten

million archibalds, so what do I do, eh, I goes down to

Turkey's and says I've got this sproog on that morrow, see,

and what can he do?"  It was all this very old-time real crimi-

nal's slang he spoke.  Also there was Wall, who had only one

glazzy, and he was tearing bits of his toe-nails off in honour of

Sunday.  Also there was Big Jew, a very fat sweaty veck lying

flat on his bunk like dead.  In addition there was Jojohn and

The Doctor.  Jojohn was very mean and keen and wiry and had

specialized in like Sexual Assault, and The Doctor had pre-

tended to be able to cure syph and gon and gleet but he had

only injected water, also he had killed off two devotchkas

instead, like he had promised, of getting rid of their unwanted

loads for them.  They were a terrible grahzny lot really, and I

didn't enjoy being with them, O my brothers, any more than

you do now, but it won't be for much longer.

Now what I want you to know is that this cell was intended

for only three when it was built, but there were six of us there,

all jammed together sweaty and tight.  And that was the state

of all the cells in all the prisons in those days, brothers, and a

dirty cally disgrace it was, there not being decent room for a

chelloveck to stretch his limbs.  And you will hardly believe

what I say now, which is that on this Sunday they brosatted in

another plenny.  Yes, we had had our horrible pishcha of

dumplings and vonny stew and were smoking a quiet cancer

each on our bunks when this veck was thrown into our midst.

He was a chinny starry veck and it was him who started cree-

ching complaints before we even had a chance to viddy the

position.  He tried to like shake the bars, creeching: "I demand

my sodding rights, this one's full-up, it's a bleeding im-

position, that's what it is."  But one of the chassos came back

to say that he had to make the best of it and share a bunk

with whoever would let him, otherwise it would have to be

the floor.  "And," said the warder, "it's going to get worse, not

better.  A right dirty criminal world you lot are trying to

build."

 

 

2

 

Well, it was the letting-in of this new chelloveck that was

really the start of my getting out of the old Staja, for he was

such a nasty quarrelsome type of plenny, with a very dirty

mind and filthy intentions, that trouble nachinatted that very

same day.  He was also very boastful and started to make with

a very sneery litso at us all and a loud proud goloss.  He made

out that he was the only real horrorshow prestoopnick in the

whole zoo, going on that he'd done this and done the other

and killed ten rozzes with one crack of his rooker and all that

cal.  But nobody was very impressed, O my brothers.  So then

he started on me, me being the youngest there, trying to say

that as the youngest I ought to be the one to zasnoot on the

floor and not him.  But all the others were for me, creeching:

"Leave him alone, you grahzny bratchny," and then he began

the old whine about how nobody loved him.  So that same

nochy I woke up to find this horrible plenny actually lying

with me on my bunk, which was on the bottom of the three-

tier and also very narrow, and he was govoreeting dirty like

love-slovos and stroke stroke stroking away.  So then I got

real bezoomny and lashed out, though I could not viddy all

that horrorshow, there being only this malenky little red light

outside on the landing.  But I knew it was this one, the vonny

bastard, and then when the trouble really got under way and

the lights were turned on I could viddy his horrible litso with

all krovvy dripping from his rot where I'd hit out with my

clawing rooker.

What sloochatted then, of course, was that me cell-mates

woke up and started to join in, tolchocking a bit wild in the

near-dark, and the shoom seemed to wake up the whole tier,

so that you could slooshy a lot of creeching and banging

about with tin mugs on the wall, as though all the plennies in

all the cells thought a big break was about to commence, O

my brothers.  So then the lights came on and the chassos came

along in their shirts and trousers and caps, waving big sticks.

We could viddy each other's flushed litsos and the shaking of

fisty rookers, and there was a lot of creeching and cursing.

Then I put in my complaint and every chasso said it was prob-

ably your Humble Narrator, brothers, that started it all

anyway, me having no mark of a scratch on me but this hor-

rible plenny dipping red red krovvy from the rot where I'd

got him with my clawing rooker.  That made me real be-

zoomny.  I said I would not sleep another nochy in that cell if

the Prison Authorities were going to allow horrible vonny

stinking perverted prestoopnicks to leap on my plott when I

was in no position to defend myself, being asleep.  "Wait till

the morning," they said.  "Is it a private room with bath and

television that your honour requires?  Well, all that will be

seen to in the morning.  But for the present, little droog, get

your bleeding gulliver down on your straw-filled podooshka

and let's have no more trouble from anyone.  Right right

right?"  Then off they went with stern warnings for all, then

soon after the lights went out, and then I said I would sit up

all the rest of the nochy, saying first to this horrible pre-

stoopnick: "Go on, get on my bunk if you wish it.  I fancy it no

longer.  You have made it filthy and cally with your horrible

vonny plott lying on it already."  But then the others joined in.

Big Jew said, still sweating from the bit of a bitva we'd had in

the dark:

"Not having that we're not, brotherth.  Don't give in to the

thquirt."  So this new one said:

"Crash your dermott, yid," meaning to shut up, but it was

very insulting.  So then Big Jew got ready to launch a tol-

chock.  The Doctor said:

"Come on, gentlemen, we don't want any trouble, do we?"

in his very high-class goloss, but this new prestoopnick was

really asking for it.  You could viddy that he thought he was a

very big bolshy veck and it was beneath his dignity to be

sharing a cell with six and having to sleep on the floor till I

made this gesture at him.  In his sneery way he tried to take off

The Doctor, saying:

"Owwww, yew wahnt noo moor trouble, is that it, Archi-

balls?"  So Jojohn, mean and keen and wiry, said:

"If we can't have sleep let's have some education.  Our new

friend here had better be taught a lesson."  Although he like

specialized in Sexual Assault he had a nice way of govoreeting,

quiet and like precise.  So the new plenny sneered:

"Kish and kosh and koosh, you little terror."  So then it all

really started, but in a queer like gentle way, with nobody

raising his goloss much.  The new plenny creeched a malenky

bit at first, but the Wall fisted his rot while Big Jew held him

up against the bars so that he could be viddied in the malenky

red light from the landing, and he just went oh oh oh.  He was

not a very strong type of veck, being very feeble in his trying

to tolchock back, and I suppose he made up for this by being

shoomny in the goloss and very boastful.  Anyway, seeing the

old krovvy flow red in the red light, I felt the old joy like rising

up in my keeshkas and I said:

"Leave him to me, go on, let me have him now, brothers."

So Big Jew said:

"Yeth, yeth, boyth, that'th fair.  Thlosh him then, Alekth."  So

they all stood around while I cracked at this prestoopnick in

the near dark.  I fisted him all over, dancing about with my

boots on though unlaced, and then I tripped him and he went

crash crash on to the floor.  I gave him one real horrorshow

kick on the gulliver and he went ohhhh, then he sort of

snorted off to like sleep, and The Doctor said:

"Very well, I think that wil be enough of a lesson," squinting

to viddy this downed and beaten-up veck on the floor.  "Let

him dream perhaps about being a better boy in the future."  So

we all climbed back into our bunks, being very tired now.

What I dreamt of, O my brothers, was of being in some very

big orchestra, hundreds and hundreds strong, and the con-

ductor was a like mixture of Ludwig van and G. F. Handel,

looking very deaf and blind and weary of the world.  I was

with the wind instruments, but what I was playing was like a

white pinky bassoon made of flesh and growing out of my

plott, right in the middle of my belly, and when I blew into it I

had to smeck ha ha ha very loud because it like tickled, and

then Ludwig van G. F. got very razdraz and bezoomny.  Then

he came right up to my litso and creeched loud in my ooko,

and then I woke up like sweating.  Of course, what the loud

shoom really was was the prison buzzer going brrrrr brrrrr

brrrrr.  It was winter morning and my glazzies were all cally

with sleepglue, and when I opened up they were very sore in

the electric light that had been switched on all over the zoo.

Then I looked down and viddied this new prestoopnick lying

on the floor, very bloody and bruisy and still out out out.

Then I remembered about last night and that made me smeck

a bit.

But when I got off the bunk and moved him with my bare

noga, there was a feel of like stiff coldness, so I went over to

The Doctor's bunk and shook him, him always being very

slow at waking up in the morning.  But he was off his bunk

skorry enough this time, and so were the others, except for

Wall who slept like dead meat.  "Very unfortunate," The

Doctor said.  "A heart attack, that's what it must have been."

Then he said, looking round at us all: "You really shouldn't

have gone for him like that.  It was most ill-advised really."

Jojohn said:

"Come come, doc, you weren't all that backward yourself

in giving him a sly bit of fist."  Then Big Jew turned on me,

saying:

"Alekth, you were too impetuouth.  That latht kick wath a

very very nathty one."  I began to get razdraz about this and

said:

"Who started it, eh?  I only got in at the end, didn't I?" I

pointed at Jojohn and said: "It was your idea."  Wall snored a

bit loud, so I said: "Wake that vonny bratchny up.  It was him

that kept on at his rot while Big Jew here had him up against

the bars."  The Doctor said:

"Nobody will deny having a little hit at the man, to teach

him a lesson so to speak, but it's apparent that you, my dear

boy, with the forcefulness and, shall I say, heedlessness of

youth, dealt him the coo de gras.  It's a great pity."

"Traitors," I said.  "Traitors and liars," because I could viddy

it was all like before, two years before, when my so-called

droogs had left me to the brutal rookers of the millicents.

There was no trust anywhere in the world, O my brothers, the

way I could see it.  And Jojohn went and woke up Wall, and

Wall was only too ready to swear that it was Your Humble

Narrator that had done the real dirty tolchocking and brut-

ality.  When the chassos came along, and then the Chief

Chasso, and then the Governor himself, all these cell-droogs

of mine were very shoomny with tales of what I'd done to

oobivat this worthless pervert whose krovvy-covered plott

lay sacklike on the floor.

That was a very queer day, O my brothers.  The dead plott

was carried off, and then everybody in the whole prison had

to stay locked up until further orders, and there was no pishcha

given out, not even a mug of hot chai.  We just all sat there,

and the warders or chassos sort of strode up and down the

tier, now and then creeching "Shut it" or "Close that hole"

whenever they slooshied even a whisper from any of the cells.

