Hitherto the Bakouninists had all been firmly convinced that the masses were ready to rise at a moment's notice in order to tear down the existing governments. They were obsessed with the idea that only a spark was needed to set the whole world into a general conflagration. But repeated failures taught them that the masses were inclined to make very little sacrifice for the sake of communism and that stupendous efforts were needed to create a revolution. It appeared to them, therefore, that the propaganda of words and of theories was of little avail. Consequently, these four youths, with their friends, set out to spread knowledge by acts of violence. Of course, they had not entirely given up the hope that a minority could, by a series of well-planned assaults, gradually sweep in after them the masses. But even should they fail in that, they felt that they must strike at the enemy, though they stood alone. Whatever happened, they argued, the acts themselves would prove of great propaganda value. Even the trials would enable them to use the courts as a tribune, and the bourgeois press itself would print their words and spread throughout the world their doctrines. In the _Bulletin_ of the Jura Federation, December 3, 1876, Cafiero and Malatesta wrote: "The great majority of Italian socialists are grouped about the program of the Italian Federation--a program which is anarchist, collectivist, and revolutionary. And the small number who, up to the present, have remained on the outside--the dupes of intrigues and lies--are all beginning to enter our organization. We do not refer to a small group who, influenced by personal considerations and reactionary ends, are trying to establish a propaganda which they call 'gradual and peaceful.' These have already been judged in the opinion of the Italian socialists and represent nothing but themselves.