THE REVOLUTION
My dear John,
You will meet many Socialists who will tell you that the Marxist creed
anticipates that no force will be required in bringing about the change
from capitalism to collectivism--no violence, no bloodshed. If anybody
attempts to make you believe that the Socialist purpose is a peaceful
one, refer him to “The Communist Manifesto,” which was drafted by Marx
and Engels, and terminates with these words:
“The Communists do not seek to conceal their views and aims. They
declare openly that their purpose can be obtained only by violent
overthrow of all existing arrangements of society. Let the ruling
classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have
nothing to lose in it but their chains; they have a world to win.”
If you are still told, as I have been, that such language was used by
the founders of Socialism, not because they meant to incite violence,
but simply to arouse the interests of the worker in their propaganda,
call your Socialist’s attention to the transactions of The Hague
Congress in 1872, when Marx declared:
“In most countries of Europe violence must be the lever of our
social reform. We must finally have recourse to violence, in order
to establish the rule of labor.... The revolution must be universal,
and we find a conspicuous example in the Commune of Paris, which has
failed because in other capitals--Berlin and Madrid--a simultaneous
revolutionary movement did not break out in connection with this mighty
upheaval of the proletariat of Paris.”
Indeed, John, so revolutionary a program can never be brought about
by anything less than the most violent of revolutions. It is true
that there are Socialists who profess to believe that this end can
be achieved by legal and political means; yet they themselves admit
that this rule will hold good only in times and in countries where
the purposes of the revolution can be accomplished by such peaceful
methods. Where political means are wanting, or the Socialist majority
is insufficient to overawe completely all opposition, recourse to
violence must be had.
We must not forget that, as Professor Woolsey says (“Communism and
Socialism,” p. 228), “there never was a revolution since history
told the story of the world so complete as this” (namely, that which
Socialism proposes to effect); and, as he later remarks (p. 280),
nothing short of the persuasion of violent revolution “can lead holders
of property ... to acquiesce in so complete an overthrow of society and
downfall of themselves, as modern Socialism contemplates.”
Personally, with your knowledge of human nature, can you conceive of
any other method by which Socialism can accomplish its aims? Do you
deem it possible that such world-wide dispossession can come without a
struggle on the part of those who are to be excluded from the enjoyment
of what they have been brought up to believe they rightfully possess?
Is it reasonable to expect that all holders of productive property,
both large and small, will placidly surrender at the request of the
Socialist demagogues? You don’t believe this could happen? Neither do
the Socialists. In his “History of Socialism” (p. 10), Kirkup, who is
anything but an extreme radical, admits that “the prevailing Socialism
of the day is in large part based on the frankest and most outspoken
revolutionary materialism”; while Hyndman, who is conspicuously the
advocate of political action, writes in “Social Democracy” (p. 22): “We
are not so foolish as to say we will not use force if it would bring
us to a better period more rapidly. We do not say we are such men of
peace.”
Our own Charles H. Kerr, the head of the great American Socialist
publishing house, takes a similar stand. In discussing the means by
which American Socialists plan to overthrow capitalism, he says (“What
to Read on Socialism,” p. 10):
“As to the means by which the capitalist class is to be overthrown,
the real question worth considering is what means will prove most
effective. If it could best be done by working for ‘one thing at a
time’ and bidding for the votes of the people who have no idea what the
class-struggle means, we should no doubt favor that method. But history
has made it very clear that such a method is a dead failure.... If,
on the other hand, the working class could best gain power by taking
up arms, just as the capitalist class did when it dislodged the
land-holding nobility from power, why not?”
These advocates of a violent revolution are mild-spoken, indeed, as
compared to many of the better-known apologists of Socialism. Bebel,
for example, in “Unsere Ziele” (p. 44), speaks more emphatically.
“We must not shudder at the thought of the possible employment of
violence; we must not raise an alarm cry at the suppression of
‘existing rights’, at violent expropriation, etc. History teaches us
that at all times new ideas were realized, as a rule, by a violent
conflict with the defenders of the past, and that the combatants for
new ideas struck blows as deadly as possible at the defenders of
antiquity. Not without reason does Karl Marx in his work on ‘Capital’
exclaim:
“‘Violence is the midwife that waits on every ancient society that is
to give birth to a new one; violence is itself a social factor.’”
Dietzgen, too, advocates nothing short of revolution, and sees no
reason why violence should be condemned under such conditions.
“Oh, ye short-sighted and narrow-minded who cannot give up the fad
of the moderate organic progress!” he says. “Don’t you perceive that
all our great liberal passions sink to the level of mere trifling,
because the great question of social salvation is in the order of the
day? Don’t you perceive that struggle and destruction must precede
peace and construction, and that chaotic accumulation of material is
the necessary condition of systematic organization, just as the calm
precedes the tempest and the latter the general purification of the
air?... History stands still because she gathers force for a great
catastrophe.”
Both the “Red Catechism” and Joynés’ “Socialist Catechism” teach the
same doctrine. In the “Red Catechism,” one looks in vain for any hint
of contemplated compensation or peaceful methods of expropriation.
“How are the forms of government changed?” is asked.
“By means of revolution,” is the answer.
And in the “Socialist Catechism,” we find these words:
“Q. What is the revolution for which the Socialists strive? A. A
revolution which will render impossible the individual appropriation
of the products of associated labor and consequent exploitation and
enslavement of the laborers.... Q. _How are forms of government
changed, so as to readjust them to the economical changes in the
forms of production which have been silently evolving in the body of
society?_ A. _By means of revolution._ Q. _Give an instance of this?_
A. _The French Revolution of 1789._”
And even the Socialist hymn-books, the books from which the children in
the Socialist schools sing, are filled with such sentiments as:
“They’ll know full soon, the kind of vermin,
Our bullets hit in that last fight.”
