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To give an illustration. Certain keen thinkers in Italy where, according to many at home and abroad, a Bolshevis revolution is getting ready (but Italy is a long way from that, I thank God!), have observed that the most part our strikes and disputes are simply an agitation among th working classes to obtain shorter hours, more leisure an a rate of pay which would permit more enjoyment; & B agitation, according to others, which will be exploited by agents provocateurs at home and abroad. Certain it is the the raging propaganda carried on to-day in our countr districts reveals in the peasants a decided inclination no to "socialize" that means of production, the land, b rather to "appropriate it. Under the red flag of Com munism there is a rapid rush, perhaps deliberate, towar individualism and the principle of private property. Th Socialists once talked of the expropriation of the lan and they met with no success among the peasantry; an agitators now speak of the land as a means or instrument production to be left to its occupiers, and these follow them But the design is, in the end, to cheat and expropriate. peasants who have taken the owners' place.

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Socialists do not appear to be well acquainted wi affairs in Russia. Moreover, in Italy there has sprung u as a result of the war, a new middle class which, under th illusion of hastening the advent of Socialism by strikes an agitations, is in reality seeking to join the governing class and take part in the government. The same thing is visib in Russia, which offers its immense territory stretchin across two continents to the "triumph of the Great Beast that is to say, to Socialism, in that acutest of its stages whi is called Bolshevism. Is that -Socialism? By no mean Is it the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"? Certainly no Is it Communism? No, again. It is simply Bolshevis which is Socialism finally unmasked.

In the Russian Revolution we see, on the one hand, immense number of new persons, carried up from the low depths of barbarism and taking their place at the "banqu of life," forming new bureaucracies in the Soviets, with new Capitalism of their own, otherwise called theft a plunder fulfilling thus the first instinct of the individua that of possession and enjoyment. We see, on the othe hand, a more limited number of new persons, springing from the intellectual and professional classes, and, throug revolution, striving after power: fulfilling thus the secon instinct of the individual, that of ambition. Italian com spondents in Bolshevist Russia note that at Petrograd an

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loscow there exists a widespread chase after pleasure, There the satiated instinets of the individual belonging to he old régime are quickened by the primitive passions of numerable Euro-Asiatic populations. Other typical and ore important characteristics, which deserve to be recorded the history of nations and of empires, are exhibited by eussian Bolshevism. This child of Socialism, proletarian, galitarian, humanitarian, pacifist, which abolishes the death enalty and suppresses armies, is the product of Karl Marx, he German, and of Leo Tolstoi, the Russian. With octrines professedly drawn from the New Testament it the reates a Terror, a Pretorian tyranny, from which may roceed, as we have observed above, the most tremendous Demilitarist and imperialistic movements which history will cord. Italian correspondents give striking details of the dew Bolshevist militarism which but lately advanced upon re-stricken Poland; and Italian Socialists themselves, who re peacemongers in regard to Italy, are infected by Russia ith an utterly un-Italian Jingoism. They laud and glorify The marching, reviews, parades of the Bolshevist armies, ith their discipline more perfect than ever it was under he Tsar." Trotsky appears, if not already a Napoleon, yet kind of military Robespierre heading the Russian Revoluon. He throws out phrases such as these: "We must ke a red-hot iron to create a strong army, with rigid iscipline, united and unconquerable. We must drive home inspect for military science and thought. We must be rmeated with a military spirit." In the book from which take these utterances, which have the true Napoleonic ng about them-Bolshevism seen by a Russian, its Lithor, Marcus Slonim, an eyewitness, a Socialist and -deputy of the Pan-Russian Constituent Assembly-we Bad:

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The militarist spirit is very widely diffused in the st Socialist Republic of the world. There exists in Russia extensive militarist Press, exactly resembling the thauvinist newspapers against which the Socialists of all untries have raved, the Russians in particular. There is also been set up a bureau for military propaganda." nd Lenin writes a letter to his comrade, Bela. Kun, pubhed in the Tribune of Prague, in which, among other ings, he says: "The Red Army, which across Armenia extending its hand to Mustapha Kemal, and across Persia, ad Turkestan is approaching the Himalayas, has before it world-wide task, far more important than the occupation any Polish province." Lenin may be something of a Taggart; but that is how he feels.

