The theorists of social peace shut their eyes to these embarrassing facts; they are doubtless ashamed to admit their cowardice, just as the Government is ashamed to admit that its social politics are carried out under the threat of disturbances. It is curious that people who F 72 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE boast of having read Le Play have not observed that bis conception of the conditions of social peace was quite different from that of his imbecile successors. He supposed the existence of a middle class of serious moral habits, imbued with the feelings of its own dignity, and having the energy necessary to govern the country without re- course to the old traditional bureaucracy. To those men, who held riches and power in their hands, he professed to teach their social duty towards their subjects. His system supposed an undisputed authority; it is well known that he deplored the licence of the press under Napoleon HI. as scandalous and dangerous; his reflec- tions on this subject seem somewhat ludicrous to those who compare the newspaper of that time with those of to-day. 1 Nobody in his time would have believed that a great coimtry would accept peace at any price; his point of view in this matter did not differ greatly from that of Clemenceau. He would never have admitted that any one could be cowardly and hypocritical enough to decorate with the name of social duty the cowardice of a middle class incapable of defending itself.
Middle-class cowardice very much resembles the cowardice of the EngUsh Liberal party, which constantly proclaims its absolute confidence in arbitration between nations: arbitration nearly always gives disastrous results for England.^ But these worthy progressives prefer to 1 Speaking of the elections of 1869, he said that there had been " violences of language which France had not till then heard, even in the worst days of the Revolution " {Organisation du Travail, 3rd ed. p. 340). Evidently, the revolution of 1848 was meant. In 1873 he declared that the Emperor could not congratulate himself on having abrogated the system of restraint on the press, before having reformed the morals of the country {Riforme sociale en France, 5th ed. tome iii.
' Sumner Maine observed a long while ago that it was England's fate to have advocates who aroused very little sympathy {Le Droit international, French translation, p. 279). Many EngUshmen beUeve that by humiliating their country they will rouse more sympathy towards themselves; but this supposition is not borne out by the facts.
CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE 73 pay, or even to compromise the future of their country, rather than face the horrors of war. The EngHsh Liberal party has the word justice always on its lips, absolutely like our middle class; we might very well wonder whether all the high morahty of our great contemporary thinkers is not founded on a degradation of the sentiment of honour.
CHAPTER II VIOLENCE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES I. Parliamentarians, who have to inspire fear — Parnell's methods — Casuistry; fundamental identity of the Parliamentary Socialist groups.
II. Degeneration of the middle class brought about by peace — Marx's conceptions of necessity — Part played by violence in the restoration of former social relationships.
III. Relation between revolution and economic prosperity — The French Revolution — The Christian conquest — Invasion of the Barbarians — Dangers which threaten the world.
I It is very difficult to understand proletarian violence as long as we think in terms of the ideas disseminated by middle-class philosophers; according to their philosophy, violence is a relic of barbarism which is bound to dis- appear under the influence of the progress of enlightenment. It is therefore quite natural that Jaur^, who has been brought up on middle-class ideology, should have a pro- found contempt for people who favour proletarian violence; he is astonished to see educated SociaUsts hand in hand with the Syndicalists; he wonders by what miracle men who have proved themselves thinkers can accumulate sophistries in order to give a semblance of reason to the dreams of stupid people who are incapable 74 DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 75 of thought.* This question worries the friends of Jaur^ considerably, and they are only too ready to treat the representatives of the new school as demagogues, and accuse them of seeking the applause of the impulsive masses.
Parliamentary Socialists cannot understand the ends pursued by the new school; they imagine that ultimately all Socialism can be reduced to the pursuit of the means of getting into power. Is it possible that they think the followers of the new school wish to make a higher bid for the confidence of simple electors and cheat the Sociahsts of the seats provided for them? Again, the apologia of violence might have the very unfortunate result of dis- gusting the workers with electoral politics, and this would tend to destroy the chances of the Socialist candidates by multiplying the abstentions from voting! Do you wish to revive civil war? they ask. To our great states- men that seems mad.
Civil war has become very difficult since the discovery of the new firearms, and since the cutting of rectilinear streets in the capital towns. * The recent troubles in Russia seem even to have shown that Governments can count much more than was supposed on the energy of their officers. Nearly all French politicians had prophesied the imminent fall of Czarism at the time of the Manchurian defeats, but the Russian army in the presence of rioting did not manifest the weakness shown by the French army during our revolutions; nearly everywhere repression was rapid, efficacious, and even pitiless. The discussions * This is apparently the way in which the proletarian movement is spoken of in the fashionable circles of refined Socialism.