Then about eleven o'clock in the morning there was a sort of

like stiffening and excitement and like the von of fear spread-

ing from outside the cell, and then we could viddy the

Governor and the Chief Chasso and some very bolshy im-

portant-looking chellovecks walking by real skorry, govoreet-

ing like bezoomny.  They seemed to walk right to the end

of the tier, then they could be slooshied walking back again,

more slow this time, and you could slooshy the Governor, a

very sweaty fatty fair-haired veck, saying slovos like "But, sir - "

and "Well, what can be done, sir?" and so on.  Then the whole

lot stopped at our cell and the Chief Chasso opened up.  You

could viddy who was the real important veck right away, very

tall and with blue glazzies and with real horrorshow platties

on him, the most lovely suit, brothers, I have ever viddied,

absolutely in the heighth of fashion.  He just sort of looked

right through us poor plennies, saying, in a very beautiful real

educated goloss: "The Government cannot be concerned any

longer with outmoded penological theories.  Cram criminals

together and see what happens.  You get concentrated crimi-

nality, crime in the midst of punishment.  Soon we may be

needing all our prison space for political offenders."  I didn't

pony this at all, brothers, but after all he was not govoreeting

to me.  Then he said: "Common criminals like this unsavoury

crowd" - (that meant me, brothers, as well as the others, who

were real prestoopnicks and treacherous with it) - "can best

be dealt with on a purely curative basis.  Kill the criminal

reflex, that's all.  Full implementation in a year's time.  Pun-

ishment means nothing to them, you can see that.  They enjoy

their so-called punishment.  They start murdering each other."

And he turned his stern blue glazzies on me.  So I said, bold:

"With respect, sir, I object very strongly to what you said

then.  I am not a common criminal, sir, and I am not un-

savoury.  The others may be unsavoury but I am not."  The

Chief Chasso went all purple and creeched:

"You shut your bleeding hole, you.  Don't you know who

this is?"

"All right, all right," said this big veck.  Then he turned to the

Governor and said: "You can use him as a trail-blazer.  He's

young, bold, vicious.  Brodsky will deal with him tomorrow

and you can sit in and watch Brodsky.  It works all right, don't

worry about that.  This vicious young hoodlum will be trans-

formed out of all recognition."

And those hard slovos, brothers, were like the beginning of

my freedom.

 

 

3

 

That very same evening I was dragged down nice and gentle by

brutal tolchocking chassos to viddy the Governor in his holy

of holies holy office.  The Governor looked very weary at me

and said:  "I don't suppose you know who that was this morn-

ing, do you, 6655321?"  And without waiting for me to say no

he said: "That was no less a personage than the Minister of the

Interior, the new Minister of the Interior and what they call a

very new broom.  Well, these new ridiculous ideas have come

at last and orders are orders, though I may say to you in

confidence that I do not approve.  I most emphatically do not

approve.  An eye for an eye, I say.  If someone hits you you hit

back, do you not?  Why then should not the State, very

severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also?  But the

new view is to say no.  The new view is that we turn the bad

into the good.  All of which seems to me grossly unjust.  Hm?"

So I said, trying to be like respectful and accomodating:

"Sir."  And then the Chief Chasso, who was standing all red

and burly behind the Governor's chair, creeched:

"Shut your filthy hole, you scum."

"All right, all right," said the like tired and fagged-out

Governor.  "You, 6655321, are to be reformed.  Tomorrow

you go to this man Brodsky.  It is believed that you will be

able to leave State Custody in a little over a fortnight.  In a

little over a fortnight you will be out again in the big free

world, no longer a number.  I suppose," and he snorted a bit

here, "that prospect pleases you?"  I said nothing so the Chief

Chasso creeched:

"Answer, you filthy young swine, when the Governor asks

you a question."  So I said:

"Oh, yes, sir.  Thank you very much, sir.  I've done my best

here, really I have.  I'm very grateful to all concerned."

"Don't be," like sighed the Governor.  "This is not a reward.

This is far from being a reward.  Now, there is a form here to

be signed.  It says that you are wiling to have the residue of

your sentence commuted to submission to what is called

here, ridiculous expression, Reclamation Treatment.  Will you

sign?"

"Most certainly I will sign," I said, "sir.  And very many

thanks."  So I was given an ink-pencil and I signed my name nice

and flowy.  The Governor said:

"Right.  That's the lot, I think."  The Chief Chasso said:

"The Prison Chaplain would like a word with him, sir."  So I

was marched out and off down the corridor towards the

Wing Chapel, tolchocked on the back and the gulliver all the

way by one of the chassos, but in a very like yawny and bored

manner.  And I was marched across the Wing Chapel to the

little cantora of the charles and then made to go in.  The

charles was sitting at his desk, smelling loud and clear of a fine

manny von of expensive cancers and Scotch.  He said:

"Ah, little 6655321, be seated."  And to the chassos: "Wait

outside, eh?"  Which they did.  Then he spoke in a very like

earnest way to me, saying: "One thing I want you to under-

stand, boy, is that this is nothing to do with me.  Were it

expedient, I would protest about it, but it is not expedient.

There is the question of my own career, there is the question

of the weakness of my own voice when set against the shout

of certain more powerful elements in the polity.  Do I make

myself clear?"  He didn't, brothers, but I nodded that he did.

"Very hard ethical questions are involved," he went on.  "You

are to be made into a good boy, 6655321.  Never again will

you have the desire to commit acts of violence or to offend

in any way whatsoever against the State's Peace.  I hope you

take all that in.  I hope you are absolutely clear in your own

mind about that."  I said:

"Oh, it will be nice to be good, sir."  But I had a real hor-

rorshow smeck at that inside, brothers.  He said:

"It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321.  It may be

horrible to be good.  And when I say that to you I realize how

self-contradictory that sounds.  I know I shall have many

sleepless nights about this.  What does God want?  Does God

want woodness or the choice of goodness?  Is a man who

chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who

has the good imposed upon him?  Deep and hard questions,

little 6655321.  But all I want to say to you now is this:  if at

any time in the future you look back to these times and re-

member me, the lowest and humblest of all God's servitors,

do not, I pray, think evil of me in your heart, thinking me in

any way involved in what is now about to happen to you.  And

now, talking of praying, I realize sadly that there will be little

point in praying for you.  You are passing now to a region

where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer.  A

terrible terrible thing to consider.  And yet, in a sense, in

choosing to be deprive of the ability to make an ethical

choice, you have in a sense really chosen the good.  So I shall

like to think.  So, God help us all, 6655321, I shall like to

think."  And then he began to cry.  But I didn't really take much

notice of that, brothers only having a bit of a quiet smeck

inside, because you could viddy that he had been peeting away

at the old whisky, and now he took a bottle from a cupboard

in his desk and started to pour himself a real horrorshow

bolshy slog into a very greasy and grahzny glass.  He downed

it and the said: "All may be well, who knows?  God works in a

mysterious way."  Then he began to sing away at a hymn in a

real loud rich goloss.  Then the door opened and the chassos

came in to tolchock me back to my vonny cell, but the old

charles still went on singing this hymn.

Well, the next morning I had to say good-bye to the old

Staja, and I felt a malenky bit sad as you always will when you

have to leave a place you've like got used to.  But I didn't go

very far, O my brothers.  I was punched and kicked along to

the new white building just beyond the yard where we used to

do our bit of exercise.  This was a very new building and it had

a new cold like sizy smell which gave you a bit of the shivers.  I

stood there in the horrible bolshy bare hall and I got new

vons, sniffing away there with my like very sensitive morder or

sniffer.  These were like hospital vons, and the chelloveck the

chassos handed me over to had a white coat on, as he might

be a hospital man.  He signed for me, and one of the brutal

chassos who had brought nme said: "You watch this one, sir.  A

right brutal bastard he has been and will be again, in spite of

all his sucking up to the Prison Chaplain and reading the

Bible."  But this new chelloveck had real horrorshow blue glaz-

zies which like smiled when he govoreeted.  He said:

"Oh, we don't anticipate any trouble.  We're going to be

friends, aren't we?"  And he smiled with his glazzies and his fine

big rot which was full of shining white zoobies and I sort of

took to this veck right away.  Anyway, he passed me on to a

like lesser veck in a white coat, and this one was very nice

too, and I was led off to a very nice white clean bedroom with

curtains and a bedside lamp, and just the one bed in it, all for

Your Humble Narrator.  So I had a real horrorshow inner

smeck at that, thinking I was really a very lucky young mal-

chickiwick.  I was told to take off my horrible prison platties

and I was given a really beautiful set of pyjamas, O my

brothers, in plain green, the heighth of bedwear fashion.  And I

was given a nice warm dressing-gown too and lovely toofles

to put my bare nogas in, and I thought: "Well, Alex boy, little

6655321 as was, you have copped it lucky and no mistake.

You are really going to enjoy it here."

After I had been given a nice chasha of real horrorshow

coffee and some old gazettas and mags to look at while peet-

ing it, this first veck in white came in, the one who had like

signed for me, and he said: "Aha, there you are," a silly sort of

a veshch to say but it didn't sound silly, this veck being so like

nice.  "My name," he said, "is Dr. Branom.  I'm Dr. Brodsky's

assistant.  With your permission, I'll just give you the usual

brief overall examination."  And he took the old stetho out of

his right carman.  "We must make sure you're quite fit, mustn't

we?  Yes indeed, we must."  So while I lay there with my pyjama

top off and he did this, that and the other, I said:

"What exactly is it, sir, that you're going to do?"

"Oh," said Dr. Branom, his cold stetho going all down my

back, "it's quite simple, really.  We just show you some films."

"Films?" I said.  I could hardly believe my ookos, brothers,

as you may well understand.  "You mean," I said, "it will be just

like going to the pictures?"

"They'll be special films," said Dr. Branom.  "Very special

films.  You'll be having the first session this afternoon.  Yes," he

said, getting up from bending over me, "you seem to be quite a

fit young boy.  A bit under-nourished perhaps.  That will be the

fault of the prison food.  Put your pyjama top back on.  After

every meal," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, "we shall be

giving you a shot in the arm.  That should help."  I felt really

grateful to this very nice Dr. Branom.  I said:

"Vitamins, sir, will it be?"