VOL. LXXVI

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Now, such, transformations of Socialism do not, indeed du reveal bad faith or hypocrisy on the part of the Socialist These unfortunate men are very often self-deceived, and unconsciously obey the nature of things, the iron laws i which govern humanity and its vital forms. Without te knowing it, they have been defeated. Such is the criticism sia which Italian Nationalism levels against the international Thereby Socialism is deprived of its chief force of propaganda that given to it by the dogma of its assured "advent at the same time it is brought to its proper place in history! Our view is that Socialism is not an autonomous pheno menon, but simply an episode in a much more general and vaster historic process. Remaining within the circle of ou Latinity, we observe that the French Revolution nationalized France by taking away personal rule and substituting the rule of a class for that of a caste. It promoted, in othe words, the national spirit, extending national functions t a greater number of citizens. It is well understood how greatly that Revolution promoted national feeling among the "bourgeoisie" in many countries of the Old and New World. Napoleon's conquest did much to rouse Italy and paved the way to unity and independence. But outside the bourgeoisie there stood the proletariat. Now Socialism which lies between the "class, class," an organization too narrow and insufficient, and the "international," a mere abstrac tion, must, willy-nilly, in spite of its hopes and intentions lead up to a nationalizing of the proletariat. It ma educate in them a sense of patriotism or provoke a violen revolution. When the French bourgeoisie carried out it political revolution, it had already achieved an econom revolution without fighting. The Revolution was a secon phase, loud and bloodstained, of a calm or silent

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But with Socialism came a new method-and that is th real title of modern Socialism to originality: the idea class organization. In this, the middle classes, in rega both to economics and to politics, followed late and slowly losing in the meantime, if not a great deal of econom power, yet much in political strength. They have now make up for lost time by working out their own schem of class organization.

We find, therefore, in regard to organization, a f period, that of the working classes: these have alread effected their organization. A second period, that of th middle classes: these, engaged in work and production in industry and agriculture, are now setting up organization of their own. To these two periods a third will succee

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do that of unity: working class and middle class organizations, theby means of the very struggle between them, will be driven to find a point of contact, and thus will move on towards the the National Society and National State.

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In the lucid terms of our doctrine, the "protagonist," is for head and front of social order, must be changed. In the eintold monarchies the protagonist was the king. In aristocoftacies, the caste. In oligarchies, the council. In modern Liberal States, the citizen; in democracy the people: lace and in both, in reality, a class, the bourgeoisie. In Socialism the protagonist is the proletariat. In the national society, finally, the protagonist is the nation. This is the new truth of our national platform. Naturally such a doctrine, the "advent of the national society," is subject to time and accident like all human things. Every existing ted State, moreover, implies a kind of national society; and many such are highly developed. Nevertheless, given our drealized ideal of the nation, which unites conservatism with progress, Socialism is overcome, and the links between the constituent portions are tightened. The whole recognizes the parts; the parts live and flourish in the whole. We may consider this to be the ideal which political thought in Western Europe to-day is seeking.

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In Italy this doctrine has already striking results, and outside it is capable of universal application. It preserves the distinction among classes through their functions of labour and production; it safeguards the hierarchy of science and intelligence; it leaves the individual with his property, so that he can direct labour and production; it renovates and welcomes the modern collective forms of property, such as co-operation and Labour Societies.

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Certain members, belonging to the Turin group of the Association, have recently founded a society of which the programme includes the following articles: First, a Society is hereby formed in Turin to be called the Turin Dairy Association. It arises solely from the union of the single labouring and productive capacities of its members, hot having to begin with any plant or other capital. This society, by the sole fruits of the labour contributed by each associate, aims at acquiring such property, capital and means. of production as have been lent by persons outside. Such property, while in course of acquisition, will be divided among the members of the society in proportion to the labour of each, and on the basis of the utilities attained. Secondly, only those shall form part of the society who actually and Continuously give their intellectual and physical work to

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it, whether personal, technical and ministrative, or as workmen. All are excluded who, though furnishing to the society capital and the means of labour, do not give mental or manual help either at all or continuously." And the principle of the society's rule is this: "The society will have no employees, no wage-earners, but only member whose different forces and talents, properly valued and measured, all united and co-ordinated, shall attain social ab ends, viz. the exclusive assignment of property in the means of production and labour to the living factors of the production themselves."

The experiment is noteworthy. The founders' aim may appear somewhat simple; for the technicians, adminis trators and workmen of the society may start from perfect equality to arrive at perfect inequality; it being sufficient for this that some of the members should be good economistasi and others spendthrifts-the latter will sell to the former their portion of the property acquired. But the spirit in which the new society has been founded is notable: it: unites in itself the principle of private property and the associative and egalitarian principle of the day. Private property means the man. Private property means the family. Private property means civilization and progress Socialism, Bolshevism, Communism tend to the conquest of private property. So do co-operative societies which start from Collectivism. But these social forms of property and others which may arise in future, must respect the old individual forms and not destroy them.

Here, then, is a new concept, corresponding to a general law of progress. Civilization, mechanic, dynamic, economic, social, is passing from the one to the many, from the simple to the composite. Progress consists in this enrichment of the forms and means of life. The principle of private property, the distinction of classes, and their inequality are terms of the civilization wherein and whereby we livet precisely because human society is manifold and complex We might imagine "equality" to be a fact in Central Africa, but not in Rome or London. Why, Lenin himself scouts the idea of equality!

Writing in the Communist International of Petrograd last December, Lenin declared: "The little bourgeois Democrats who call themselves Socialists may bow their heads before the idols of equality, universal suffrage, democracy, whether direct or indirect; but the political and economic fact of the inequality [we had better keep Lenin's own italics] of the town and country will not, for

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