* Cf. the reflections of Engels in the preface to the new edition of articles by Marx which he published in 1895 under the title^ Struggles of the Classes in France from 1848 to iSjo. This preface is wanting in the French translation. In the German edition a passage has been left out, the social democratic leaders considering certain phrases of Engels not politic enough.
76 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE which took place at the congress of social democrats at Jena show that the Parhamentary Sociahsts no longer rely upon an armed struggle to obtain possession of the State.
Does this mean that they are utterly opposed to violence? It would not be in their interest for the people to be quite calm; a certain amount of agitation suits them, but this agitation must be contained within well-defined limits and controlled by poUticians. When he considers it useful for his own interests, Jaur^ makes advances to the Confederation G6n6rale du Travail; ^ sometimes he instructs his peaceable clerks to fill his paper with revolutionary phrases; he is past master in the art of utilising popular anger. A cunningly conducted agitation is extremely useful to Parhamentary SociaUsts, who boast before the Government and the rich middle class of their abiUty to moderate revolution; they can thus arrange the success of the financial affairs in which they are interested, obtain minor favoiurs for many influential electors, and get social laws voted in order to appear important in the eyes of the blockheads who imagine that these Sociahsts are great reformers of the law. In order that all this may come off there must always be a certain amount of movement, and the middle class must always be kept in a state of fear.
It is conceivable that a regular system of diplomacy might be established between the Socialist party and the State each time an economic conflict arose between workers and employers; the two powers would settle the particular difference. In Germany the Government enters into negotiations with the Church each time the clericals stand in the way of the administration. Sociahsts have even been urged to imitate Pamell, who so often 1 According to the necessities of the moment he is for or against the general strike. According to some he voted for the general strike at the International Congress of 1900; according to others he abstained.
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 77 found a means of imposing his will on England. This resemblance is all the greater in that Pamell's authority did not rest only on the number of votes at his disposal, but mainly upon the terror which every EngUshman felt at the bare announcement of agrarian troubles in Ireland. A few acts of violence controlled by a. ParUamentary group were exceedingly useful to the PameUian policy, just as they are useful to the policy of Jaur^. In both cases a Parliamentary group seUs peace of mind to the Conservatives, who dare not use the force they conmiand.
This kind of diplomacy is difficult to conduct, and the Irish after the death of Pamell do not seem to have succeeded in carrying it on with the same success as in his time. In France it presents particular difficulty, because in no other country perhaps are the workers more difficult to manage: it is easy enough to arouse popular anger, but it is not easy to stifle it. As long as there are no very rich and strongly centralised trade imions whose leaders are in continuous relationship with poUtical men,i so long will it be impossible to say exactly to what lengths violence will go. Jaures would very much like to see such associations of workers in existence, for his prestige will disappear at once when the general pubUc perceives that he is not in a position to moderate revolution.
Everything becomes a question of valuation, accurate estimation, and opportunism; much skill, tact, and calm audacity are necessary to carry on such a diplomacy, i.e. to make the workers believe that you are carrying the flag of revolution, the middle class that you are arresting the danger which threatens them, and the country that 1 Gambetta complained because the French clergy was " acephal- ous "; he would have liked a select body to have been formed in its midst, with which the Government could discuss matters (Garilhe, Le clergS sSculier franfais au XIX' sUcle, pp. 88-89) • Sjmdicalism has no head with which it would be possible to carry on diplomatic relations usefully.
78 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE \ you represent an irresistible current of opinion. The great mass of the electors understands nothing of what passes in politics, and has no intelligent knowledge of economic history; they take sides with the party which seems to possess power, and you can obtain everything you wish from them when you can prove to them that you are strong enough to make the Government capitulate. But you must not go too far, because the middle class might wake up and the country might be given over to a resolutely conservative statesman. A proletarian violence which escapes all valuation, all measurement, and all opportunism, may jeopardise everything and ruin socialistic diplomacy.
This diplomacy is played both on a large and smaU scale; with the Government, with the heads of the groups in Parliament, and with influential electors. Politicians seek to draw the greatest possible advantage from the discordant forces existing in the political field.
