IV The problem that we shall now try to solve is the most difficult of all those which a SociaHst writer can touch upon. We are about to ask how it is possible to conceive the transformation of the men of to-day into the free producers of to-morrow working in manufactories where there are no masters. The question must be stated accurately; we must state it, not for a world which has already arrived at Socialism, but solely for our own time and for the preparation of the transition from one world to the other; if we do not limit the question in this way, we shall find ourselves sti:a3mig into Utopias.
Kautsky has given a great deal of attention to the question of the conditions immediately following a social revolution; the solution he proposes seems to me quite as feeble as that of G. de Molinari. If the syndicates of to-day are strong enough to induce the workmen of to-day T 2So /REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE to abandon their workshops and to submit to great sacrifices, during the strikes kept up against the capitalists, he thinks that they will then doubtless be strong enough to bring the workmen back to the workshops, and to obtain good and regular work from them, when once they see that this work is necessary for the general good.^ Kautsky, however, does not seem to feel much confidence in the value of his own solution.
Evidently no comparison can be made between the kind of discipline which forces a general stoppage of work on the men and that which will induce them to handle machinery with greater skill. The error springs from the fact that Kautsky is more of a theorist than he is a disciple of Marx; he loves reasoning about abstractions and believes that he has brought a question nearer to solution when he manages to produce a phrase with a scientific appearance; the underlying reality interests him less than its academic presentment. Many others have committed the same error, led astray by the different meanings of the word discipline, which may be applied both to regular conduct founded on the deepest feelings of the soul or to a merely external restraint.
The history of ancient corporations furnishes us with no really useful information on this subject; they do not seem to have had any effect whatever in promoting any kind of improvement, or invention in technical matters; it would seem rather that they served to protect routine. If we examine English Trade Unionism closely, we find that it also is strongly imbued with this industrial routine springing from the corporative spirit.
Nor can the examples of democracy throw any light on the question. Work conducted democratically would be regulated ty resolutions, inspected by police, and subject to the sanction of tribunals dealing out rewards or imprisonment. The discipline would be an exterior * Karl Kautsky, La Rivolution sociale, French translation, p. 153.
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 281 compulsion closely analogous to that which now exists in the capitalist workshops; but it would probably be still more arbitrary because the committee would always have their eye on the next elections.^ When one thinks of the pecuHarities found in judgments in penal cases one feels convinced that repression would be exercised in a very unsatisfactory way. It seems to be generally agreed that light offences cannot be satisfactorily dealt with in law courts, when hampered by the rules of a strict legal system; the establishment of administrative councils to decide on the future of children has often been suggested; in Belgium mendicity is subject to an administrative arbitration which may be compared to the ** police des moeurs "; it is well known that this police, in spite of innumerable complaints, continues to be almost supreme in France. It is very noticeable that administrative inter- vention in the case of important crimes is continually increasing. Since the power of mitigating or even of sup- pressing penalties is being more and more handed over to the heads of penal establishments^ doctors and sociologists speak in favour of this system, which tends to give the police as important a function as they had under the ancien regime. Experience shows that the discipline of the capitalist workshops is greatly superior to that maintained by the pohce, so that one does not see how it would be possible to improve capitalist dis- cipline by means of the methods which democracy would have at its dispos2d.* I think that there is one good point, however, in 1 The managers of manufactories would constantly be busying them- selves with how to ensure the success of the government party at the next election. They would be very indulgent to workmen who were influential speakers, and very hard on men suspected of lack of electoral zeal.
» We might ask if the ideal of the relatively honest and enlightened democrats is not at the present moment the discipline of the capitalist workshop. The increase of the power given to the mayors and State governors in America seems to me to be a sign of this tendency.
282 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE Kautsky's hypothesis; he seems to have been aware that the motive force of the revolutionary movement must also be the motive force of the ethic of the producers; that is a view quite in conformity with Marxist principles, but the idea must be applied in quite a different way from that in which he applied it. It must not be thought that the action of the syndicates on work is direct, as he sup- poses; this influence of the syndicates on labour should result from complex and sometimes distant causes, acting on the general character of the workers rather than from a qu£Lsi-mihtary organisation. This is what I try to show by analysing some of the quaUties of the best workmen.
