The first Anarchist manifesto, written in 1850, declares "Anarchy is order, whereas government is civil war" and argues with language as sharp even now as any against the delusion that voting does any good for anyone but politicians and puts the case that the established power structure is a gigantic crime against humanity. "Every individual who, in the current state of affairs, drops a paper into the ballot box to choose a legislative authority or a executive authority is perhaps not wittingly but at least out of ignorance, maybe not directly, but at least indirectly a bad citizen. I repeat what I have been saying and take back not a single syllable of it." An introduction by Sharif Gemie places Bellegarrigue in his social and political context of the struggles for emancipation following on from the French revolution.