I
Socialism, revolution, internationalism--these are the three subjects
regarding which I beg your permission to say what--with no pretence of
being infallible--I believe to be the truth. At the risk of telling
you nothing new, I will simply try to speak truth. Those who reproach
the socialists for constantly repeating the same thing, have, no
doubt, the habit of accommodating the truth to suit their taste for
variety. On the other hand, to talk of socialism is to do what
everyone else is doing at this time, but I will speak to you of it
from the standpoint of a socialist, and--unhappily--that is not as yet
equally common.
The signal and distinctive mark of modern socialism is that it springs
directly from the facts. Far from resting on the imaginary conceptions
of the intellect, from being a more or less utopian vision of an ideal
society, socialism is to-day simply the theoretical expression of the
contemporaneous phase of the economic evolution of humanity.
At this point we are met with two objections.
On the one hand, because we say that socialism springs from the facts,
we are accused of denying the influence of the Idea and the liberal
defenders of the Idea rise up in revolt; they can calm themselves
again. How could we deny the influence of the Idea, when socialism
itself is as yet, as I have just pointed out, only a theoretical
expression, _i.e._, an idea, which we nevertheless believe has a
certain influence?
We merely assert that a truth, irrevocably established by science as a
valid generalization, does not cease to be a truth when it is applied
to human history and socialism. This truth is the action of the
environment: all living beings are the product of the environment in
which they live. To the environment, in the last analysis, to the
relations necessarily created by the multiple contacts, actions and
reactions of the environment and the environed are due all the
transformations of all organisms and, in consequence, all the
phenomena that emanate from them. Thought is one of these phenomena,
and, just like all the others, it has its source in actual facts. To
say that socialism springs from the facts, is then simply to place the
socialist idea on the same plane with all other ideas. In socialism,
as in all subjects, the idea is the reflex in the brain of the
relations of man with his surroundings, and the greater or less
aptitude of the brain for acquiring, retaining and combining ideas,
constitutes intelligence. The latter, in making various combinations
out of the elements provided by the environment, may obviously lose
sight of the reality which serves as its foundation, but our socialism
aims never to depart from the data drawn from unbiased observation of
the facts.
We are accused, on the other hand, because we believe that the
economic question contains the whole of socialism, of denying the
existence and influence of the intellectual factor, the sentimental
factor, the psychological factor--in short, a whole collection of
factors. Now, as I am going to try to show you, our only error, if it
is an error, is that we wish to put the cart behind the horse, and to
accuse us of wishing to suppress the cart because we refuse to put it
in front or alongside of the horse, proves, at once, the incontestable
desire to find us at fault, and the difficulty of gratifying that
desire.
Man, as I said just now, is the product of the environment. But, to
the influence of the cosmic or natural environment, which affects all
beings, there was soon joined in his case the influence of the special
environment created by him, an environment resulting from the acquired
means of action, from the material of the tools used, from the
conditions of life added by him to those furnished him by nature, or
else substituted for them, the influence, in a word, of the economic
environment, an influence which has gradually become predominant
because the conditions of life, determining in all orders of society
man's mode of life, have finally become less and less dependent upon
the purely physical capabilities of the cosmic environment, and more
and more dependent upon the means of action acquired by human
exertions, upon the artificial capabilities of the economic
environment, upon human thought materialized in various innovations.
We find at the foundation of everything affecting man the influence of
the natural and economic environments, and, if it is quite true that
we recognize the preponderant influence of the economic environment,
it is passing strange to accuse us of not recognizing the action of
human intelligence, which we assert is the creator of this
environment. Only we do not forget that, at any stage of development
whatever, intelligence does nothing by its creations except to
elaborate the elements which it finds "ready made," as it were, in the
environment.
Therefore, intelligence can, by working with the elements furnished by
the existing environment, produce a change in this environment. This
new environment thus changed becomes the determining environment of
future intelligence. You see that, far from degrading the role of
intelligence, we attribute to it a considerable importance; we only
refuse to see in it a spontaneous phenomenon.
Having replied to the reproach of not taking into consideration what
is called intelligence and is paraded as the intellectual factor, it
is scarcely necessary for me to honor with special replies all the
other factors mobilized against us, as they are all merely products of
intelligence. I will remark, however, that if it is true that we do
not deduce our theory from this association of factors, this does not
authorize the conclusion that morality, right, justice, psychology,
and sentiment are for us words devoid of meaning. To refuse to elevate
them to the rank of scientific proofs, which is what we do, and all
that we do, is not to deny them; it is simply to avoid employing them
for a use for which they are not and could not be destined. Because,
to uphold our theory, we prefer to have recourse to the observation of
facts and their tendencies, we have never proscribed the conception or
sentiment of justice as motives for adhesion to that very theory, and
we do not hesitate to declare that that which is unfitted to serve as
a scientific proof, may be utilized as a motive for action.
Moreover, even those who attribute to the "syndicate" of factors a
preponderating power over historical progress do not attribute to
intelligence a greater influence than we recognize as belonging to it.
In fact, the controversy here is not concerning the influence of
ideas. The controversy arises when we attempt to determine which ideas
are influential. On either side it is simply a matter of choosing from
among the products of intelligence. Our opponents insist upon the
claims of the factors in combination, instead of recognizing, as do
we, the predominant influence of the ideas which clothe themselves in
the phenomenal form of acts, such as inventions, etc., which lead to
the modification of the economic environment and consequently, as we
believe, to the modification of man himself, in his mode of life
first, in his habits and methods of thought afterward.
As soon as it is seen that the transformation of the economic
conditions, of the conditions of life, is the fundamental
transformation, that upon which all the others are more or less
dependent, it will be recognized that to say that socialism is simply
the expression of the contemporaneous phase of economic conditions is
not to narrow, in the slightest degree, its field of action, but only
to define more accurately its immediate goal. The affirmation that
there is in progress an evolution of the economic environment implies
necessarily a corresponding evolution of the various branches of human
knowledge, which are all influenced by this environment, just as the
apple-tree implies the apple without its being necessary to speak of
the integral apple-tree.[1] If socialism is contained "in a purely
economic formula," it is just as the apple-tree is contained in the
seed. Let us be vigilant to see that this "economic formula" and this
seed are not thwarted in their normal development, and we shall have
all the fruits that may be desired, even if we refrain from heaping
qualifying or complemental adjectives upon the apple-tree and
socialism.
Some have thought that they have discovered an argument against this
predominance of the economic environment and of the economic question,
in the fact that some events which are not economic in nature--and
they cite, most frequently, the invention of gunpowder and the
revocation of the edict of Nantes--have had a great influence on human
history. They forget that, if such or such an important event was not
directly in itself an economic phenomenon, it is chiefly by the
consequences that it had from the economic point of view that it
became important; like all human discoveries, all historic events, it
reached a point where it became a modifying element of the economic
environment.
To recapitulate, if we insist upon the influence of the surroundings,
and, particularly, upon the preponderant influence of the economic
environment--the creation of man--this does not justify representing
us as attributing an exclusive influence to the economic environment
and as holding that this environment itself is created and influenced
only by facts properly classed as economic.
I return then to my first proposition: socialism must have and has for
its foundation the economic environment, the economic facts. What are
those facts?