A satisfactory result can be arrived at, by starting from the curious analogies which exist between the most remarkable qualities of the soldiers who took part in the wars of Liberty, the qualities which engendered the propa- ganda in favour of the general strike, ajid those that will be required of a free worker in a highly progressive state of society. I beUeve that these analogies constitute a new (and perhaps decisive) proof, in favour of revolutionary S5mdicaUsm.
In the wars of Liberty each soldier considered himself as an individual having something of importance to do in the battle, instead of looking upon himself as simply one part of the military mechanism committed to the supreme direction of a leader. In the hterature of those times one is struck by the frequency with which the free men of the republican armies are contrasted with the auto- matons of the royal armies; this was no mere figure of rhetoric employed by the French writers; I have con- vinced myself as a result of a thorough first-hand study of one of the wars of that time, that these terms corre- sponded perfectly to the actual feelings of the soldiers.
Battles under these conditions could, then, no longer be hkened to ^ames of chess in which each man is com- parable to a pawn; they became collections of heroic THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 283 exploits accomplished by individuals under the influence of an extraordinary enthusiasm. Revolutionary litera- ture is not entirely false, when it reports so many grandilo- quent phrases said to have been uttered by the combatants; doubtless none of these phrases were spoken by the people to whom they are attributed, their form is due to men of letters used to the composition of classical declamation; but the basis is real in this sense, that we have, thanks to these lies of revolutionary rhetoric, a perfectly exact representation of the aspect under which the combatants looked on war, a true expression of the sentiments aroused by it, and the actual accent of the tndy Homeric conflicts which took place at that time. I am certain that none of the actors in these dramas ever protested against the words attributed to them; this was no doubt because each found beneath these fantastic phrases, a true ex- pression of his own deepest feelings.^ Until the moment when Napoleon appeared the war had none of the scientific character which the later theoretists of strategy have sometimes thought it incmnbent on them to attribute to it. Misled by the analogies they discovered between the triumphs of the revolutionary armies and those of the Napoleonic armies, historians imagined that generals anterior to Napoleon had made great plans of campaign; such plans never existed, or at any rate had very little influence on the course of opera- tions. The best officers of that time were fully aware that their talent consisted in furnishing their troops with the suitable opportunities of exhibiting their ardour; and victory was assured each time that the soldiers could give free scope to all their enthusiasm, unfettered by bad commissariat, or by the stupidity of representatives of the people who looked upon themselves as strategists. On ^ This history has also been burdened by a great number of adven- tures, which have been fabricated by imitating real ones, and which are very like those which later on The Three Musketeers rendered popular.
284 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE the battle-field the leaders gave an example of daring courage and were merely the first combatants, like true Homeric kings; it is this which explains the enormous prestige with the young troops, immediately gained by so many of the non-commissioned officers of the ancien regime, who were borne to the highest rank by the unanimous acclamations of the soldiers at the outset of the war.
' If we wished to find, in these first armies, what it was that took the place of the later idea of discipline, we might say that the soldier was convinced that the slightest failure of the most insignificant private might com- promise the success of the whole and the life of all his comrades, and that the soldier acted accordingly. This presupposes that no account is taken of the relative values of the different factors that go to make up a victory, so that all things are considered from a qualitative and individualistic point of view. One is, in fact, extremely struck by the individualistic characters which are met with in these armies, and by the fact that nothing is to be found in them which at all resembles the obedience spoken of by our contemporary authors. There is some truth then in the statement that the incredible French victories were due to intelligent bayonets.
The same spirit is found in the working-class groups who are eager for the general strike; these groups, in fact, picture the Revolution as an immense uprising which yet may be called individualistic; each working with the greatest possible zeal, each acting on his own account, and not troubling himself much to subordinate his conduct to a great and scientifically combined plan. This character of the proletarian general strike has often been pointed out, and it has the effect of frightening the greedy politicians, who understand perfectly well that a Revolu- tion conducted in this way would do away with all their chances of seizing the Government.