Or, as another Socialist song has it:
“Rise in your might, brothers, bear it no longer,
Assemble in masses throughout the whole land;
Teach the vile blood-suckers who are the stronger
When workers and robbers confronted shall stand.”
Certainly, Kirkup is not far from the true Socialist ideal when he
asserts (“History of Socialism,” p. 160), that “a great revolutionary
catastrophe is to close the capitalistic era”; even though he adds,
“this must be regarded as a very bad preparation for the time of social
peace which is forthwith to follow.”
It is not easy for Socialists to evade this issue, especially in
view of the fact that the instructions they have received from their
leaders so invariably tend to incite violence. “If the people have not
a scrapnel to shoot, they have broken bottles to throw,” said Victor
Grayson at Huddersfield, on August 12, 1907. “Chemistry,” says Hyndman
(“Historical Basis of Socialism,” p. 443), “has placed at the disposal
of the desperate and the needy cheap and powerful explosives, the full
effects of which are as yet unknown. Every day adds new discoveries
in this field; the dynamite of ideas is accompanied in the background
by the dynamite of material force. These modern explosives may easily
prove to capitalism what gunpowder was to feudalism.”
If there remained any doubt as to the precise purposes of Socialism,
the attitude which its press and its speakers assume toward the
use of violence during the French Revolution and the Paris Commune
would afford evidence in plenty. Marx lauded the uprising of 1871 and
praised its bloodthirsty crimes as the work of heroes. “Workingmen’s
Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious
harbinger of a new society,” he said, in “The Civil War in France” (p.
78); and there is practically no end to the quotations that might be
presented from the writings of Socialists who support Marx’s position.
Herron refers to the Commune as “a sort of glad and beatific moment,
a momentary and prophetic spring-time in the long procession of the
changing forms of parasitism and hypocrisy and brute force which we
know as law and government” (_Boston Address_, 1903).
Quelch, too, in _Justice_ (London, March 18, 1911), signalizes the
Paris Commune as “a glorious event, which should ever be borne in mind
and celebrated by the proletariat of all civilized countries,” while
the _Appeal to Reason_, when asked why American Socialists celebrated
the anniversary of the Commune, replied (August 29, 1893):
“Because it represented a rise of the working class and served as a
splendid example of what working men can accomplish.”
And this glorious event, this “glad and beatific moment,” is thus
described by Mazzini, the Italian patriot:
“A people was wallowing about as if drunk, raging against itself and
lacerating its limbs with its teeth, while howling triumphant cries,
dancing an infernal dance before the grave which it had dug with its
own hand, killing, torturing, burning and committing crimes without
sense, shame or hope. It put one in mind of the most horrid visions of
Dante’s Hell.”
The Socialist historian, Benham, describes the events of the Commune
in his “Proletarian Revolt,” and the following summary of this
description, with the pages for reference, appears in “Questions of
Socialists and Their Answers” (p. 108), by Rev. William Stephens Kress:
Forty thousand Parisians were killed in battle (p. 211); public
buildings and priceless works of art were burned or destroyed;
Napoleon’s column was torn down; the movable property of people
who had fled the city was confiscated (p. 101); churches were
pillaged (p. 57); Jesuits were robbed of 400,000 francs (p. 43);
12 unfriendly journals were suppressed (p. 75); 300 of the clergy
were imprisoned (p. 59); 200 priests were held as hostages (p. 118);
priests were murdered (pp. 169, 171, 172, 181) ... Deguery, the Curé
of the Madeline, when catechised by Rigault, judge of the Council of
Discipline, said: “We teach the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To
which Rigault replied: “There are no Lords. We do not know any Lords.”
When Archbishop Darboy was questioned, he answered: “I am a servant
of God.” Rigault asked: “Where does he live?” To which the Archbishop
replied: “Everywhere.” Rigault then gave command: “Send this man to
the Conciergerie, and issue a warrant for the arrest of his Master,
one called God, who has no permanent residence, and is consequently,
contrary to law, living in a perpetual state of vagabondage” (p.
57). Archbishop Darboy was ordered shot. When the order was given to
fire he blessed the soldiers. “That’s your benediction, is it? Now
take mine,” said Lolive, one of the soldiers, as he fired a pistol
bullet into the Archbishop’s body (p. 158). Mr. Washburne, American
Minister to France, said of Darboy: “He was one of the most charming
and agreeable of men and was beloved alike by rich and poor. He had
spent his whole life in acts of charity and benevolence” (p. 158).
Speaking of the deadly hatred on the part of the Communards of all
things religious, Benham remarks: “The actions of the Commune were
proofs positive that they subscribed to the skeptical tenets which
hold priests to be the advocates of human ignorance and a bar to the
progress of the race” (p. 59).
It is such scenes of bloodshed and injustice--just this kind of triumph
of might over right--that Socialists would have repeated. They cannot
deny this, John, because this program, horrible as it may seem to us,
is perfectly logical from the Socialist point of view. “According to
Socialist ethics,” says Ming (“The Morality of Modern Socialism,”
p. 344), “all means are morally good which lead to the victory of
the proletariat. Why, then, should violence not be justified if it
brings success? The working class is the only class that has the right
and power to be; it is society, the nation, the true public, while
capitalism is but a cancer of the social organism. Why should it not
employ violence when deemed an effective means for emancipation,
conquest of power and introduction of collectivism?”
No, John, it is not when Socialists advocate violence that they are
illogical; it is when they deny that they advocate and plan to resort
to violence in accomplishing their purposes that they show a lack of
logic.