ParUamentary Socialists feel a certain embarrassment from the fact that at its origin Sociahsm took its stand on absolute principles and appealed for a long time to the same sentiments of revolt as the most advanced Republican Party. These two circumstances prevent them from following a party policy like that which Charles Bonnier often recommended: this writer, who has long been the principal theorist of the Guesdist party, would Uke the Socialists to follow closely the example of Parnell, who used to negotiate with the English parties without allowing himself to become the vassal of any one of them; in the same way it might be possible to come to an agreement with the Conservatives, if the latter pledged themselves to grant better conditions to the proletariat than the Radicals (Soaa/is/^, August 27,1905). This policy seemed scandalous to many people. Bonnier was obhged to dilute his thesis. He then contented himself with asking that the party should act in the best DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES yg interests of the proletariat (September 17, 1905); but how is it possible to know where these interests he when the principle of the class war is no longer taken as your unique and absolute rule?
Parliamentary Socialists beHeve that they possess special faculties which enable them to take into accoimt, not only the material and immediate advantages reaped by the working classes, but also the moral reasons which compel Socialism to form part of the great Republican family. Their congresses spend their energies in putting together formulas designed to regulate Socialist diplomacy, in settling what alliances are permitted and what for- bidden, in reconciling the abstract principle of the class war (which they are anxious to retain verbally) with the reahty of the agreements with politicians. Such an undertaking is madness, and therefore leads to equivoca- tions, when it does not force deputies into attitudes of deplorable hypocrisy. Each year problems have to be rediscussed, because all diplomacy requires a flexibility which is incompatible with the existence of perfectly clear statutes.
The casuistry which Pascal scoffed at so much was not more subtle and more absurd than that which is to be found in polemics between what are called the Socialist schools. Escobar would have some difficulty in finding his bearings amid the distinctions of Jaur^s; the moral theology of responsible SociaUsts is not one of the least of the buffooneries of our time.
All moral theology can be split up into two tendencies: there are casuists who say that we must be content with opinions having a slight probabiUty, others that we should always adopt those that are strictest and most certain. This distinction was bound to be met with among our Parliamentary Socialists. Jaur^s prefers the soft and conciliatory method, provided that means are found to make it agree, somehow or other, with first principles.
8o REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE and that it has behind it a few respectable authorities; he is a prohahilist in the strongest sense of the term — or even a latitudinarian (laxist).^ Vaillant recommends the strong and belligerent method, which alone, in his opinion, is in accordance with the class war, and which has in its favom- the mianimons sanction of all the old authorities; he is a tutiorist and a kind of Jansenist.
Jaur^ no doubt believes that he is acting for the greatest good of Socialism, just as the more easy going type of casuists believed themselves the best and most useful defenders of the Church; they did, as a matter of fact, prevent weak Christians from faUing into irreligion, and led them to practise the sacraments — exactly as Jaur^s prevents the rich intellectuals who have come to Socialism by way of Dreyfusism from drawing back in horror before the class war, and induces them to take up the shares of the party journals. In his eyes, Vaillant is a dreamer who does not see the reality of the world, who intoxicates himself with the chimeras of an insurrec- tion which has now become impossible, and who does not understand the great advantages which may be got from universal suffrage by a boastful politician.
Between these two methods there is only a difference of degree, and not one of kind as is believed by those Parliamentary Socialists who call themselves revolutionary. On this point Jaur^s has a great intellectual superiority over his adversaries, for he has never cast any doubt upon the fundamental identity of the two methods.
Both of these methods suppose an entirely dislocated middle -class society — rich classes who have lost all sentiment of their class interest, men ready to follow blindly the lead of people who have taken up the business 1 [The writers on moral theology who maintain that our actions should be guided only by absolutely sure maxims were called tutiorists; opposed to them were the laxists. In the Provinciales Pascal defends the tutiorist position, the Jesuits he attacks are laxists. — Trans. Note.]
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 8i of directing public opinion. The Dreyfus affair showed that the enHghtened middle class was in a strange mental state; people who had long and loudly served the Con- servative party co-operated with anarchists, took part in violent attacks on the army, or even definitely enrolled themselves in the SociaHst party; on the other hand, newspapers, which make it their business to defend traditional institutions, dragged the magistrates of the Court of CassaH:ion in the mire. This strange episode in our contemporary history brought to light the state of dislocation of the classes.
