Stavros Kouchtsoglous*
It has been centuries since the bourgeois invented the means of voting, in order to suppress the desires of the people, and to keep them in misery, for so many years to make them believe that he - the hungry, the ragged, the miserable - is the Sovereign, and they are his servants. And for 120 years now I too, the worker - industrialist or farmer - have believed their lie as truth, their mockery as seriousness. And I have been cursed all over, and have suffered for generations to bring "the best" into things, to serve me, and these my chosen servants, coming into things, have always had first concern how to plunge me further into the mire of misery, enjoying from my misery and living from my death.
It is now enough henceforth. I cease now to have the title of lord and servant. I want no man's service, for I have resolved to serve myself. For I decide and say.
I DO NOT VOTE.
For I have now understood that all - Monarchists, Constitutionalists, Democrats, Socialists, etc. - are liars, and that all of them, wanting to work, offer themselves willingly to serve me ostensibly, and indeed to enjoy themselves out of my privations and to live happily all their lives at my expense, forcing me to work so that they may command and they may reap.
I DO NOT VOTE
For I no longer wish to elect with my hands my tyrants, thus ratifying every four years by their invention - the vote - this burdensome social Contract, which keeps me in despair, in desolation and in death.
I DO NOT VOTE
Because I no longer want to run every four years, like a dog, to elect at the ballot box, myself, the tyrants who will take an active part in the operation of this system, to crush the weak if they ask for a little bread in their hunger, paying them, myself, for their abominable work with money, with privileges, with honours.
I DO NOT VOTE
For I have ceased to expect my salvation by the miracle of my vote. Gone are the days of miracles, of wizards, of saints, of saints, of spiritualists, of voting. I break this connotation of miracles and take my initiative, organizing myself financially and away from the political rot of the dilettantes, as if I now understood that my emancipation will only then be achieved and I will now myself - through my organization - indulge in the restoration of my position.
I DO NOT VOTE
Because I want the disappearance of this obscene trade, where people are forced to sell their hands, their skills, their knowledge, their meat, their daughters, their sons, their families, their friendships, and to be exploited by the bankers, the merchants, the industrialists, the brokers, the brokers, the religion, the bureaucracy, the state, and that the doctor exploits the sick, the priest the dead, and that they all run like crooks down the slope of their humiliation, taking care only of money, ambition and the pleasure of their brutal ego.
I DO NOT VOTE
Because I want the disappearance of this merry-go-round that buys and sells its happiness, which makes up today's Society, and the re-creation of a new and free society through my organizations, in which alone the individual will find complete freedom and dignity.
I DO NOT VOTE
For I have come to understand that those who take a label of Libertarians, Liberals, Socialists, etc. and stick like lice to my scabies with the promise that they will cure it, do nothing but increase its itch, open its wounds deeper, keep me in a miserable condition from which I shall not be free until the day when I cast them off forever and confine myself for my healing to the sanatorium of my organization.
I DO NOT VOTE
For I have now seen that by this means I have been going all my life on the butt of my ox ploughing the earth, with a title of Sovereign, while those who present themselves as Nationalists, Liberals, Socialists, etc. in order to serve me ostensibly, enjoy all the natural beauties, they listen to music, while I listen to... of my bread, they bathe themselves with herbs, while I clean manure, they binge, while I, half buried, wet my dry clothes to eat them.
I DON'T VOTE
For I am now awakened from the slumber into which all these charlatans have plunged me, and I have seen that nature has endowed me as well as them with a mind to develop it as much as I can; with eyes to see what is beautiful to me; with ears to hear such sounds as please me; with smell to smell what is good to me; with a mind to smell what is good to me; with a mind to develop as much as I can; with eyes to see what is beautiful to me; with ears to hear such sounds as please me; with a sense of smell to smell what is good to me; with a sense of smell to smell what is good to me; with a sense of smell to smell what is good to me, what odour I prefer; with taste to taste what substance pleaseth me; with teeth, with mouth to chew and send to my mouth such need of food as it hath; with feet to direct and walk as I please; and with hands to work according to the necessity that shall present itself to me for the satisfaction of the foregoing appetites.
I DO NOT VOTE
For all these instruments with which nature has endowed me, through this means of voting, have been subdued by the scoundrels, and no movement remains free to me. All my necessities of my eyes, my mind, my ears, my nose, my teeth, my stomach, my feet and my hands, depend on the "Let us decide and decree" of the Nationalists, Liberals, Socialists and other vagabonds, who offer themselves as the servants of supposedly me, the Sovereign, and mock me.
I DO NOT VOTE
For it is now necessary to put through my organizations every scoundrel in the position of abolishing "We Decide and Decree" whether pronounced by Gounarin, or by Venizelon, or by Bryan, or by Lenin. "Decide and order" your hides only of others, for the natural and true law says so; every individual "decides and orders" himself only according to his own needs, and every organization according to the needs of its members.
I DO NOT VOTE
For history has taught me that Discipline and Obedience to the "decree and command" of others, encompass within them all my misery, deprivation and death, not only of my own special one, but also of my wife and children, and those that are born and those that shall have the misfortune to be born, thus depriving whole families and whole nations for the pleasure of a few ambitious foolish, barbarous, brutish, brute-men.
I DO NOT VOTE
For I have now well understood that there is a natural law, Discipline and Obey to satisfy the needs of my organization, which needs will certainly be felt by the other members of my organization and will be fulfilled by it alone.
I DO NOT VOTE
Because I want to live free now, and this freedom cannot be given to me by any kind of opportunistic opportunists through "deciding and decreeing" and therefore I "decide and decree" myself, so that I can, far from any viciousness, impose freedom on them through my organizations. And I have the conviction that if, thinking in this way, every worker makes the same decision as I do, within a short period of time we will experience the good results of our free and free from all political rottenness organizations.”
*Anarchist anti-electoral article-manifesto by Stavros Kouchtsoglous, entitled "I do not vote", published in issue 210 of newspaper “Amyna” (Defence), Monday, 2 November 1920.