"Something like that," he said, smiling real horrorshow and

friendly, "just a jab in the arm after every meal."  Then he went

out.  I lay on the bed thinking this was like real heaven, and I

read some of the mags they'd given me - 'Worldsport', 'Sinny'

(this being a film mag) and 'Goal'.  Then I lay back on the bed

and shut my glazzies and thought how nice it was going to be

out there again, Alex with perhaps a nice easy job during the

day, me being now too old for the old skolliwoll, and then

perhaps getting a new like gang together for the nochy, and

the first rabbit would be to get old Dim and Pete, if they had

not been got already by the millicents.  This time I would be

very careful not to get loveted.  They were giving another like

chance, me having done murder and all, and it would not be

like fair to get loveted again, after going to all this trouble to

show me films that were going to make me a real good mal-

chick.  I had a real horrorshow smeck at everybody's like

innocence, and I was smecking my gulliver off when they

brought in my lunch on a tray.  The veck who brought it was

the one who'd led me to this malenky bedroom when I came

into the mesto, and he said:

"It's nice to know somebody's happy."  It was really a very

nice appetizing bit of pishcha they'd laid out on the tray - two

or three lomticks of like hot roastbeef with mashed kartoffel

and vedge, then there was also ice-cream and a nice hot

chasha of chai.  And there was even a cancer to smoke and a

matchbox with one match in.  So this looked like it was the

life, O my brothers.  Then, about half an hour after while I was

lying a bit sleepy on the bed, a woman nurse came in, a real

nice young devotchka with real horrorshow groodies (I had

not seen such for two years) and she had a tray and a hypo-

dermic.  I said:

"Ah, the old vitamins, eh?"  And I clickclicked at her but she

took no notice.  All she did was to slam the needle into my

left arm, and then swishhhh in went the vitamin stuff.  Then she

went out again, clack clack on her high-heeled nogas.  Then

the white-coated veck who was like a male nurse came in with

a wheelchair.  I was a malenky bit surprised to viddy that.  I

said:

"What giveth then, brother?  I can walk, surely, to wherever

we have to itty to."  But he said:

"Best I push you there."  And indeed, O my brothers, when I

got off the bed I found myself a malenky biy weak.  It was the

under-nourishment like Dr. Branom had said, all that horrible

prison pishcha.  But the vitamins in the after-meal injection

would put me right.  No doubt at all about that, I thought.

 

 

4

 

Where I was wheeled to, brothers, was like no sinny I had ever

viddied before.  True enough, one wall was all covered with

silver screen, and direct opposite was a wall with square holes

in for the projector to project through, and there were stereo

speakers stuck all over the mesto.  But against the right-hand

one of the other walls was a bank of all like little meters, and

in the middle of the floor facing the screen was like a dentist's

chair with all lengths of wire running from it, and I had to like

crawl from the wheelchair to this, being given some help by

another like male nurse veck in a white coat.  Then I noticed

that underneath the projection holes was like all frosted glass

and I thought I viddied shadows of like people moving behind

it and I thought I slooshied somebody cough kashl kashl

kashl.  But then all I could like notice was how weak I seemed

to be, and I put that down to changing over from prison

pishcha to this new rich pishcha and the vitamins injected into

me.  "Right," said the wheelchair-wheeling veck, "now I'll leave

you.  The show will commence as soon as Dr. Brodsky arrives.

Hope you enjoy it."  To be truthful, brothers, I did not really

feel that I wanted to viddy any film-show this afternoon.  I was

just not in the mood.  I would have liked much better to have

a nice quiet spatchka on the bed, nice and quiet and all on my

oddy knocky.  I felt very limp.

What happened now was that one white-coated veck

strapped my gulliver to a like head-rest, singing to himself all

the time some vonny cally pop-song.  "What's this for?" I said.

And this veck replied, interrupting his like song an instant,

that it was to keep my gulliver still and make me look at the

screen.  "But," I said, "I want to look at the screen.  I've been

brought here to viddy films and viddy films I shall."  And then

the other white-coat veck (there were three altogether, one

of them a devotchka who was like sitting at the bank of

meters and twiddling with knobs) had a bit of a smeck at that.

He said:

"You never know.  Oh, you never know.  Trust us, friend.  It's

better this way."  And then I found they were strapping my

rookers to the chair-arms and my nogas were like stuck to a

foot-rest.  It seemed a bit bezoomny to me but I let them get

on with what they wanted to get on with.  If I was to be a free

young malchick again in a fortnight's time I would put up with

much in the meantime, O my brothers.  One veshch I did not

like, though, was when they put like clips on the skin of my

forehead, so that my top glazz-lids were pulled up and up and

up and I could not shut my glazzies no matter how I tried.  I

tried to smeck and said: "This must be a real horrorshow film

if you're so keen on my viddying it."  And one of the white-

coat vecks said, smecking:

"Horrorshow is right, friend.  A real show of horrors."  And

then I had like a cap stuck on my gulliver and I could viddy

all wires running away from it, and they stuck a like suction

pad on my belly and one on the old tick-tocker, and I could

just about viddy wires running away from those.  Then there

was the shoom of a door opening and you could tell some

very important chelloveck was coming in by the way the

white-coated under-vecks went all stiff.  And then I viddied this

Dr. Brodsky.  He was a malenky veck, very fat, with all curly

hair curling all over his gulliver, and on his spuddy nose he

had very thick ochkies.  I could just viddy that he had a real

horrorshow suit on, absolutely the heighth of fashion, and he

had a like very delicate and subtle von of operating-theatres

coming from him.  With him was Dr. Branom, all smiling like as

though to give me confidence.  "Everything ready?" said Dr.

Brodsky in a very breathy goloss.  Then I could slooshy voices

saying Right right right from like a distance, then nearer to,

then there was a quiet like humming shoom as though things

had been switched on.  And then the lights went out and there

was Your Humble Narrator And Friend sitting alone in the

dark, all on his frightened oddy knocky, not able to move nor

shut his glazzies nor anything.  And then, O my brothers, the

film-show started off with some very gromky atmosphere

music coming from the speakers, very fierce and full of dis-

cord.  And then on the screen the picture came on, but there

was no title and no credits.  What came on was a street, as it

might have been any street in any town, and it was a real dark

nochy and the lamps were lit.  It was a very good like pro-

fessional piece of sinny, and there were none of these flickers

and blobs you get, say, when you viddy one of these dirty

films in somebody's house in a back street.  All the time the

music bumped out, very like sinister.  And then you could

viddy an old man coming down the street, very starry, and

then there leaped out on this starry veck two malchicks

dressed in the heighth of fashion, as it was at this time (still

thin trousers but no like cravat any more, more of a real tie),

and then they started to filly with him.  You could slooshy the

screams and moans, very realistic, and you could even get the

like heavy breathing and panting of the two tolchocking mal-

chicks.  They made a real pudding out of this starry veck, going

crack crack crack at him with the fisty rookers, tearing his

platties off and then finishing up by booting his nagoy plott

(this lay all krovvy-red in the grahzny mud of the gutter) and

then running off very skorry.  Then there was the close-up

gulliver of this beaten-up starry veck, and the krovvy flowed

beautiful red.  It's funny how the colours of the like real

world only seem really real when you viddy them on the

screen.

Now all the time I was watching this I was beginning to get

very aware of a like not feeling all that well, and this I put

down to the under-nourishment and my stomach not quite

ready for tthe rich pishcha and vitamins I was getting here.  But

I tried to forget this, concentrating on the next film which

came on at once, brothers, without any break at all.  This

time the film jumped right away on a young devotchka who

was being given the old in-out by first one malchick then

another then another then another, she creeching away very

gromky through the speakers and like very pathetic and tragic

music going on at the same time.  This was real, very real,

though if you thought about it properly you couldn't imagine

lewdies actually agreeing to having all this done to them in a

film, and if these films were made by the Good or the State

you couldn't imagine them being allowed to take these films

without like interfering with what was going on.  So it must

have been very clever what they call cutting or editing or

some such veshch.  For it was very real.  And when it came to

the sixth or seventh malchick leering and smecking and then

going into it and the devotchka creeching on the sound-track

like bezoomny, then I began to feel sick.  I had like pains all

over and felt I could sick up and at the same time not sick up,

and I began to feel like in distress, O my brothers, being fixed

rigid too on this chair.  When this bit of film was over I could

slooshy the goloss of this Dr. Brodsky from over by the

switchboard saying: "Reaction about twelve point five?  Prom-

ising, promising."

Then we shot straight into another lomtick of film, and this

time it was of just a human litso, a very like pale human face

held still and having different nasty veshches done to it.  I was

sweating a malenky bit with the pain in my guts and a horrible

thirst and my gulliver going throb throb throb, and it seemed

to me that if I could not viddy this bit of film I would perhaps

be not so sick.  But I could not shut my glazzies, and even if I

tried to move my glaz-balls about I still could not get like out

of the line of fire of this picture.  So I had to go on viddying

what was being done and hearing the most ghastly creechings

coming from this litso.  I knew it could not really be real, but

that made no difference.  I was heaving away but could not

sick, viddying first a britva cut out an eye, then slice down the

cheek, then go rip rip rip all over, while red krovvy shot on to

the camera lens.  Then all the teeth were like wrenched out

with a pair of pliers, and the creeching and the blood were

terrific.  Then I slooshied this very pleased goloss of Dr.

Brodsky going: "Excellent, excellent, excellent."

The next lomtick of film was of an old woman who kept a

shop being kicked about amid very gromky laughter by a lot

of malchicks, and these malchicks broke up the shop and then

set fire to it.  You could viddy this poor starry ptitsa trying to

crawl out of the flames, screaming and creeching, but having

had her leg broke by these malchicks kicking her she could

not move.  So then all the flames went roaring round her, and

you could viddy her agonized litso like appealing through the

flames and the disappearing in the flames, and then you

could slooshy the most gromky and agonized and agonizing

screams that ever came from a human goloss.  So this time I

knew I had to sick up, so I creeched:

"I want to be sick.  Please let me be sick.  Please bring some-

thing for me to be sick into."  But this Dr. Brodsky called back:

"Imagination only.  You've nothing to worry about.  Next

film coming up."  That was perhaps meant to be a joke, for I

heard a like smeck coming from the dark.  And then I was

forced to viddy a most nasty film about Japanese torture.  It

was the 1939-45 War, and there were soldiers being fixed to

trees with nails and having fires lit under them and having their

yarbles cut off, and you even viddied a gulliver being sliced off

a soldier with a sword, and then with his head rolling about

and the rot and glazzies looking alive still, the plott of this

soldier actually ran about, krovvying like a fountain out of

the neck, and then it dropped, and all the time there was very

very loud laughter from the Japanese.  The pains I felt now in

my belly and the headache and the thirst were terrible, and

they all seemed to be coming out of the screen.  So I

creeched:

"Stop the film!  Please, please stop it!  I can't stand any

more."  And then the goloss of this Dr. Brodsky said:

"Stop it?  Stop it, did you say?  Why, we've hardly started."

And he and the others smecked quite loud.