Jaurte, who w£ls very much mixed up in all the ups and downs of Dreyf usism, had rapidly judged the mentaUty of the upper middle class, into which he had not yet penetrated. He saw that this upper middle class was terribly ignorant, gapingly stupid, politically absolutely impotent; he recognised that with people who understand nothing of the principles of capitalist economics it is easy to contrive a policy of compromise on the basis of an extremely broad SociaUsm; he calculated the pro- portions in which it is necessary to mix together flattery of the superior inteUigence of the imbeciles whose seduc- tion was aimed at, appeals to the disinterested sentiments of speculators who pride themselves on having invented the ideal, and threats of revolution in order to obtain the leadership of people void of ideas. Experience has shown that he had a very remarkable intuition of the forces which exist at this present moment in the middle-class world. Vaillant, on the contrary, is very Uttle acquainted with this world; he beheves that the only weapon that can be employed to move the middle class is fear; doubtless fear is an excellent weapon, but it might provoke obstinate resistance if you went beyond a certain Hmit. Vaillant does not possess those remarkable qualities of suppleness of mind, and perhaps even of peasant dupHcity, which shine in Jaurds, and which have often caused 82 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE people to say that he would have made a wonderful cattle- dealer.
The more closely the history of these last years is examined, the more the discussions concerning the two methods will be recognised as puerile: the partisans of the two methods are equally opposed to proletarian violence, because it escapes from the control of the people engaged in Pariiamentary politics. Revolutionary Syndi- calism cannot be controlled by the so-called revolutionary SociaHsts of Parliament.
II II The two methods favoured by official Socialism pre- suppose this same historical datum. The ideology of a timorous himianitarian middle class professing to have freed its thought from the conditions of its existence is grafted on the degeneration of the capitalist system; and the race of bold captains who made the greatness of modern industry disappears to make way for an ultra- civihsed aristocracy which asks to be allowed to live in peace. This degeneration fills our Parliamentary Socialists with joy. Their role would vanish if they were con- fronted with a middle class which was energetically engaged on the paths of capitalistic progress, a class that would look upon timidity with shame, and which would find satisfaction in looking after its class interests. In the presence of a middle class which has become almost as stupid as the nobility of the eighteenth century, their power is enormous. If the stultifying of the upper middle class progresses in a regular manner at the pace it has taken for the last few years, our official Socialists may reasonably hope to reach the goal of their dreams and sleep in sumptuous mansions.
Two accidents alone, it seems, would be able to stop this movement: a great foreign war, which might renew DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 83 lost energies, and which in any case would doubtless bring into power men with the will to govern; ^ or a great extension of proletarian violence, which would make the revolutionary reality evident to the middle class, and would disgust them with the humanitarian platitudes with which Jaur^s lulls them to sleep. It is in view of these two great dangers that the latter displays all his resources as a popular orator. European peace must be maintained at all costs; some limit must be put to proletarian violence.
Jaur^s is persuaded that France will be perfectly happy on the day on which the editors of his paper, and its share- holders, can draw freely on the coffers of the public Treasury; it is an illustration of the celebrated proverb: '* Quand Auguste avait bu, la Pologne ^tait ivre." A socialist government of this kind would without doubt ruin any country, if it was administered with the same care for financial order as VKumanite has been administered; but what does the future of the country matter, provided that the new regime gives a good time to a few professors, who imagine that they have invented Socialism, and to a few Dreyfusard financiers?
Before the working class also could accept this dictator- ship of incapacity, it must itself become as stupid as the middle class, and must lose all revolutionary energy, at the same time that its masters will have lost all capitalistic energy. Such a future is not impossible; and a great deal of hard work is being done to stupefy the worker for this purpose. The Direction du Travail and the Musee Social are doing their best to carry on this marvellous work of idealistic education, which is decorated with the most pompous names, and which is represented as a means of civilising the proletariat. Our professional ideaUsts are very much disturbed by the SyndicaUsts, and experience ' Cf. G. Sorel, Insegnamenti sociali, p. 38S. The hypothesis of a great European war seems very far fetched at the moment.
84 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE shows that a strike is sometimes sufficient to ruin all the work of education which these manufacturers of social peace have patiently built by years of labour.