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 283 Jaur^s, whom nobody would dream of classing with any but the most circumspect of men, has clearly recog- nised the danger which threatens him; he accuses the upholders of the general strike of considering only one aspect of social life and thus going against the Revolution. ^ This rigmarole should be translated thus: the revolu- tionary Syndicalists desire to exalt the individuality of the life of the producer; they thus run counter to the interests of the politicians who want to direct the Revolu- tion in such a way as to transmit power to a new minority; they thus undermine the foundations of the State. We entirely agree with all this; it is precisely this character- istic which so terrifies the Parliamentary Socialists, the financiers, and the ideologists, which gives such extra- ordinary moral value to the notion of the general strike.
The upholders of the general strike are accused of anarchical tendencies; and as a matter of fact, it has been observed during the last few years that anarchists have entered the syndicates in great numbers, and have done a great deal to develop tendencies favourable to the general strike.
This movement becomes understandable when we bear the preceding explanations in mind; because the general strike, just like the wars of Liberty, is a most striking manifestation of individualistic force in the revolted masses. It seems to me, moreover, that the official Socialists would do well not to insist too much on this point; they would thus avoid some reflections which are not altogether to their advantage. We might, in fact, be led to ask if our official Socialists, with their passion for discipline, and their infinite confidence in the genius of their leaders, are not the authentic inheritors of the traditions of the royal armies, while the anarchists and the upholders of the general strike represent at the present time the spirit of the revolutionary warriors who, against * Jaur^s, Etudes socicUistes, pp. 117-118.
286 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE all the rules of the art of war, so thoroughly thrashed the fine armies of the coalition. I can understand why the Socialists approved, controlled, and duly patented by the administrators of Humanite, have not much sympathy for the heroes of Fleurus,^ who were very badly dressed, and would have cut a sorry figure in the drawing-rooms of the great financiers; but everybody does not adapt his convictions to suit the tastes of M. Jaurds's share- holders.
I want now to point out some analogies which show how revolutionary syndicalism is the greatest educative force that contemporary society has at its disposal for the preparation of the system of production, which the workmen will adopt, in a society organised in accordance with the new conceptions.
A. The free producer in a progressive and inventive workshop must never evaluate his own efforts by any external standing; he ought to consider the models given him as inferior, and desire to surpass everything that has been done before. Constant improvement in quality and quantity will be thus assured to production; the idea of continual progress will be realised in a workshop of this kind.
Early socialists had had an intuition of this law, when they demanded that each should produce according to his faculties; but they did not know how to explain this principle, which in their Utopias seemed made for a convent or for a family rather than for modem industrial Hfe. Sometimes, however, they pictiued their workers as possessed by an enthusiasm similar to that which we find in the Uves of certain great artists; this last point * [The battle of Fleunis, won in 1794 by General Jourdain, was one of the first decisive triumphs of the revolutionary army. The Chant du Dipart was written by J. M. Ch^nier shortly before this battle. — Trans.]
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 287 of view is by no means negligible, although the early Socialists hardly understood the value of the comparison.
Whenever we consider questions relative to industrial progress, we are led to consider art as an anticipation of the highest and technically most perfect forms of production, although the artist, with his caprices, often seems to be at the antipodes of the modem worker.^ This analogy is justified by the fact that the artist dislikes reproducing accepted types; the inexhaustibly inventive turn of his mind distinguishes him from the ordinary artisan, who is mainly successful in the unending reproduction of models which are not his own. The inventor is an artist who wears himself out in pursuing the realisation of ends which practical people generally declare absurd; and who, if he has made any important discovery is often supposed to be mad; practical people thus resemble artisans. One could cite in every industry important improvements which originated in small changes made by workmen endowed with the artist's taste for innovation.