 

 

5

 

I do not wish to describe, brothers, what other horrible vesh-

ches I was like forced to viddy that afternoon.  The like

minds of this Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom and the others in

white coats, and remember there was this devotchka twid-

dling with the knobs and watching the meters, they must have

been more cally and filthy than any prestoopnick in the Staja

itself.  Because I did not think it was possible for any veck to

even think of making films of what I was forced to viddy, all

tied to this chair and my glazzies made to be wide open.  All I

could do was to creech very gromky for them to turn it off,

turn it off, and that like part drowned the noise of dratsing

and fillying and also the music that went with it all.  You can

imagine it was like a terrible relief when I'd viddied the last bit

of film, and this Dr. Brodsky said, in a very yawny and bored

like goloss: "I think that should be enough for Day One, don't

you, Branom?"  And there I was with the lights switched on,

my gulliver throbbing like a bolshy big engine that makes

pain, and my rot all dry and cally inside, and feeling I could

like sick up every bit of pishcha I had ever eaten, O my

brothers, since the day I was like weaned.  "All right," said this

Dr. Brodsky, "he can be taken back to his bed."  Then he like

patted me on the pletcho and said: "Good, good.  A very

promising start," grinning all over his litso, then he like

waddled out, Dr. Branom after him, but Dr. Branom gave me a

like very droogy and sympathetic type smile as though he had

nothing to do with all this veshch but was like forced into it

as I was.

Anyhow, they freed my plott from the chair and they let go

the skin above my glazzies so that I could open and shut them

again, and I shut them, O my brothers, with the pain and throb

in my gulliver, and then I was like carried to the old wheel-

chair and taken back to my malenky bedroom, the under-veck

who wheeled me singing away at some hound-and-horny

popsong so that I like snarled: "Shut it, thou," but he only

smecked and said: "Never mind, friend," and then sang louder.

So I was put into the bed and still felt bolnoy but could not

sleep, but soon I started to feel that soon I might start to feel

that I might soon start feeling just a malenky bit better, and

then I was brought some nice hot chai with plenty of moloko

and sakar and, peeting that, I knew that that like horrible

nightmare was in the past and all over.  And then Dr. Branom

came in, all nice and smiling.  He said:

"Well, by my calculations you should be starting to feel all

right again.  Yes?"

"Sir," I said, like wary.  I did not quite kopat what he was

getting at govoreeting about calculations, seeing that getting

better from feeling bolnoy is like your own affair and nothing

to do with calculations.  He sat down, all nice and droogy, on

the bed's edge and said:

"Dr. Brodsky is pleased with you.  You had a very positive

response.  Tomorrow, of course, there'll be two sessions,

morning and afternoon, and I should imagine that you'll be

feeling a bit limp at the end of the day.  But we have to be hard

on you, you have to be cured."  I said:

"You mean I have to sit through - ?  You mean I have to

look at - ?  Oh, no," I said.  "It was horrible."

"Of course it was horrible," smiled Dr. Branom.  "Violence is a

very horrible thing.  That's what you're learning now.  Your

body is learning it."

"But," I said, "I don't understand.  I don't understand about

feeling sick like I did.  I never used to feel sick before.  I used to

feel like very the opposite.  I mean, doing it or watching it I

used to feel real horrorshow.  I just don't understand why or

how or what - "

"Life is a very wonderful thing," said Dr. Branom in a like

very holy goloss.  "The processes of life, the make-up of the

human organism, who can fully understand these miracles?  Dr.

Brodsky is, of course, a remarkable man.  What is happening

to you now is what should happen to any normal healthy

human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of

evil, the workings of the principle of destruction.  You are

being made sane, you are being made healthy."

"That I will not have," I said, "nor can understand at all.

What you've been doing is to make me feel very ill."

"Do you feel ill now?" he said, still with the old droogy

smile on his litso.  "Drinking tea, resting, having a quiet chat

with a friend - surely you're not feeling anything but well?"

I like listened and felt for pain and sickness in my gulliver

and plott, in a like cautious way, but it was true, brothers,

that I felt real horrorshow and even wanting my dinner.  "I

don't get it," I said.  "You must be doing something to me to

make me feel ill."  And I sort of frowned about that, thinking.

"You felt ill this afternoon," he said, "because you're getting

better.  When we're healthy we respond to the presence of the

hateful with fear and nausea.  You're becoming healthy, that's

all.  You'll be healthier still this time tomorrow."  Then he

patted me on the noga and went out, and I tried to puzzle the

whole veshch out as best I could.  What it seemed to me was

that the wire and other veshches that were fixed to my plott

perhaps were making me feel ill, and that it was all a trick

really.  I was still puzzling out all this and wondering whether I

should refuse to be strapped down to this chair tomorrow

and start a real bit of dratsing with them all, because I had my

rights, when another chelloveck came in to see me.  He was a

like smiling starry veck who said he was what he called the

Discharge Officer, and he carried a lot of bits of paper with

him.  He said:

"Where will you go when you leave here?"  I hadn't really

thought about that sort of veshch at all, and it only now

really began to dawn on me that I'd be a fine free malchick

very soon, and then I viddied that would only be if I played it

everybody's way and did not start any dratsing and creeching

and refusing and so on.  I said:

"Oh, I shall go home.  Back to my pee and em."

"Your - ?"  He didn't get nadsat-talk at all, so I said:

"To my parents in the dear old flatblock."

"I see," he said.  "And when did you last have a visit from

your parents?"

"A month," I said, "very near.  They like suspended visiting-

day for a bit because of one prestoopnick getting some blast-

ing-powder smuggled in across the wires from his ptitsa.  A

real cally trick to play on the innocent, like punishing them as

well.  So it's near a month since I had a visit."

"I see," said this veck.  "And have your parents been informed

of your transfer and impending release?"  That had a real

lovely zvook that did, that slovo 'release'.  I said:

"No."  Then I said: "It will be a nice surprise for them, that,

won't it?  Me just walking in through the door and saying:

'Here I am, back, a free veck again.'  Yes, real horrorshow."

"Right," said the Discharge Officer veck, "we'll leave it at that.

So long as you have somewhere to live.  Now, there's the

question of your having a job, isn't there?"  And he showed me

this long list of jobs I could have, but I thought, well, there

would be time enough for that.  A nice malenky holiday first.  I

could do a crasting job soon as I got out and fill the old

carmans with pretty polly, but I would have to be very careful

and I would have to do the job all on my oddy knocky.  I did

not trust so-called droogs any more.  So I told this veck to

leave it a bit and we would govoreet about it again.  He said

right right right, then got ready to leave.  He showed himself

to be a very queer sort of a veck, because what he did now

was to like giggle and then say: "Would you like to punch me

in the face before I go?"  I did not think I could possibly have

slooshied that right, so I said:

"Eh?"

"Would you," he giggled, "like to punch me in the face

before I go?"  I frowned like at that, very puzzled, and said:

"Why?"

"Oh," he said, "just to see how you're getting on."  And he

brought his litso real near, a fat grin all over his rot.  So I

fisted up and went smack at this litso, but he pulled himself

away real skorry, grinning still, and my rooker just punched

air.  Very puzzling, this was, and I frowned as he left, smecking

his gulliver off.  And then, my brothers, I felt real sick again,

just like in the afternoon, just for a couple of minootas.  It

then passed off skorry, and when they brought my dinner in

I found I had a fair appetite and was ready to crunk away at

the roast chicken.  But it was funny that starry chelloveck

asking for a tolchock in the litso.  And it was funny feeling sick

like that.

What was even funnier was when I went to sleep that night,

O my brothers, I had a nightmare, and, as you might expect, it

was one of those bits of film I'd viddied in the afternoon.  A

dream or nightmare is really only like a film inside your gulli-

ver, except that it is as though you could walk into it and be

part of it.  And this is what happened to me.  It was a nightmare

of one of the bits of film they showed me near the end of the

afternoon like session, all of smecking malchicks doing the

ultra-violent on a young ptitsa who was creeching away in her

red red krovvy, her platties all razrezzed real horrorshow.  I

was in this fillying about, smecking away and being like the

ring-leader, dressed in the heighth of nadsat fashion.  And then

at the heighth of all this dratsing and tolchocking I felt like

paralysed and wanting to be very sick, and all the other mal-

chicks had a real gromky smeck at me.  Then I was dratsing my

way back to being awake all through my own krovvy, pints

and quarts and gallons of it, and then I found myself in my bed

in this room.  I wanted to be sick, so I got out of the bed all

trembly so as to go off down the corridor to the old vaysay.

But, behold, brothers, the door was locked.  And turning

round I viddied for like the first raz that there were bars on

the window.  And so, as I reached for the like pot in the mal-

enky cupboard beside the bed, I viddied that there would be

no escaping from any of all this.  Worse, I did not dare to go

back into my own sleeping gulliver.  I soon found I did not

want to be sick after all, but then I was poogly of getting back

into bed to sleep.  But soon I fell smack into sleep and did not

dream any more.

 

 

6

 

"Stop it, stop it, stop it," I kept on creeching out.  "Turn it off

you grahzny bastards, for I can stand no more."  It was the

next day, brothers, and I had truly done my best morning and

afternoon to play it their way and sit like a horrorshow smil-

ing cooperative malchick in their chair of torture while they

flashed nasty bits of ultra-violence on the screen, my glazzies

clipped open to viddy all, my plott and rookers and nogas

fixed to the chair so I could not get away.  What I was being

made to viddy now was not really a veshch I would have

thought to be too bad before, it being only three or four

malchicks crasting in a shop and filling their carmans with

cutter, at the same time fillying about with the creeching

starry ptitsa running the shop, tolchocking her and letting the

red red krovvy flow.  But the throb and like crash crash crash

in my gulliver and the wanting to be sick and the terrible dry

rasping thirstiness in my rot, all were worse than yesterday.

"Oh.  I've had enough" I cried.  "It's not fair, you vonny sods,"

and I tried to struggle out of the chair but it was not possible

me being as good as stuck to it.

"First-class," creeched out this Dr. Brodsky.  "You're doing

really well.  Just one more and then we're finished."

What it was now was the starry 1939-45 War again, and it

was a very blobby and liny and crackly film you could viddy

had been made by the Germans.  It opened with German eagles

and the Nazi flag with that like crooked cross that all mal-

chicks at school love to draw, and then there were very

haughty and nadmenny like German officers walking through

streets that were all dust and bomb-holes and broken build-

ings.  Then you were allowed to viddy lewdies being shot

against walls, officers giving the orders, and also horrible

nagoy plotts left lying in gutters, all like cages of bare ribs and

white thin nogas.  Then there were lewdies being dragged off

creeching though not on the sound-track, my brothers, the

only sound being music, and being tolchocked while they

were dragged off.  Then I noticed, in all my pain and sickness,

what music it was that like crackled and boomed on the

sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement of the

Fifth Symphony, and I creeched like bezoomny at that.  "Stop!"

