“Without vacillation, I can say that Praxedis was the most pure, most intelligent, and most selfless man—the bravest when it came to the cause of the dispos­sessed.” —Ricardo Flores Magón Praxedis G. Guerrero was born into a wealthy family in Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1882. While still a young man, he renounced his inheritance, claiming that he would rather earn his meals through manual labor than secure them by exploiting his fellow human beings. Within less than a decade, he was a central figure in the transnational revolutionary network established by the Organizational Council of the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), which was dedicated to deposing the dictator Porfirio Díaz and promoting anar­chist revolution throughout Mexico. He was killed in battle at the age of twenty-eight in 1910. Guerrero was also one of the most prolific and talented revolutionary writ­ers of his era, penning numerous articles that were known for both their literary style and their polemical force. In this volume, editor and translator Javier Sethness-Castro has collected a wide range of Guerrero’s work for the newspapers Revolucíon , Punto Rojo , and Regeneracíon , most of them appear­ing for the first time in English. This edition also includes a biographical introduction and helpful annotations throughout. "Unhesitatingly it can be said that Praxedis was one of the purest, worthiest, most intelligent, self-denying and bravest men that ever espoused the cause of the disinherited." ―Ricardo Flores Magón Praxedis G. Guerrero (1882-1910) was a Mexican revolutionary from Guanajuato. He was a poet, essayist, and journalist associated with Flores Magón's Mexican Liberal Party. He lived for many years in the United States before dying in the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Javier Sethness-Castro is a libertarian socialist, the author of Imperiled Life: Revolution Against Climate Catastrophe , For a Free Nature: Critical Theory, Social Ecology, and Post-Developmentalism , and Eros and Revolution: The Critical Philosophy of Herbert Marcuse . His essays and articles have appeared in Truthout , Marx and Philosophy , and Perspectives on Anarchist Theory . I am Action Without me, the conceptions of the human mind would be but a few wet matches in a moldy matchbox. Without me, the fire would not have warmed the home of men, nor would steam have launched on two steel tracks the rapid locomotive. Without me, the home of humanity would be the forest or the cave. Without me, the stars and suns would still be the brilliant patches that Jehovah nailed to the firmament for the pleasure of the eyes of his people. Without me, Columbus would have been a madman; Bernard Parlissy, a demented person; Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno, liars; Fulton, Franklin, Rontgen, Mongolfier, Marconi, Edison, and Pasteur, dreamers. Without me, the rebellion of conscience would be a cloud of smoke trapped in a nutshell, and the desire for freedom the useless flapping of the wings of an enchained, imprisoned eagle. Without me, all the aspirations and ideals would roll in the mind of people like fallen leaves swirled by the north wind. Progress and Freedom are impossible without me. I am Action. The Goal of Revolution Why is it that, if you desire freedom, you do not kill the tyrant and thus avoid the horrors of a large fratricidal war? Why do you not just kill the despot who oppresses the people and has put a price on your head? This I have been asked several times. "Because I am not an enemy of the tyrant," I reply, "because if I killed the man, tyranny would still persist, and it is this that I fight against; because if I were to launch myself blindly against him, I would do what the dog does when biting the stone, unconsciously injuring itself, without discerning or understanding the impulse from where the injury comes." Tyranny is the logical result of a social illness, which has as its present remedy the Revolution, given that peaceful resistance according to the Tolstoyan doctrine would only produce at this time the annihilation of the few who understand its simplicity and practice it. Inviolable laws of nature govern beings and things: the cause is the creation of the effect; the environment determines in an absolute way the appearance and qualities of the product; where there are putrefying materials, worms live; wherever an organism arises and develops, this is due to the existence of elements for its appearance and nutrition. The bloodiest and most ferocious tyrannies and despotisms cannot transgress this law, which has no trap doors. These oppressive systems exist; beyond the perimeter prevails a special state of the environment, of which they are the result. If they cause offense, damages, or disturbances, one must seek their annulment through the transformation of this morbid environment, not just through the simple assassination of the tyrant. In order to destroy tyranny, the isolated death of one man is ineffective, whether he be