This state of mind is, moreover, exactly that which was found in the first armies which carried on the wars of Liberty and that possessed by the propagandists of the general strike. This passionate individualism is entirely wanting in the working classes who have been educated by politicians; all they are fit for is to change their masters. These had shepherds 2 sincerely hope that it 1 When we speak of the educative value of art, we often forget that the habits of life of the modem artist, founded on an imitation of those of a jovial aristocracy, are in no way necessary, and are derived from a tradition which has been fatal to many fine talents. Lafargue appears to believe that the Parisian jeweller might find it necessary to dress elegantly, to ea{ oysters, and run after women in order to be able to keep up the artistic quality of his work {i.e. in order to keep his mind active; the artistic quality of his work, destroyed by the wear of daily life in the workshop, will be reconstituted by the gay life he leads outside) {Journal des iconomistes, September 1884, p. 386). He gives no reasons to support this paradox; we might moreover point out that the mentality of Marx's son-in-law is always obsessed by aristocratic prejudices.
* [This is an allusion to a play by Octave Mirbeau with that title. — Trans.]
288 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE will be so; and the Stock Exchange people would not provide them with money, were they not convinced that Parliamentary Socialism is quite compatible with financial robbery.
B. Modern industry is characterised by an ever- growing care for exactitude; as tools get more scientific it is expected that the product shall have fewer hidden faults, and that in use its quality shall be as good as its appearance.
If Germany has not yet taken the place in the economic world which the mineral riches of its soil, the energy of its manufacturers and the science of its technicians ought to give it, it is because its manufacturers for a long time thought it clever to flood the markets with trash; although the quality of German manufactures has much improved during the last few years, it is not yet held in any very great esteem.
Here again it is possible to draw a comparison between industry in a high state of perfection and art. There have been periods in which the public appreciated above all the technical tricks by which the artist created an illusion of reality; but these tricks have never been accepted in the great schools, and they are universally condemned by the authors who are accepted as authorities in matters of art.^ This honesty which now seems to us to-day as necessary in industry as in art, was hardly suspected by the Utopists; ^ Fourier, at the beginning of the new era, believed that fraud in the quality of merchandise was characteristic ^ See the chapter in Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture entitled " Lamp of Truth."
* It must not be forgotten that there are two ways of discussing art; Nietzsche attacks Kant for having " like all the philosophers meditated on art and the beautiful as a spectator instead of looking at the esthetic problem from the point of view of the artist, the creator " {op. cit. p. 17S). In the time of the Utopists, esthetics was merely the babbling of amateurs, who were delighted with the cleverness with which the artist had been able to deceive the public.
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 289 of the relations between civilised people; he turned his back on progress and showed himself incapable of under- standing the world which was being formed about him; like nearly all professional prophets this sham seer con- fused the future with the past. Marx, on the contrary, said that " deception in merchandise in the capitalist system of production is unjust," because it no longer corresponds with the modem system of business.^ The soldier of the wars of Liberty attached an almost superstitious importance to the carrying out of the smallest order. As a result of this he felt no pity for the generals or officers whom he saw guillotined after a defeat on the charge of dereliction of duty; he did not look at these events as the historians of to-day do; he had no means of knowing whether the condemned had really committed treason or not; in his eyes failure could only be explained by some grave error on the part of his leaders. The high sense of responsibility felt by the soldier about his own duties, and the extreme thoroughness with which he carried out the most insignificant order, made him approve of rigorous measures taken against men who in his eyes had brought about the defeat of the army and caused it to lose the fruit of so much heroism.
It is not difficult to see that the same spirit is met with in strikes; the beaten workmen are convinced that their failure is due to the base conduct of a few comrades who have not done all that might have been expected of them; numerous accusations of treason are brought forward; for the beaten masses, treason alone can explain the defeat of heroic troops; the sentiment, felt by all, of the thorough- ness that must be brought to the accomplishment of their duties, will therefore be accompanied by many acts of violence. I dp not think that the authors who have written on the events which follow strikes, have sufficiently reflected on this analogy between strikes and the wars of 1 Marx, Capital, French translation, vol. iii., first part, p. 375.
2go REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE Liberty, and, consequently, between these acts of violence and the executions of generals accused of treason.^ C. There would never have been great acts of heroism in war, if each soldier, while acting like a hero, yet at the same time claimed to receive a reward proportionate to his deserts. When a colmnn is sent to an assault, the men at the head know they are sent to their death, and that the glory of victory will be for those who passing over their dead bodies enter the enemy's position. How- ever, they do not reflect on this injustice, but march forward.