I creeched.  "Stop, you grahzny disgusting sods.  It's a sin, that's

what it is, a filthy unforgivable sin, you bratchnies!"  They

didn't stop right away, because there was only a minute or

two more to go - lewdies being beaten up and all krovvy, then

more firing squads, then the old Nazi flag and THE END.  But

when the lights came on this Dr. Brodsky and also Dr. Branom

were standing in front of me, and Dr. Brodsky said:

"What's all this about sin, eh?"

"That," I said, very sick.  "Using Ludwig van like that.  He did

no harm to anyone.  Beethoven just wrote music."  And then I

was really sick and they had to bring a bowl that was in the

shape of like a kidney.

"Music," said Dr. Brodsky, like musing.  "So you're keen on

music.  I know nothing about it myself.  It's a useful emotional

heightener, that's all I know.  Well, well.  What do you think

about that, eh, Branom?"

"It can't be helped," said Dr. Branom.  "Each man kills the

thing he loves, as the poet-prisoner said.  Here's the pun-

ishment element, perhaps.  The Governor ought to be

pleased."

"Give me a drink," I said, "for Bog's sake."

"Loosen him," ordered Dr. Brodsky.  "Fetch him a carafe of

ice-cold water."  So then these under-vecks got to work and

soon I was peeting gallons and gallons of water and it was

like heaven, O my brothers.  Dr. Brodsky said:

"You seem a sufficiently intelligent young man.  You seem,

too, to be not without taste.  You've just got this violence

thing, haven't you?  Violence and theft, theft being an aspect

of violence."  I didn't govoreet a single slovo, brothers, I was

still feeling sick, though getting a malenky bit better now.  But

it had been a terrible day.  "Now then," said Dr. Brodsky, "how

do you think this is done?  Tell me, what do you think we're

doing to you?"

"You're making me feel ill.  I'm ill when I look at those filthy

pervert films of yours.  But it's not really the films that's doing

it.  But I feel that if you'll stop these films I'll stop feeling ill."

"Right," said Dr. Brodsky.  "It's association, the oldest edu-

cational method in the world.  And what really causes you to

feel ill?"

"These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of my gulli-

ver and my plott," I said, "that's what it is."

"Quaint," said Dr. Brodsky, like smiling, "the dialect of the

tribe.  Do you know anything of its provenance, Branom?"

"Odd bits of old rhyming slang," said Dr. Branom, who did

not look quite so much like a friend any more.  "A bit of gipsy

talk, too.  But most of the roots are Slav.  Propaganda.  Sub-

liminal penetration."

"All right, all right, all right," said Dr. Brodsky, like impatient

and not interested any more.  "Well," he said to me, "it isn't the

wires.  It's nothing to do with what's fastened to you.  Those

are just for measuring your reactions.  What is it, then?"

I viddied then, of course, what a bezoomny shoot I was not

to notice that it was the hypodermic shots in the rooker.

"Oh," I creeched, "oh, I viddy all now.  A filthy cally vonny

trick.  An act of treachery, sod you, and you won't do it

again."

"I'm glad you've raised your objections now," said Dr.

Brodsky.  "Now we can be perfectly clear about it.  We can get

this stuff of Ludovico's into your system in many different

ways.  Orally, for instance.  But the subcutaneous method is the

best.  Don't fight against it, please.  There's no point in your

fighting.  You can't get the better of us."

"Grahzny bratchnies," I said, like snivelling.  Then I said: "I

don't mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal.  I put up

with that.  But it's not fair on the music.  It's not fair I should

feel ill when I'm slooshying lovely Ludwig van and G. F. Handel

and others.  All that shows you're an evil lot of bastards and I

shall never forgive you, sods."

They both looked a bit like thoughtful.  Then Dr. Brodsky

said: "Delimitation is always difficult.  The world is one, life is

one.  The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in

some measure of violence - the act of love, for instance;

music, for instance.  You must take your chance, boy.  The

choice has been all yours."  I didn't understand all these slovos,

but now I said:

"You needn't take it any further, sir."  I'd changed my tune a

malenky bit in my cunning way.  "You've proved to me that all

this dratsing and ultra-violence and killing is wrong wrong

and terribly wrong.  I've learned my lesson, sirs.  I see now

what I've never seen before.  I'm cured, praise God."  And I

raised my glazzies in a like holy way to the ceiling.  But both

these doctors shook their gullivers like sadly and Dr. Brodsky

said:

"You're not cured yet.  There's still a lot to be done.  Only

when your body reacts promptly and violently to violence, as

to a snake, without further help from us, without medication,

only then - "  I said:

"But, sir, sirs, I see that it's wrong.  It's wrong because it's

against like society, it's wrong because every veck on earth

has the right to live and be happy without being beaten and

tolchocked and knifed.  I've learned a lot, oh really I have."

But Dr. Brodsky had a loud long smeck at that, showing all his

white zoobies, and said:

"The heresy of an age of reason," or some such slovos.  "I

see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong.  No, no,

my boy, you must leave it all to us.  But be cheerful about it.  It

will soon be all over.  In less than a fortnight now you'll be a

free man."  Then he patted me on the pletcho.

Less than a fortnight, O my brothers and friends, it was like

an age.  It was like from the beginning of the world to the end

of it.  To finish the fourteen years without remission in the

Staja would have been nothing to it.  Every day it was the

same.  When the devotchka with the hypodermic came round,

though, four days after this govoreeting with Dr. Brodsky and

Dr. Branom, I said: "Oh, no you won't," and tolchocked her on

the rooker, and the syringe went tinkle clatter on to the

floor.  That was like to viddy what they would do.  What they

did was to get four or five real bolshy white-coated bastards

of under-vecks to hold me down on the bed, tolchocking me

with grinny litsos close to mine, and then this nurse ptitsa

said: "You wicked naughty little devil, you," while she jabbed

my rooker with another syringe and squirted this stuff in real

brutal and nasty.  And then I was wheeled off exhausted to this

like hell sinny as before.

Every day, my brothers, these films were like the same, all

kicking and tolchocking and red red krovvy dripping off of

litsos and plotts and spattering all over the camera lenses.  It

was usually grinning and smecking malchicks in the heighth of

nadsat fashion, or else teeheeheeing Jap torturers or brutal

Nazi kickers and shooters.  And each day the feeling of want-

ing to die with the sickness and gulliver pains and aches in the

zoobies and horrible horrible thirst grew really worse.  Until

one morning I tried to defeat the bastards by crash crash

crashing my gulliver against the wall so that I should tolchock

myself unconscious, but all that happened was I felt sick with

viddying that this kind of violence was like the violence in the

films, so I was just exhausted and was given the injection and

was wheeled off like before.

And then there came a morning when I woke up and had my

breakfast of eggs and toast and jam and very hot milky chai,

and then I thought: "It can't be much longer now.  Now must

be very near the end of the time.  I have suffered to the

heighths and cannot suffer any more."  And I waited and

waited, brothers, for this nurse ptitsa to bring in the syringe,

but she did not come.  And then the white-coated under-veck

came and said:

"Today, old friend, we are letting you walk."

"Walk?" I said.  "Where?"

"To the usual place," he said.  "Yes, yes, look not so aston-

ished.  You are to walk to the films, me with you of course.

You are no longer to be carried in a wheelchair."

"But," I said, "how about my horrible morning injection?"

For I was really surprised at this, brothers, they being so keen

on pushing this Ludovico veshch into me, as they said.  "Don't

I get that horrible sicky stuff rammed into my poor suffering

rooker any more?"

"All over," like smecked this veck.  "For ever and ever amen.

You're on your own now, boy.  Walking and all to the

chamber of horrors.  But you're still to be strapped down and

made to see.  Come on then, my little tiger."  And I had to put

my over-gown and toofles on and walk down the corridor to

the like sinny mesto.

Now this time, O my brothers, I was not only very sick but

very puzzled.  There it was again, all the old ultra-violence and

vecks with their gullivers smashed and torn krovvy-dripping

ptitsas creeching for mercy, the like private and individual

fillying and nastiness.  Then there were the prison-camps and

the Jews and the grey like foreign streets full of tanks and

uniforms and vecks going down in withering rifle-fire, this

being the public side of it.  And this time I could blame nothing

for me feeling sick and thirsty and full of aches except what I

was forced to viddy, my glazzies still being clipped open and

my nogas and plott fixed to the chair but this set of wires and

other veshches no longer coming out of my plott and gulli-

ver.  So what could it be but the films I was viddying that were

doing this to me?  Except, of course, brothers, that this Lu-

dovico stuff was like a vaccination and there it was cruising

about in my krovvy, so that I would be sick always for ever

and ever amen whenever I viddied any of this ultra-violence.

So now I squared my rot and went boo hoo hoo, and the

tears like blotted out what I was forced to viddy in like all

blessed runny silvery dewdrops.  But these white-coat

bratchnies were skorry with their tashtooks to wipe the tears

away, saying: "There there, wazzums all weepy-weepy den."

And there it was again all clear before my glazzies, these

Germans prodding like beseeching and weeping Jews - vecks

and cheenas and malchicks and devotchkas - into mestos

where they would all snuff it of poison gas.  Boo hoo hoo I

had to go again, and along they came to wipe the tears off,

very skorry, so I should not miss one solitary veshch of what

they were showing.  It was a terrible and horrible day, O my

brothers and only friends.

I was lying on the bed all alone that nochy after my dinner

of fat thick mutton stew and fruit-pie and ice-cream, and I

thought to myself: "Hell hell hell, there might be a chance for

me if I get out now."  I had no weapon, though.  I was allowed

no britva here, and I had been shaved every other day by a fat

bald-headed veck who came to my bed before breakfast, two

white-coated bratchnies standing by to viddy I was a good

non-violent malchick.  The nails on my rookers had been scis-

sored and filed real short so I could not scratch.  But I was still

skorry on the attack, though they had weakened me down,

brothers, to a like shadow of what I had been in the old free

days.  So now I got off the bed and went to the locked door

and began to fist it real horrorshow and hard, creeching at the

same time: "Oh, help help.  I'm sick, I'm dying.  Doctor doctor

doctor, quick.  Please.  Oh, I'll die, I shall.  Help."  My gorlo was

real dry and sore before anyone came.  Then I heard nogas

coming down the corridor and a like grumbling goloss, and

then I recognized the goloss of the white-coated veck who

brought me pishcha and like escorted me to my daily doom.

