* Two motions had been discussed at length by the National Council, one proposing that the departmental federations should be invited to enter the electoral struggle wherever it was possible, the other that candidates should be put forward everywhere. One member got up and said, " I should be glad of your earnest attention, for the argu- ment which I am about to state may at first sight appear strange and paradoxical. (These two motions) are not irreconcilable, if we try to solve this contradiction according to the natural Marxian method of solving any contradiction" {Socialiste, October 7, 1905). It seems that nobody understood. And, in fact, it was unintelligible.
I30 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE and that, as the result of continually deceiving their readers, they have finally lost all sense of honest discussion. In the Aurore of September 4, 1905, Clemenceau accuses Jaur^s of muddling the minds of his partisans " with meta- physical subtleties into which they are incapable of following him "; there is nothing to object to in this accusation, save the use of the word metaphysical; Jaures is no more a metaphysician than he is a lawyer or an astronomer. In the niunber of October 26 Clemenceau proves that his opponent possesses " the art of falsifying his texts," and he ends by saying, " It seemed to me instructive to expose certain polemical practices which we wrongly supposed to be monopoly of the Jesuits."
Against this noisy, garrulous, and lying Sociahsm, which is exploited by ambitious people of every descrip- tion, which amuses a few buffoons, and which is admired by decadents — revolutionary SyndicaUsm takes its stand, and endeavours, on the contrary, to leave nothing in a state of indecision; its ideas are honestly expressed, without trickery and without mental reservations; no attempt is made to dilute doctrines by a stream of confused com- mentaries. Syndicalism endeavours to employ methods of expression which throw a full Hght on things, which put them exactly in the place assigned to them by their nature, and which bring out the whole value of the forces in play. Oppositions, instead of being glozed over, must be thrown into sharp relief if we desire to obtain a clear idea of the Syndicalist movement; the groups which are struggling one against the other must be shown as separate and as compact as possible; in short, the movements of the revolted masses must be represented in such a way that the soul of the revolutionaries may receive a deep and lasting impression.
These results could not be produced in any very certain manner by the use of ordinary language; use must be made of a body of images which, by intuition alone, and THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE jjj before any considered analyses are made, is capable of evoking as an undivided whole the mass of sentiments which corresponds to the different manifestations of the war undertaken by SociaHsm against modem society. The Syndicalists solve this problem perfectly, by con- centrating the whole of Socialism in the drama of the general strike; there is thus no longer any place for the reconciliation of contraries in the equivocations of the professors; everything is clearly mapped out, so that only one interpretation of Socialism is possible. This method has all the advantages which "integral" knowledge has over analysis, according to the doctrine of Bergson; and perhaps it would not be possible to cite another example which would so perfectly demonstrate the value of the famous professor's doctrines.^ The possibiUty of the actual realisation of the general strike has been much discussed; it has been stated that the Socialist war could not be decided in one single battle. To the people who think themselves cautious, practical, and scientific the difficulty of setting great masses of the proletariat in motion at the same moment seems pro- digious; they have analysed the difficulties of detail which such an enormous struggle would present. It is the opinion of the Socialist-sociologists, as also of the politicians, that the general strike is a popular dream, characteristic of the beginnings of a working-class movement; we have had quoted against us the authority of Sidney Webb, who has decreed that the general strike is an illusion of youth,2 of which the English workers — whom the mono- polists of sociology have so often presented to us as the * The nature of these articles will not allow of any long discussion of this subject; but I believe that it would be possible to develop still further the application of Bergson's ideas to the theory of the general strike. Movement, in Bergson's philosophy, is looked upon as an undivided whole; which leads us precisely to the catastrophic con- ception of Socialism.
■ Bourdeau, Evolution du Socialisme, p. 232, 132 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE depositaries of the true conception of the working-class movement — soon rid themselves.
That the general strike is not popular in contemporary England, is a poor argument to bring against the historical significance of the idea, for the English are distinguished by an extraordinary lack of understanding of the class war; their ideas have remained very much dominated by medieval influences: the guild, privileged, or at least protected by laws, still seems to them the ideal of work- ing-class organisation; it is for England that the term working-class aristocracy, as a name for the trades unionists, was invented, and, as a matter of fact, trades unionism does pursue the acquisition of legal privileges.^ We might therefore say that the aversion felt by England for the general strike should be looked upon as strong presumptive evidence in favour of the latter by all those who look upon the class war as the essence of Socialism.
