[...] Electoral politics revolted us most of all since it concerned the very essence of Socialism. We were at once, it now seems to me, both very just and very unjust, because of our ignorance of life, which is full of complications and compromises. The two percent dividend returned by the cooperatives to their shareholders filled us with bitter laughter because it was impossible for us to grasp the victories behind it. “The presumption of youth!” they said: but in fact we were craving for an absolute. The Racket exists always and everywhere, for it is impossible to escape from one’s time and we are in the time of money. I kept finding the Racket, flourishing and sometimes salutary, in the age of trade and in the midst of revolution. We had yearned for a passionate, pure Socialism. We had satisfied ourselves with a Socialism of battle, and it was the great age of reformism. At a special congress of the Belgian Workers’ Party, Vandervelde,* young still, lean, dark, and full of fire, advocated the annexation of the Congo. We stood up in protest and left the hall, gesturing vehemently. Where could we go, what could become of us with this need for the absolute, this yearning for battle, this blind desire, against all obstacles, to escape from the city and the life from which there was no escape?

We needed a principle. To strive for and to achieve: a way of life. I now understand, in the light of reflection, how easy it is for charlatans to offer vain solutions to the young: “March in rows of four and believe in Me.” For lack of anything better... It is the failures of the others that makes for the strength of the fuhrers. When there’s no worthwhile banner, you start to march behind worthless ones. When you don’t have the genuine article, you live with the counterfeit. [...]