He like grumbled:

"What is it?  What goes on?  What's your little nasty game in

there?"

"Oh, I'm dying," I like moaned.  "Oh, I have a ghastly pain in

my side.  Appendicitis, it is.  Ooooooh."

"Appendy shitehouse," grumbled this veck, and then to my

joy, brothers, I could slooshy the like clank of keys.  "If you're

trying it little friend, my friends and me will beat and kick you

all through the night."  Then he opened up and brought in like

the sweet air of the promise of my freedom.  Now I was like

behind the door when he pushed it open, and I could viddy

him in the corridor light looking round for me puzzled.  Then

I raised my two fisties to tolchock him on the neck nasty, and

then, I swear, as I viddied him in advance lying moan-

ing or out out out and felt the like joy rise in my guts, it was

then that this sickness rose in me as it might be a wave and I

felt a horrible fear as if I was really going to die.  I like tottered

over to the bed going urgh urgh urgh, and the veck, who was

not in his white coat but an over-gown, viddied clear enough

what I had in mind for he said:

"Well, everything's a lesson, isn't it?  Learning all the time,

as you could say.  Come on, little friend, get up from that bed

and hit me.  I want you to, yes, really.  A real good crack across

the jaw.  Oh, I'm dying for it, really I am."  But all I could do,

brothers, was to just lay there sobbing boo hoo hoo.  "Scum,"

like sneered this veck now.  "Filth."  And he pulled me up by like

the scruff of my pyjama-top, me being very weak and limp,

and he raised and swung his right rooker so that I got a fair

old tolchock clean on the litso.  "That," he said, "is for getting

me out of my bed, you young dirt."  And he wiped his rookers

against each other swish swish and went out.  Crunch crunch

went the key in the lock.

And what, brothers, I had to escape into sleep from then

was the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get

the hit than give it.  If that veck had stayed I might even have

like presented the other cheek.

 

 

7

 

I could not believe, brothers, what I was told.  It seemed that I

had been in that vonny mesto for near ever and would be

there for near ever more.  But it had always been a fortnight

and now they said the fortnight was near up.  They said:

"Tomorrow, little friend, out out out."  And they made with

the old thumb, like pointing to freedom.  And then the white-

coated veck who had tolchocked me and who had still

brought me my trays of pishcha and like escorted me to my

everyday torture said: "But you still have one real big day in

front of you.  It's to be your passing-out day," and he had a

leery smeck at that.

I expected this morning that I would be ittying as usual to

the sinny mesto in my pyjamas and toofles and over-gown.

But no.  This morning I was given my shirt and underveshches

and my platties of the night and my horrorshow kick-boots,

all lovely and washed or ironed and polished.  And I was even

given my cut-throat britva that I had used in those old happy

days for fillying and dratsing.  So I gave with the puzzled frown

at this as I got dressed, but the white-coated under-veck just

like grinned and would govoreet nothing, O my brothers.

I was led quite kindly to the same old mesto, but there were

changes there.  Curtains had been drawn in front of the sinny

screen and the frosted glass under the projection holes was

no longer there, it having perhaps been pushed up or folded

to the sides like blinds or shutters.  And where there had been

just the noise of coughing kashl kashl kashl and like shadows

of the lewdies was now a real audience, and in this audience

there were litsos I knew.  There was the Staja Governor and

the holy man, the charlie or charles as he was called, and the

Chief Chasso and this very important and well-dressed chello-

veck who was the Minister of the Interior or Inferior.  All the

rest I did not know.  Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom were there,

though not now white-coated, instead they were dressed as

doctors would dress who were big enough to want to dress in

the heighth of fashion.  Dr. Branom just stood, but Dr. Brodsky

stood and govoreeted in a like learned manner to all the

lewdies assembled.  When he viddied me coming in he said:

"Aha.  At this stage, gentlemen, we introduce the subject him-

self.  He is, as you will percieve, fit and well nourished.  He

comes straight from a night's sleep and a good breakfast,

undrugged, unhypnotized.  Tomorrow we send him with

confidence out into the world again, as decent a lad as you

would meet on a May morning, inclined to the kindly word

and the helpful act.  What a change is here, gentlemen, from

the wretched hoodlum the State committed to unprofitable

punishment some two years ago, unchanged after two years.

Unchanged, do I say?  Not quite.  Prison taught him the false

smile, the rubbed hands of hypocrisy, the fawning greased

obsequious leer.  Other vices it taught him, as well as

confirming him in those he had long practised before.  But

gentlemen, enough of words.  Actions speak louder than.

Action now.  Observe, all."

I was a bit dazed by all this govoreeting and I was trying to

grasp in my mind that like all this was about me.  Then all the

lights went out and then there came on two like spotlights

shining from the projection-squares, and one of them was full

on Your Humble and Suffering Narrator.  And into the other

spotlight there walked a bolshy big chelloveck I had never

viddied before.  He had a lardy like litso and a moustache and

like strips of hair pasted over his near-bald gulliver.  He was

about thirty or forty or fifty, some old age like that, starry.

He ittied up to me and the spotlight ittied with him, and soon

the two spotlights had made like one big pool.  He said to me,

very sneery: "Hello, heap of dirt.  Pooh, you don't wash much,

judging from the horrible smell."  Then, as if he was like danc-

ing, he stamped on my nogas, left, right, then he gave me a

finger-nail flick on the nose that hurt like bezoomny and

brought the old tears to my glazzies then he twisted at my left

ooko like it was a radio dial.  I could slooshy titters and a

couple of real horrorshow hawhawhaws coming from like

the audience.  My nose and nogas and ear-hole stung and

pained like bezoomny, so I said:

"What do you do that to me for?  I've never done wrong to

you, brother."

"Oh," this veck said, "I do this" - flickedflicked nose again -

"and that" - twisted smarting ear-hole - "and the other" -

stamped nasty on right noga - "because I don't care for your

horrible type.  And if you want to do anything about it, start,

start, please do."  Now I knew that I'd have to be real skorry

and get my cut-throat britva out before this horrible killing

sickness whooshed up and turned the like joy of battle into

feeling I was going to snuff it.  But, O brothers, as my rooker

reached for the britva in my inside carman I got this like

picture in my mind's glazzy of this insulting chelloveck how-

ling for mercy with the red red krovvy all streaming out of his

rot, and hot after this picture the sickness and dryness and

pains were rushing to overtake, and I viddied that I'd have to

change the way I felt about this rotten veck very very skorry

indeed, so I felt in my carmans for cigarettes or for pretty

polly, and, O my brothers, there was not either of these

veshches, I said, like all howly and blubbery:

"I'd like to give you a cigarette, brother, but I don't seem to

have any."  This veck went:

"Wah wah.  Boohoohoo.  Cry, baby."  Then he flick-

flickflicked with his bolshy horny nail at my nose again, and I

could slooshy very loud smecks of like mirth coming from the

dark audience.  I said, real desperate, trying to be nice to this

insulting and hurtful veck to stop the pains and sickness

coming up:

"Please let me do something for you, please."  And I felt in

my carmans but could find only my cut-throat britva, so I

took this out and handed it to him and said: "Please take this,

please.  A little present.  Please have it."  But he said:

"Keep your stinking bribes to yourself.  You can't get round

me that way."  And he banged at my rooker and my cut-throat

britva fell on the floor.  So I said:

"Please, I must do something.  Shall I clean your boots?  Look,

I'll get down and lick them."  And, my brothers, believe it or

kiss my sharries, I got down on my knees and pushed my red

yahzick out a mile and half to lick his grahzny vonny boots.

But all this veck did was to kick me not too hard on the rot.

So then it seemed to me that it would not bring on the sick-

ness and pain if I just gripped his ankles with my rookers tight

round them and brought this grashzny bratchny down to the

floor.  So I did this and he got a real bolshy surprise, coming

down crack amid loud laughter from the vonny audience.  But

viddying him on the floor I could feel the whole horrible feel-

ing coming over me, so I gave him my rooker to lift him up

skorry and up he came.  Then just as he was going to give me

a real nasty and earnest tolchock on the litso Dr. Brodsky said:

"All right, that will do very well."  Then this horrible veck

sort of bowed and danced off like an actor while the lights

came up on me blinking and with my rot square for howling.

Dr. Brodsky said to the audience: "Our subject is, you see,

impelled towards the good by, paradoxically, being impelled

towards evil.  The intention to act violently is accompanied by

strong feelings of physical distress.  To counter these the sub-

ject has to switch to a diametrically opposed attitude.  Any

questions?"

"Choice," rumbled a rich deep goloss.   I viddied it belonged

to the prison charlie.  "He has no real choice, has he?  Self-

interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act

of self-abasement.  Its insincerity was clearly to be seen.  He

ceases to be a wrongdoer.  He ceases also to be a creature

capable of moral choice."

"These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky.  "We are not

concerned with motive, with the higher ethics.  We are con-

cerned only with cutting down crime - "

"And," chipped in this bolshy well-dressed Minister, "with

relieving the ghastly congestion in our prisons."

"Hear hear," said somebody.

There was a lot of govoreeting and arguing then and I just

stood there, brothers, like completely ignored by all these

ignorant bratchnies, so I creeched out:

"Me, me, me.  How about me?  Where do I come into all

this?  Am I just some animal or dog?"  And that started

them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me.  So<o:p>

I creeched louder, still creeching: "Am I just to be like a clock-

work orange?"  I didn't know what made me use those slovos,

brothers, which just came like without asking into my gulli-

ver.  And that shut all those vecks up for some reason for a

minoota or two.  Then one very thin starry professor type

chelloveck stood up, his neck like all cables carrying like

power from his gulliver to his plott, and he said:

"You have no cause to grumble, boy.  You made your choice

and all this is a consequence of your choice.  Whatever now

ensues is what you yourself have chosen."  And the prison

charlie creeched out:

"Oh, if only I could believe that."  And you could viddy the

Governor give him a look like meaning that he would not

climb so high in like Prison Religion as he thought he would.