Moreover, Sidney Webb enjoys a reputation for competence which is very much exaggerated; all that can be put to his credit is that he has waded through un- interesting blue-books, and has had the patience to compose an extremely indigestible compilation on the history of trades unionism; he has a mind of the narrowest descrip- tion, which could only impress people unaccustomed to reflection.* Those who introduced his fame into France knew nothing at all about Socialism; and if he is really in the first rank of contemporary authors of economic history, as his translator afiirms,^ it is because the 1 This is seen, for example, in the efforts made by the trade unions to obtain laws absolving them from the civil responsibilities of their acts.
« Tarde could never understand the reputation enjoyed by Sidney Webb, who seemed to him to be a worthless scribbler.
* M6tin, Le Socialisme en Angleterre, p. 210. This writer has received from the Government a certificate of socialism; on July 26, 1904, the French Commissioner-General at the St. Louis exhibition said: " M. Metin is animated by the best democratic spirit; he is an excellent republican; he is even a socialist whom working-class organisa- THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 133 intellectual level of these historians is rather low; more- over, many examples show us that it is possible to be a most illustrious professional historian and yet possess a mind something less than mediocre.
Neither do I attach any importance to the objections made to the general strike based on considerations of a practical order. The attempt to construct hypotheses about the nature of the struggles of the future and the means of suppressing capitalism, on the model furnished by history, is a return to the old methods of the Utopists. There is no process by which the future can be predicted scientifically, nor even one which enables us to discuss whether one hypothesis about it is better than another; it has been proved by too many memorable examples that the greatest men have committed prodigious errors in thus desiring to make predictions about even the least distant future.^ And yet without leaving the present, without reasoning about this future, which seems for ever condemned to escape our reason, we should be unable to act at all. Experience shows that the framing of a future, in some indeterminate time, may, when it is done in a certain way, be very effective, and have very few inconveniences; this happens when the anticipations of the future take the form of those myths, which enclose with them all the strongest inclinations of a people, of a party or of a class, inclinations which recur to the mind with the insistence of instincts in all the circumstances of life; and which give an aspect of complete reality to the hopes of immediate action by which, more easily than by any other method, men can reform their desires, passions, and mental activity.
tion should welcome as a friend " {Association ouvrilre, July 30, 1904). An amusing study could be made of those persons who possess certificates of this kind, given to them, either by the Government, the Musie social, or the well-informed press.
* The errors committed by Marx are numerous and sometimes enormous (cf. G. Sorel, Saggi di critica del marxismo, pp. 31-57).
134 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE We know, moreover, that these social myths in no way prevent a man profiting by the observations which he makes in the course of his Ufe, and form no obstacle to the pursuit of his normal occupations.^ The truth of this may be shown by numerous examples.
The first Christians expected the return of Christ and the total ruin of the pagan world, with the inauguration of the kingdom of the saints, at the end of the first genera- tion. The catastrophe did not come to pass, but Christian thought profited so greatly from the apocalyptic myth that certain contemporary scholars maintain that the whole preaching of Christ referred solely to this one point. * The hopes which Luther and Calvin had formed of the religious exaltation of Europe were by no means realised; these fathers of the Reformation very soon seemed men of a past era; for present-day Protestants they belong rather to the Middle Ages than to modem times, and the problems which troubled them most occupy very little place in contemporary Protestantism. Must we for that reason deny the immense result which came from their dreams of Christian renovation? It must be admitted that the real developments of the Revolution did not in any way resemble the enchanting pictures which created the enthusiasm of its first adepts; but without those pictures would the Revolution have been victorious? Many Utopias were mixed up with the Revolutionary myth,^ because it had been formed by a society passion- ately fond of imaginative literature, full of confidence in the "science,*'* and very little acquainted with the * It has often been remarked that English or American sectarians whose religious exaltation was fed by the apocalyptic myths were often none the less very practical men.