In order to understand thoroughly the consequences of the very singular regime in the midst of which we are living, we must hark back to Marx's conceptions of the passage from capitaUsm to Socialism. These conceptions are well known, yet we must continually return to them, because they are often forgotten, or at least undervalued by official Socialist writers; it is necessary to insist on them strongly each time that we have to argue about the anti-Marxist transformation which contemporary Social- ism is undergoing.
According to Marx, capitaHsm, by reason of the innate laws of its own nature, is hunying along a path which will lead the world of to-day, with the inevitability of the evolution of organic Ufe, to the doors of the world of to- morrow. This movement comprises a long period of capitalistic construction, and it ends by a rapid destruction, which is the work of the proletariat. CapitaUsm creates the heritage which Socialism will receive, the men who will suppress the present regime, and the means of bringing about this destruction, at the same time that it preserves the results obtained in production.^ Capitalism begets new ways of working; it throws the working class into revolutionary organisations by the pressure it exercises on wages; it restricts its own political basis by competi- tion, which is constantly eliminating industrial leaders. Thus, after having solved the great problem of the organisation of labour, to effect which Utopians have brought forward so many naive or stupid hypotheses, capitaHsm provokes the birth of the cause which will 1 This notion of revolutionary preservation is very important; I have pointed out something analogous in the passage from Judaism to Christianity (Le Systime historique de Renan, pp. 72-73, 1 71-172, DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES Sj overthrow it, and thus renders useless everything that Utopians have written to induce enlightened people to make reforms; and it gradually ruins the traditional order, against which the critics of the idealists had proved themselves to be so deplorably incompetent. It might therefore be said that capitaUsm plays a part analogous to that attributed by Hartmann to The Unconscious in nature, since it prepares the coming of social reforms which it did not intend to produce. Without any co- ordinated plan, without any directive ideas, without any ideal of a future world, it is the cause of an inevitable evolution; it draws from the present all that the present can give towards historical development; it performs in an almost mechanical manner all that is necessary, in order that a new era may appear, and that this new era may break every hnk with the ideaUsm of the present times, while preserving the acquisitions of the capitaUstic economic system.^ SociaUsts should therefore abandon the attempt (initiated by the Utopians) to find a means of inducing the enlightened middle class to prepare the transition to a more perfect system of legislation; their sole function is that of explaining to the proletariat the greatness of the revolu- tionary part they are called upon to play. By ceaseless criticism the proletariat must be brought to perfect their organisations; they must be shown how the embryonic forms which appear in their unions ^ may be developed, so that, finally, they may build up institutions without any parallel in the history of the middle class; that they may form ideas which depend solely on their position as pro- ducers in large industries, and which owe nothing to middle- class thought; and that they may acquire habits of * Cf. what I have said on the transformation; which Marx wrought in Socialism, Insegnamenti sociali, pp. 179-186.
* [The French is socUUs de rSsistance. What is meant is the syndi- cate, considered principally as a means of combining workmen against the employers. — Trans. Note,] 86 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE liberty with which the middle class nowadays are no longer acquainted.
This doctrine will evidently be inapplicable if the middle class and the proletariat do not oppose each other implacably, with all the forces at their disposal; the more ardently capitalist the middle class is, the more the proletariat is full of a warlike spirit and confident of its revolutionary strength, the more certain will be the success of the proletarian movement.
The middle class with which Marx was familiar in England was still, as regards the immense majority, animated by their conquering, insatiable, and pitiless spirit, which had characterised at the beginning of modem times the creators of new industries and the adventurers laimched on the discovery of unknown lands. When we are studying the modem industrial system we should always bear in mind this similarity between the capitalist type and the warrior type; it was for very good reasons that the men who directed gigantic enterprises were named captains of industry. This type is still foimd to- day in all its purity in the United States: there are found the indomitable energy, the audacity based on a just appreciation of its strength, the cold calculation of interests, which are the qualities of great generals and great capitalists.^ According to Paul de Rousiers, every American feels himself capable of " trying his luck ** on the battlefield of business,' so that the general spirit of the country is in complete harmony with that of the multi-millionaires; our men of letters are exceedingly surprised to see these latter condemning themselves to lead to the end of their days a galley-slave existence, 1 I will come back to this resemblance in Chapter VII. iii.