Then loud arguing started again, and then I could slooshy the

slovo Love being thrown around, the prison charles himself

creeching as loud as any about Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear

and all that cal.  And now Dr. Brodsky said, smiling all over his

litso:

"I am glad, gentlemen, this question of Love has been

raised.  Now we shall see in action a manner of Love that was

thought to be dead with the Middle Ages."  And then the lights

went down and the spotlights came on again, one on your

poor and suffering Friend and Narrator, and into the other

there like rolled or sidled the most lovely young devotchka

you could ever hope in all your jeezny, O my brothers, to

viddy.  That is to say, she had real horrorshow groodies all of

which you could like viddy, she having on platties which came

down down down off her pletchoes.  And her nogas were like

Bog in His Heaven, and she walked like to make you groan in

your keeshkas, and yet her litso was a sweet smiling young

like innocent litso.  She came up towards me with the light like

it was the like light of heavenly grace and all that cal coming

with her, and the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was

that I would like to have her right down there on the floor

with the old in-out real savage, but skorry as a shot came the

sickness, like a like detective that had been watching round a

corner and now followed to make his grahzny arrest.  And

now the von of lovely perfume that came off her made me

want to think of starting to heave in my keeshkas, so I

knew I had to think of some new like way of thinking about

her before all the pain and thirstiness and horrible sickness

come over me real horrorshow and proper.  So I creeched out:

"O most beautiful and beauteous of devotchkas, I throw

like my heart at your feet for you to like trample all over.  If I

had a rose I would give it to you.  If it was all rainy and cally

now on the ground you could have my platties to walk on so

as not to cover your dainty nogas with filth and cal."  And as I

was saying all this, O my brothers, I could feel the sickness

like slinking back.  "Let me," I creeched out, "worship you and

be like your helper and protector from the wicked like world."

Then I thought of the right slovo and felt better for it, saying:

"Let me be like your true knight," and down I went again on

the old knees, bowing and like scraping.

And then I felt real shooty and dim, it having been like an

act again, for this devotchka smiled and bowed to the audi-

ence and like danced off, the lights coming up to a bit of

applause.  And the glazzies of some of these starry vecks in the

audience were like popping out at this young devotchka with

dirty and like unholy desire, O my brothers.

"He will be your true Christian," Dr. Brodsky was creeching

out, "ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified

rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought even

of killing a fly."  And that was right, brothers, because when he

said that I thought of killing a fly and felt just that tiny bit

sick, but I pushed the sickness and pain back by thinking of the

fly being fed with bits of sugar and looked after like a bleeding

pet and all that cal.  "Reclamation," he creeched.  "Joy before

the Angels of God."

"The point is," this Minister of the Inferior was saying real

gromky, "that it works."

"Oh," the prison charlie said, like sighing, "it works all right,

God help the lot of us."

Part Three

 

 

1

 

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

That, my brothers, was me asking myself the next morning,

standing outside this white building that was like tacked on to

the old Staja, in my platties of the night of two years back in

the grey light of dawn, with a malenky bit of a bag with my

few personal veshches in and a bit of cutter kindly donated by

the vonny Authorities to like start me off in my new life.

The rest of the day before had been very tiring, what with

interviews to go on tape for the telenews and photographs

being took flash flash flash and more like demonstrations of

me folding up in the face of ultra-violence and all that embar-

rassing cal.  And then I had like fallen into the bed and then,as

it looked to me, been waked up to be told to get off out, to

itty off home, they did not want to viddy Your Humble Nar-

rator never not no more, O my brothers.  So there I was, very

very early in the morning, with just this bit of pretty polly in

my left carman, jingle-jangling it and wondering:

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

Some breakfast some mesto, I thought, me not having

eaten at all that morning, every veck being so anxious to

tolchock me off out to freedom.  A chasha of chai only I had

peeted.  This Staja was in a very like gloomy part of the town,

but there were malenky workers' caffs all around and I soon

found one of these, my brothers.  It was very cally and vonny,

with one bulb in the ceiling with fly-dirt like obscuring its bit

of light, and there were early rabbiters slurping away at chai

and horrible-looking sausages and slices of kleb which they

like wolfed, going wolf wolf wolf and then creeching for

more.  They were served by a very cally devotchka but with

very bolshy groodies on her, and some of the eating vecks

tried to grab her, going haw haw haw while she went he he he,

and the sight of them near made me want to sick, brothers.

But I asked for some toast and jam and chai very politely and

with my gentleman's goloss, then I sat in a dark corner to eat

and peet.

While I was doing this, a malenky little dwarf of a veck

ittied in, selling the morning's gazettas, a twisted and grahzny

prestoopnick type with thick glasses on with steel rims, his

platties like the colour of very starry decaying currant pudding.

I kupetted a gazetta, my idea being to get ready for plunging

back into normal jeezny again by viddying what was ittying on

in the world.  This gazetta I had seemed to be like a Govern-

ment gazetta, for the only news that was on the front page

was about the need for every veck to make sure he put the

Government back in again on the next General Election,

which seemed to be about two or three weeks off.  There were

very boastful slovos about what the Government had done,

brothers, in the last year or so, what with increased exports

and a real horrorshow foreign policy and improved social

services and all that cal.  But what the Government was really

most boastful about was the way in which they reckoned the

streets had been made safer for all peace-loving night-walking

lewdies in the last six months, what with better pay for the

police and the police getting like tougher with young hooli-

gans and perverts and burglars and all that cal.  Which inter-

essovatted Your Humble Narrator some deal.  And on the

second page of the gazetta there was a blurry like photograph

of somebody who looked very familiar, and it turned out to

be none other than me me me.  I looked very gloomy and like

scared, but that was really with the flashbulbs going pop pop

all the time.  What it said undrneath my picture was that here

was the first graduate from the new State Institute for Rec-

lamation of Criminal Types, cured of his criminal instincts in a

fortnight only, now a good law-fearing citizen and all that cal.

Then I viddied there was a very boastful article about this

Ludovico's Technique and how clever the Government was

and all that cal.  Then there was another picture of some veck I

thought I knew, and it was this Minister of the Inferior or

Interior.  It seemed that he had been doing a bit of boasting,

looking forward to a nice crime-free era in which there would

be no more fear of cowardly attacks from young hooligans

and perverts and burglars and all that cal.  So I went

arghhhhhh and threw this gazetta on the floor, so that it

covered up stains of spilled chai and horrible spat gobs from

the cally animals that used thus caff.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

What it was going to be now, brothers, was homeways and

a nice surprise for dadada and mum, their only son and heir

back in the family bosom.  Then I could lay back on the bed in

my own malenky den and slooshy some lovely music, and at

the same time I could think over what to do now with my

jeezny.  The Discharge Officer had given me a long list the day

before of jobs I could try for, and he had telephoned to

different vecks about me, but I had no intention, my brothers,

of going off to rabbit right away.  A malenky bit of a rest first,

yes, and a quiet think on the bed to the sound of lovely

music.

And so the autobus to Center, and then the autobus to

Kingsley Avenue, the flats of Flatblock 18A being just near.

You will believe me, my brothers, when I say that my heart

was going clopclopclop with the like excitement.  All was very

quiet, it still being early winter morning, and when I ittied into

the vestibule of the flatblock there was no veck about, only

the nagoy vecks and cheenas of the Dignity of Labour.  What

surprised me, brothers, was the way that had been cleaned up,

there being no longer any dirty ballooning slovos from the

rots of the Dignified Labourers, not any dirty parts of the

body added to their naked plotts by dirty-minded pencilling

malchicks.  And what also surprised me was that the lift was

working.  It came purring down when I pressed the electric

knopka, and when I got in I was surprised again to viddy all

was clean inside the like cage.

So up I went to the tenth floor, and there I saw 10-8 as it

had been before, and my rooker trembled and shook as I

took out of my carman the little klootch I had for opening

up.  But I very firmly fitted the klootch in the lock and turned,

then opened up then went in, and there I met three pairs of

surprised and almost frightened glazzies looking at me, and it

was pee and em having their breakfast, but it was also another

veck that I had never viddied in my jeezny before, a bolshy

thick veck in his shirt and braces, quite at home, brothers,

slurping away at the milky chai and munchmunching at his

eggiweg and toast.  And it was this stranger veck who spoke

first, saying:

"Who are you, friend?  Where did you get hold of a key?

Out, before I push your face in.  Get out there and knock.

Explain your business, quick."

My dad and mum sat like petrified, and I could viddy they

had not yet read the gazetta, then I remembered that the ga-

zetta did not arrive till papapa had gone off to his work.  But

then mum said: "Oh, you've broken out.  You've escaped.

Whatever shall we do?  We shall have the police here, oh oh

oh.  Oh, you bad and wicked boy, disgracing us all like this."

And, believe it or kiss my sharries, she started to go boo hoo.

So I started to try and explain, they could ring up the Staja if

they wanted, and all the time this stranger veck sat there like

frowning and looking as if he could push my litso in with his

hairy bolshy beefy fist.  So I said:

"How about you answering a few, brother?  What are you

doing here and for how long?  I didn't like the tone of what

you said just then.  Watch it.  Come on, speak up."  He was a

working-man type veck, very ugly, about thirty or forty, and

he sat now with his rot open at me, not govoreeting one

single slovo.  Then my dad said:

"This is all a bit bewildering, son.  You should have let us

know you were coming.  We thought it would be at least

another five or six years before they let you out.  Not," he

said, and he said it very like gloomy, "that we're not very

pleased to see you again and a free man, too."

"Who is this?" I said.  "Why can't he speak up?  What's going

on in here?"

"This is Joe," said my mum.  "He lives here now.  The lodger,

that's what he is.  Oh, dear dear dear," she went.

"You," said this Joe.  "I've heard all about you, boy.  I know

what you've done, breaking the hearts of your poor grieving

parents.  So you're back, eh?  Back to make life a misery for

them once more, is that it?  Over my dead corpse you will,

because they've let me be more like a son to them than like a

lodger."  I could nearly have smecked loud at that if the old

razdraz within me hadn't started to wake up the feeling of

wanting to sick, because this veck looked about the same age

as my pee and em, and there he was like trying to put a son's

protecting rooker round my crying mum, O my brothers.

"So," I said, and I near felt like collapsing in all tears myself.

"So that's it, then.  Well, I give you five large minootas to clear

all your horrible cally veshches out of my room."  And I made

for this room, this veck being a malenky bit too slow to stop

me.  When I opened the door my heart cracked to the carpet,

because I viddied it was no longer like my room at all,

brothers.  All my flags had gone off the walls and this veck had

put up pictures of boxers, also like a team sitting smug with

folded rookers and silver like shield in front.  And then I vid-

died what else was missing.  My stereo and my disc-cupboard

were no longer there, nor was my locked treasure-chest that

contained bottles and drugs and two shining clean syringes.

"There's been some filthy vonny work going on here," I

creeched.  "What have you done with my own personal

veshches, you horrible bastard?"  This was to this Joe, but it was

my dad that answered, saying:

"That was all took away, son, by the police.  This new regu-

lation, see, about compensation for the victims."