» At the present time, this doctrine occupies an important place in German exegesis; it was introduced into France by the Abbe Loisy. » Cf. the Letter to Daniel Halevy, IV.
* In French petite science. This expression is used to indicate the popular science with which the majority is much more famihar than it THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 135 economic history of the past. These Utopias came to nothing; but it may be asked whether the Revolution was not a much more profound transformation than those dreamed of by the people who in the eighteenth century had invented social Utopias. In our own times Mazzini pursued what the wiseacres of his time called a mad chimera; but it can no longer be denied that, without Mazzini, Italy would never have become a great power, and that he did more for Italian unity than Cavour and all the politicians of his school.
A knowledge of what the myths contain in the way of details which will actually form part of the history of the future is then of small importance; they are not astrological almanacs; it is even possible that nothing which they contain will ever come to pass, — as was the case with the catastrophe expected by the first Christians.^ In our own daily life, sire we not familiar with the fact that what actually happens is very different from our preconceived notion of it? And that does not prevent us from continuing to make resolutions. Psychologists say that there is heterogeneity between the ends in view and the ends actually realised: the slightest experience of life reveals this law to us, which Spencer transferred into natiure, to extract therefrom his theory of the multipUca- tion of effects.2 The myth must be judged as a means of acting on the present; any attempt to discuss how far it can be taken is with the difl&cult researches of the real scientists. These latter are generally as modest as the writers on popular science are vain and boastful.
1 I have tried to show elsewhere how this social myth, which has disappeared, was succeeded by a piety which has remained extremely important in Catholic life; this evolution from the social to the in- dividual, seems to me quite natural in a religion {Le SysUme historique * I beUeve, moreover, that the whole of Spencer's evolutionism is to be explained as an application of the most commonplace psychology to physics, K 136 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE literally as future history is devoid of sense. It is the myth in its entirety which is alone important: its parts are only of interest in so far as they bring out the main idea. No useful purpose is seived, therefore, in arguing about the incidents which, may occur in the course of a social war, and about the decisive conflicts which may give victory to the proletariat; even supposing the revolutionaries to have been wholly and entirely deluded in setting up this imaginary picture of the general strike, this picture may yet have been, in the course of the preparation for the Revolution, a great element of strength, if it has embraced all the aspirations of SociaUsm, and if it has given to the whole body of Revolutionary thought a pre- cision and a rigidity which no other method of thought could have given.
To estimate, then, the significance of the idea of the general strike, all the methods of discussion which are current among politicians, sociologists, or people with pretensions to poHtical science, must be abandoned. Everything which its opponents endeavour to estabUsh may be conceded to them, without reducing in any way the value of the theory which they think they have refuted. The question whether the general strike is a partial reahty, or only a product of popular imagina- tion, is of little importance. All that it is necessary to know is, whether the general strike contains ever5rthing that the Socialist doctrine expects of the revolutionary proletariat.
To solve this question we are no longer compelled to argue learnedly about the future; we are not obliged to indulge in lofty reflections about philosophy, history, or economics; we are not on the plane of theories, and we can remain on the level of observable facts. We have to question men who take a very active part in the real revolutionary movement amidst the proletariat, men who do not aspire to climb into the middle class and THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 137 whose mind is not dominated by corporative prejudices. These men may be deceived about an infinite number of political, economical, or moral questions; but their testimony is decisive, sovereign, and irrefutable when it is a question of knowing what are the ideas which most powerfully move them and their comrades, which most appeal to them as being identical with their socialistic conceptions, and thanks to which their reason, their hopes, and their way of looking at particular facts seem to make but one indivisible unity. ^ Thanks to these men, we know that the general strike is indeed what I have said: the myth in which Sociahsm is wholly comprised, i.e. a body of images capable of evoking instinctively all the sentiments which correspond to the different manifestations of the war undertaken by Socialism against modem society. Strikes have en- gendered in the proletariat the noblest, deepest, and most moving sentiments that they possess; the general strike groups them all in a co-ordinated picture, and, by bringing them together, gives to each one of them its maximum of intensity; appeaUng to their painful memories of particular conflicts, it colours with an intense Ufe all the details of the composition presented to consciousness. We thus obtain that intuition of Socialism which language cannot give us with perfect clearness — and we obtain it as a whole, perceived instantaneously.^ We may urge yet another piece of evidence to prove the power of the idea of the general strike. If that idea were a pure chimera, as is so frequently said. Parliamentary Socialists would not attack it with such heat; I do not remember that they ever attacked the senseless hopes which the Utopists haye always held up before the dazzled eyes of the people.^ In the course of a polemic about realisable 1 This is another application of Bergson's theories.