The value of any army where the need of rewards makes itself actively felt, may be said to be on the decline. Officers who had served in the campaigns of the Revolution and of the Empire, but who had served under the direct orders of Napoleon only in the last years of their career, were amazed to see the fuss made about feats of arms which in the time of their youth would have passed un- noticed: "I have been overwhelmed with praise/' said General Duhesne, " for things which would not have been noticed in the army of Sambre-et-Meuse." ^ This theatri- cality was carried by Murat to a grotesque degree, and historians have not taken enough notice of the responsi- bility of Napoleon for this degeneracy of the true warlike spirit. The extraordinary enthusiasm which had been the cause of so many prodigies of valour on the part of the men of 1794 was unknown to him; he believed that it was his function to measure all capacities, and to give * p. Bureau has devoted a chapter of his book on the Contrat de Travail to an explanation of the reasons which justify boycotting of workmen who do not join their comrades in strikes; he thinks that these people merit their fate because they are notoriously inferior both in courage and as workmen. This seems to me very inadequate as an account of the reasons which, in the eyes of the working classes themselves, explain these acts of violence. The author takes up a much too intellectualist point of view.
* Lafaille, Mhnoires sur les campagnes de Catalogne de j8o8 d 18/4, THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 291 to each a reward exactly proportionate to what he had accomplished; this was the Saint -Simonian principle already coming into practice, and every officer was encouraged to bring himself forward. Charlatanism ^ ex- hausted the moral forces of the nation whilst its material forces were still very considerable. Napoleon formed very few distinguished general officers and carried on the war principally with those left him by the Revolution; this impotence is the most absolute condemnation of the system.2 The scarcity of the information which we possess about the great Gothic artists has often been pointed out. Among the stone-carvers who sculptured the statues in the cathedrals there were men of great talent who seem always to have remained anonymous; nevertheless they produced masterpieces. VioUet-le-Duc was surprised that the archives of Notre Dame had preserved for us no detailed information about the building of this gigantic monument and that, as a rule, the documents of the Middle Ages say very little about the architects; he adds that " genius can develop itself in obscurity, and that it is its very nature to seek silence and obscurity." ^ We ^ The charlatanism of the followers of Saint Simon was as disgusting as that of Murat; moreover, the history of this school is unintelligible if we do not compare it with its Napoleonic models.
* General Donop strongly insists on the incapacity of Napoleon's lieutenants who passively obeyed instructions that they never tried to understand, and the fulfilment of which was minutely overlooked by their master {op. cit. pp. 22-29 and 32-34). Napoleon's armies were valued in proportion to the exactitude with which they carried out the orders of their master; initiative being little valued, it was possible to estimate the conduct of the generals like the ability of a good pupil who has learnt his lessons w^ll; the Emperor gave pecuniary rewards to his lieutenants, proportionate to the measure of merit he recognised in them.
' Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaite raisonni de V architecture fratifaise, vol. iv. pp. 42-43. This does not contradict what we read in the article " Architect." From that we learn that the builders often inscribed their names in the cathedrals (vol. i. pp. 1 09-1 11); from that it has been concluded that these works were not anonymous (Br6hier, Les 292 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE might even go farther and question whether their con- temporaries suspected that these artists of genius had raised edifices of unperishable glory; it seems very probable to me that the cathedrals were only admired by the artists.
This striving towards perfection which manifests itself, in spite of the absence of any personal, immediate, and proportional reward, constitutes the secret virtue which assures the continued progress of the world. What would become of modern industry if inventors could only be found for those things which would procure them an almost certain remuneration? The calling of an inventor is much the most miserable of all, and yet there is no lack of inventors. How often in workshops have little modifica- tions introduced by ingenious artisans into their work, become by accumulation fundamental improvements, without the innovators ever getting any permanent or appreciable benefit from their ingenuity! And has not even simple piece-work brought about a gradual but uninterrupted progress in the processes of production, a progress which, after having temporarily improved the position of a few workers and especially that of their employers, has proved finally of benefit chiefly to the consumer?