I found it very hard not to be very ill, but my gulliver was

aching shocking and my rot was so dry that I had to take a

skorry swig from the milk-bottle on the table, so that this Joe

said: "Filthy piggish manners."  I said:

"But she died.  That one died."

"It was the cats, son," said my dad like sorrowful, "that were

left with nobody to look after them till the will was read, so

they had to have somebody in to feed them.  So the police

sold your things, clothes and all, to help with the looking

after of them.  That's the law, son.  But you were never much

of a one for following the law."

I had to sit down then, and this Joe said: "Ask permission

before you sit, you mannerless young swine," so I cracked

back skorry with a "Shut your dirty big fat hole, you," feeling

sick.  Then I tried to be all reasonable and smiling for my

health's sake like, so I said: "Well, that's my room, there's no

denying that.  This is my home also.  What suggestions have

you, my pee and em, to make?"  But they just looked very

glum, my mum shaking a bit, her litso all lines and wet with

like tears, and then my dad said:

"All this needs thinking about, son.  We can't very well just

kick Joe out, not just like that, can we?  I mean, Joe's here

doing a job, a contract it is, two years, and we made like an

arrangement, didn't we, Joe?  I mean son, thinking you were

going to stay in prison a long time and that room going beg-

ging."  He was a bit ashamed, you could viddy that from his

litso.  So I just smiled and like nodded, saying:

"I viddy all.  You got used to a bit of peace and you got

used to a bit of extra pretty polly.  That's the way it goes.

And your son has just been nothing but a terrible nuisance."

And then, my brothers, believe me or kiss my sharries, I

started to like cry, feeling very like sorry for myself.  So my

dad said:

"Well, you see, son, Joe's paid next month's rent already.  I

mean, whatever we do in the future we can't say to Joe to get

out, can we, Joe?"  This Joe said:

"It's you two I've got to think of, who've been like a father

and mother to me.  Would it be right or fair to go off and

leave you to the tender mercies of this young monster who

has been like no real son at all?  He's weeping now, but that's

his craft and artfulness.  Let him go off and find a room some-

where.  Let him learn the error of his ways and that a bad boy

like he's been doesn't deserve such a good mum and dad as

what he's had."

"All right," I said, standing up in all like tears still.  "I know

how things are now.  Nobody wants or loves me.  I've suffered

and suffered and suffered and everybody wants me to go on

suffering.  I know."

"You've made others suffer," said this Joe.  "It's only right

you should suffer proper.  I've been told everything that

you've done, sitting here at night round the family table, and

pretty shocking it was to listen to.  Made me real sick a lot of

it did."

"I wish," I said, "I was back in the prison.  Dear old Staja as it

was.  I'm ittying off now," I said.  "You won't ever viddy me no

more.  I'll make my own way, thank you very much.  Let it lie

heavy on your consciences."  My dad said:

"Don't take it like that, son," and my mum just went boo

hoo hoo, her litso all screwed up real ugly, and this Joe put

his rooker round her again, patting her and going there there

there like bezoomny.  And so I just sort of staggered to the

door and went out, leaving them to their horrible guilt, O my

brothers.

 

 

2

 

Ittying down the street in a like aimless sort of a way

brothers, in these night platties which lewdies like stared at as

I went by, cold too, it being a bastard cold winter day, all I felt

I wanted was to be away from all this and not have to

think any more about any sort of veshch at all.  So I got the

autobus to Center, then walked back to Taylor Place, and

there was the disc-bootick 'MELODIA' - I had used to favour

with my inestimable custom, O my brothers, and it looked

much the same sort of mesto as it always had, and walking in I

expected to viddy old Andy there, that bald and very very thin

helpful little veck from whom I had kupetted discs in the old

days.  But there was no Andy there now, brothers, only a

scream and a creech of nadsat (teenage, that is) malchicks and

ptitsas slooshying some new horrible popsong and dancing

to it as well, and the veck behind the counter not much more

than a nadsat himself, clicking his rooker-bones and smecking

like bezoomny.  So I went up and waited till he like deigned to

notice me, then I said:

"I'd like to hear a disc of the Mozart Number Forty."  I don't

know why that should have come into my gulliver, but it did.

The counter-veck said:

"Forty what, friend?"

I said: "Symphony.  Symphony Number Forty in G Minor."

"Ooooh," went one of the dancing nadsats, a malchick with

his hair all over his glazzies, "seemfunnah.  Don't it seem

funny?  He wants a seemfunnah."

I could feel myself growing all razdraz within, but I had to

watch that, so I like smiled at the veck who had taken over

Andy's place and at all the dancing and creeching nadsats.  This

counter-veck said: "You go into that listen-booth over there,

friend, and I'll pipe something through."

So I went over to the malenky box where you could sloo-

shy the discs you wanted to buy, and then this veck put a disc

on for me, but it wasn't the Mozart Forty, it was the Mozart

'Prague' - he seemingly having just picked up any Mozart he

could find on the shelf - and that should have started making

me real razdraz and I had to watch that for fear of the pain

and sickness, but what I'd forgotten was something I

shouldn't have forgotten and now made me want to snuff it.

It was that these doctor bratchnies had so fixed things that

any music that was like for the emotions would make me sick

just like viddying or wanting to do violence.  It was because all

those violence films had music with them.  And I remembered

especially that horrible Nazi film with the Beethoven Fifth,

last movement.  And now here was lovely Mozart made hor-

rible.  I dashed out of the shop with these nadsats smecking

after me and the counter-veck creeching: "Eh eh eh!"  But I

took no notice and went staggering almost like blind across

the road and round the corner to the Korova Milkbar.  I knew

what I wanted.

The mesto was near empty, it being still morning.  It looked

strange too, having been painted with all red mooing cows,

and behind the counter was no veck I knew.  But when I said:

"Milk plus, large," the veck with a like lean litso very newly

shaved knew what I wanted.  I took the large moloko plus to

one of the little cubies that were all around this mesto, there

being like curtains to shut them off from the main mesto, and

there I sat down in the plushy chair and sipped and sipped.

When I'd finished the whole lot I began to feel that things

were happening.  I had my glazzies like fixed on a malenky bit

of silver paper from a cancer packet that was on the floor, the

sweeping-up of this mesto not being all that horrorshow,

brothers.  This scrap of silver began to grow and grow and

grow and it was so like bright and fiery that I had to squint my

glazzies at it.  It got so big that it became not only this whole

cubie I was lolling in but like the whole Korova, the whole

street, the whole city.  Then it was the whole world, then it

was the whole everything, brothers, and it was like a sea

washing over every veshch that had ever been made or

thought of even.  I could sort of slooshy myself making

special sort of shooms and govoreeting slovos like 'Dear

dead idlewilds, rot not in variform guises' and all that cal.

Then I could like feel the vision beating up in all this silver,

and then there were colours like nobody had ever viddied

before, and then I could viddy like a group of statues a long

long long way off that was like being pushed nearer and

nearer and nearer, all lit up by very bright light from below

and above alike, O my brothers.  This group of statues was of

God or Bog and all His Holy Angels and Saints, all very bright

like bronze, with beards and bolshy great wings that waved

about in a kind of wind, so that they could not really be of

stone or bronze, really, and the eyes or glazzies like moved

and were alive.  These bolshy big figures came nearer and

nearer and nearer till they were like going to crush me down,

and I could slooshy my goloss going 'Eeeeee'.  And I felt I had

got rid of everything - platties, body, brain, name, the lot -

and felt real horrorshow, like in heaven.  Then there was the

shoom of like crumbling and crumpling, and Bog and the

Angels and Saints sort of shook their gullivers at me, as

though to govoreet that there wasn't quite time now but I

must try again, and then everything like leered and smecked

and collapsed and the big warm light grew like cold, and then

there I was as I was before, the empty glass on the table and

wanting to cry and feeling like death was the only answer to

everything.

And that was it, that was what I viddied quite clear was the

thing to do, but how to do it I did not properly know, never

having thought of that before, O my brothers.  In my little bag

of personal veshches I had my cut-throat britva, but I at once

felt very sick as I thought of myself going swishhhh at myself

and all my own red red krovvy flowing.  What I wanted was

not something violent but something that would make me

like just go off gentle to sleep and that be the end of Your

Humble Narrator, no more trouble to anybody any more.

Perhaps, i thought, if I ittied off to the Public Biblio around

the corner I might find some book on the best way of snuffing

it with no pain.  I thought of myself dead and how sorry every-

body was going to be, pee and em and that cally vonny Joe

who was a like usurper, and also Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom

and that Inferior Interior Minister and every veck else.  And the

boastful vonny Government too.  So out I scatted into the

winter, and it was afternoon now, near two o'clock, as I

could viddy from the bolshy Center timepiece, so that me

being in the land with the old moloko plus must have took

like longer than I thought.  I walked down Marghanita Boule-

vard and then turned into Boothby Avenue, then round the

corner again, and there was the Public Biblio.

It was a starry cally sort of a mesto that I could not re-

member going into since I was a very very malenky malchick,

no more than about six years old, and there were two parts of

it - one part to borrow books and one part to read in, full of

gazettas and mags and like the von of very starry old men

with their plotts stinking of like old age and poverty.  These

were standing at the gazetta stands all round the room,

sniffling and belching and govoreeting to themselves and

turning over the pages to read the news very sadly, or else

they were sitting at the tables looking at the mags or pre-

tending to, some of them asleep and one or two of them

snoring real gromky.  I couldn't remember what it was I

wanted at first, then I remembered with a bit of a shock that

I had ittied here to find out how to snuff it without pain, so I

goolied over to the shelf full of reference veshches.  There were

a lot of books, but there was none with a title, brothers, that

would really do.  There was a medical book that I took down,

but when I opened it it was full of drawings and photographs

of horrible wounds and diseases, and that made me want to

sick just a bit.  So I put that back and took down the big

book or Bible, as it was called, thinking that might give me

like comfort as it had done in the old Staja days (not so old

really, but it seemed a very very long time ago), and I staggered

over to a chair to read in it.  But all I found was about smiting

seventy times seven and a lot of Jews cursing and tolchocking

each other, and that made me want to sick, too.  So then I

near cried, so that a very starry ragged moodge opposite me

said:

"What is it, son?  What's the trouble?"

"I want to snuff it," I said.  "I've had it, that's what it is.  Life's

become too much for me."

A starry reading veck next to me said: "Shhhh," without

looking up from some bezoomny mag he had full of drawings

of like bolshy geometrical veshches.