' This is the " global knowledge " of Bergson's philosophy.
* I do not remember that the official Socialists have ever shown up 138 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE social reforms, Clemenceau brought out the MachiaveHan- ism in the attitude of Jaurds, when he is confronted with popular illusions: he shelters his conscience beneath " some cleverly balanced sentence," but so cleverly balanced that it " will be received without thinking by those who have the greatest need to probe into its sub- stance, while they will drink in with delight the delusive rhetoric of terrestrial joys to come " (Aurore, December 28, 1905). But when it is a question of the general strike, it is quite another thing; our poUticians are no longer content with complicated reservations; they speak violently, and endeavour to induce their listeners to abandon this conception.
It is easy to understand the reason for this attitude: politicians have nothing to fear from the Utopias which present a deceptive mirage of the future to the people, and turn " men towards immediate realisations of terrestrial felicity, which any one who looks at these matters scientifically knows can only be very partially realised, and even then only after long efEorts on the part of several generations. * ' (That is what Sociahst poUticians do, according to Clemenceau.) The more readily the electors beheve in the magical forces of the State, the more will they be disposed to vote for the candidate who promises marvels; in the electoral struggle each candidate tries to outbid the others: in order that the Socialist candidates may put the Radicals to rout, the electors must be credulous enough to beUeve every promise of future bUss; ^ our Sociahst politicians take very good care, fche ridiculousness of the novels of Bellamy, which have had so great a success. These novels needed criticism all the more, because they presented to the people an entirely middle-class ideal of life. They were a natural product of America, a country which is ignorant of the class war; but in Europe, would not the theorists of the class war have understood them?
1 In the article which I have already quoted, Clemenceau recalls that Jaur^s made use of these outbidding tactics in a long speech which he made at Beziers.
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE ijg therefore, not to combat these comfortable Utopias in any very effective way.
They struggle against the conception of the general strike, because they recognise, in the course of their pro- pagandist roimds, that this conception is so admirably adapted to the working-class mind that there is a pos- sibihty of its dominating the latter in the most absolute manner, thus leaving no place for the desires which the Parliamentarians are able to satisfy. They perceive that this idea is so effective as a motive force that once it has entered the minds of the people they can no longer be controlled by leaders, and that thus the power of the deputies would be reduced to nothing. In short, they feel in a vague way that the whole Socialist movement might easily be absorbed by the general strike, which would render useless all those compromises between political groups in view of which the Parhamentary regime has been built up.
The opposition it meets with from official SociaHsts, therefore, furnishes a confirmation of our first inquiry into the scope of the general strike.
II We must now proceed further, and inquire whether the picture furnished by the general strike is really com- plete; that is to say, whether it comprises all those features of the struggle which are recognised by modern Socialism. But, first of all, we must state the problem more precisely; this will not be difficult if we start from the explanations given above on the nature of the conception. We have seen that the general strike must be considered as an un- divided whole; consequently, no details about ways and means will be of the slightest help to the imderstanding of Socialism; it must even be added that there is always a danger of losing something of this understanding, if an I40 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE attempt is made to split up this whole into parts. We will now endeavour to show that there is a fundamental identity between the chief tenets of Marxism and the co-ordinated aspects furnished by the picture of the general strike.
This affirmation is certain to appear paradoxical to many who have read the pubhcations of the most accredited Marxians; gind, in fact, for a very long time a well-marked hostility to the general strike existed in Marxian circles. This tradition has done a good deal of harm to the progress of Marx's doctrine; and it is in fact a very good illustration of the way in which, as a rule, disciples tend to restrict the application of their master's ideas. The new school has had considerable difficulty in Uberating itself from these influences; it was formed by people who had received the Marxian imprint in a very marked degree; and it was a long time before the school recognised that the objections brought against the general strike arose from the incapacity of the official representa- tives of Marxism rather than from the principles of the doctrine itself.^ The new school began its emancipation on the day when it perceived clearly that the formulas of Socialism were often very far from the spirit of Marx, and when it recommended a return to that spirit. It was not without a certain amount of stupefaction that it discerned that it had credited the master with many so-called inventions which were in reality taken from his predecessors, or which were commonplaces, even, at the time when the Communist Manifesto was drawn up. According to an author — who, in the opinion of the Government and the 1 In an article, Introduction d la meiaphysique, published in 1903, Bergson points out that disciples are always inclined to exaggerate the points of difference between masters, and that " the master in so far as he formulates, develops, translates into abstract ideas what he brings is already in a way his own disciple." [Eng. trans, by T. E. Hulme.]
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 141 Musee Social is considered to be well informed, — " the accumulation (of capital in the hcinds of a few individuals) is one of the great discoveries of Marx, one of the dis- coveries of whch he was most proud. ^ With all due deference to the historical science of this notable university light, this theory was one which was in everybody's mouth long before Marx had ever written a word, and it had become a dogma in the Socialist world at the end of the reign of Louis-Philippe. There are many Marxian theories of the same kind.
A decided step towards reform was made when those Marxians who aspired to think for themselves began to study the syndicalist movement; they discovered that *'the genuine trade unionists have more to teach us than they have to learn from us." ^ This was the beginning of wisdom; it was a step towards the realistic method which had led Marx to his real discoveries; in this way a return might be made to those methods which alone merit the name philosophical, ** for true and fruitful ideas are so many close contacts with currents of reality," and they " owe most of their clearness to the light which the facts, and the applications to which they led, have by reflection shed on them — the clearness of a concept being scarcely anything more at bottom than the certainty, at last obtained, of manipulating the concept profitably." ^ And yet another profound thought of Bergson may use- fully be quoted: " For we do not obtain an intuition from reality — that is, an intellectual sympathy with the most intimate part of it — unless we have won its confidence by a long fellowship with its superficial manifestations. And it is not merely a question of assimilating the most conspicuous facts; so immense a mass of facts must be acciunulated and fused together, that in this fusion all * G. Sorel, Avenir socialiste des syndieats, p. 12.
» Bergson, loc. cit.
142 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE the preconceived and premature ideas which observers may miwittingly have put into their observations will be certain to neutralize each other. In this way only can the bare materiality of the known facts be exposed to view." Finally, what Bergson calls an integral experience is obtained.^ Thanks to the new principle, people very soon came to recognise that the propositions which in their opinion contained a complete statement of Socialism were deplor- ably inadequate, so that they were often more dangerous than useful. It is the superstitious respect paid by social democracy to the mere text of its doctrines that nuUified every attempt in Germany to perfect Marxism.
When the new school had acquired a full understanding of the general strike, and had thus obtained a profoimd intuition of the working-class movement, it saw that all the SociaUst theories, interpreted in the light of this powerful construction, took on a meaning which till then they had lacked; it perceived that the clumsy and rickety apparatus which had been manufactured in Germany to explain Marx's doctrines, must be rejected if the con- temporary transformation of the proletarian idea was to be followed exactly; it discovered that the conception of the general strike enabled them to explore profitably the whole vast domain of Marxism, which imtil then had remained practically unknown to the big-wigs who pro- fessed to be guiding Socialism. Thus the fundamental principles of Marxism are perfectly inteUigible only with the aid of the picture of the general strike, and, on the other hand, the full significance of this picture, it may be supposed, is apparent only to those who are deeply versed in the Marxian doctrine.
A. First of all, I shall speak of the class war, which is the point of departure for all Sociahstic thought, and which stands in such great need of elucidation, » Bergson, loc. cit.
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 143 since sophists have endeavoured to give a false idea of it.
(i) Marx speaks of society as if it were divided into two fundamentally antagonistic groups; observation, it has often been urged, does not justify this division, and it is true that a certain efEort of will is necessary before we can find it verified in the phenomena of everyday life.