Socialism and the Future
I
THE various schools of socialism, including Communism, accept as a fundamental proposition that international unity of the masses, and more particularly of the industrial workers, will not only improve their economic condition but prevent the recurrence of wars. Wars, according to Leftist thinking, are the consequences of imperialistic rivalries which in turn are made possible and even unavoidable through the fact that national governments are controlled by powerful capitalist interests. If the laboring masses controlled the affairs of the state, there would be no wars.
There is no way of proving whether such a premise is true. No political system has ever been devised by which the mass of the people could actually express their will on such matters as war or peace without the interposition of practical leadership. And it can be said that as soon as such a leadership exists, whatever may be its political complexion, it becomes immediately sensitive to nationalist influences, and subject, therefore, to accusations of imperialism. Stalin is a good case in point. For many years now, and especially during this war, the Living Buddha of Internationalism has behaved like a Russian, and if he thinks in terms of future world revolution it is obviously not his main preoccupation for the moment.
Socialism is a doctrine. It offers at once a program and a dream. Like all modern political creeds, it has had to assume certain of the functions of religion where religion, as a social system, has ceased to operate. It must offer a promise, an earthly promise, and that promise is the elimination of war, the reign of justice, economic equality for all, order and efficiency in the production and distribution of goods — all of which is to be achieved by turning over to the laboring classes the management of their own affairs.
It should be noted that, as far as the general attitude towards society is concerned, there is only a shade of difference between that of democracy as it now exists in America and that of socialism. Concerning the problem of war, for instance, progressive democrats like President Roosevelt have stated their belief that 90 per cent of the people of the earth wanted peace and that the only difficulty was to get rid of the 10 per cent of evildoers who led them astray.
American democracy and socialism also agree on the notion that the aim of government is to improve the material conditions of existence for the greatest number of citizens and to establish as much equality between men as possible.
Democracy and socialism, in other words, both believe in the principle that the majority rule is sound because the general tendency of human nature is directed towards good more than towards evil. They are both based on an optimistic philosophy concerning the nature of man.
Where they differ is in their attitude towards the minorities who enjoy an excess of power through economic advantages. The socialist solution is to eliminate them and to transfer their power to the state. It recommends a leveling of society that would fill in the gap that now exists between the theory of political equality and the practice of economic inequality. It would do away with private capital altogether, and — under Communism — with private property. The state alone would wield economic power.
On the other hand, democracy, as it now exists, does not believe in destroying private capitalism. It wants to control it, curb it, and prevent its excesses. It certainly does not wish to destroy private property, and the present tendency of democratic government seems to be towards an increase of managerial functions rather than ownership.
There is no doubt that in the eyes of sensitive conservatives and alarmed reactionaries these differences between modern democracy and socialism are not important enough to reassure them. Private capitalism is conscious of having failed in its effort to maintain its hold on the affairs of the state. Even in America the political has gained the upper hand, and there is no reason to believe that it will lose it, except by a revolution which would reinstate the prestige of the economic minorities through some form of business fascism.
Nevertheless the differences between modern democracy and socialism, however slight they may appear to those whose pocketbook and prestige are more conspicuously deflated, are fundamental, because they involve some of the most vital problems the world is facing today.
The main difference can be expressed as follows: whereas the general premises and purposes of democracy and socialism tend to coincide more and more, the methods of approach to the solution of the problems and the attitude towards nearly all aspects of life are conflicting. Socialism implies revolution — a break with the existing order. Democracy clings to the principle of evolution and to the notion of continuity. Socialism can only justify itself by trying to impose a doctrine. Democracy can only survive by avoiding at all costs any drastic step that would mark a definite break with customs, habits of thought, and the will for permanency that is the chief characteristic of every living organism, whether it be an animal, a school of art, or a form of civilization.
Democracy, as we know it at the moment, is still in a position to absorb many doctrines, such as socialism, without necessarily destroying itself, because it still remains t he only mode of life and the only mechanism of society sufficiently broad as far as its philosophical basis is concerned, and sufficiently vague as to its outlines, to encompass a vast number of contradictions.
If one wishes to accept the definition of Talleyrand (as quoted by Guglielmo Ferrero), democracy is now the only ‘legitimate’ form of government known in the world.
‘A legitimate government,’ wrote Talleyrand, ‘be it monarchical or republican, hereditary or elective, aristocratic or democratic, is always the one whose existence, form, and mode of action have been strengthened and sanctioned over a long period of years, I might even say over a period of centuries. . . . Today there is a widespread belief, which it would be impossible to shake, that governments exist only for the benefit of the people. From this it follows that a legitimate power is one which can best guarantee their peace and happiness. Therefore the only legitimate power is one which has lasted a great many years. And furthermore, strengthened by tradition and by the affection which men naturally possess for their rulers, — owing them an allegiance which becomes a law in the eyes of every individual, corresponding to the laws regulating private property, — this power is less likely than any other to deliver up its people to the grim horrors of revolution. In other words, it is one which people are serving their best interest by obeying.’
If this is accepted, it is clear that democracy is the only form of government in existence today that is strong enough and endowed with sufficient experience and prestige to avoid the ‘grim horrors of revolution.’ Or, to be more accurate, it is the only one to which the forces that are afraid of, or opposed to, revolution can still cling. Democracy has become the only refuge of the conservatives and of all those who are conscious that the real peril of the present times is the risk of a complete break in the evolution of Western civilization such as occurred between the fifth and the twelfth century, a period of six or seven hundred years during which the vital principle of continuity in human development was suspended.
It may be argued that socialism, in its moderate form, is by no means revolutionary, that it proposes, in fact, nothing but an extension of the democratic process. And this is quite true if one considers socialism from the angle of social reform, the emancipation of labor, the curtailment of economic privileges, and so forth. As I have noted before, progressive democracy — as conceived by Roosevelt, for instance — tends more and more to fulfill the aims of socialism. But when one considers the attitude of democracy and socialism towards international relations and the organization of the Western world, certain very deep conflicts become apparent. In the same manner that the war of 1914-1918 and the post-war era showed the deep cleavage that exists between capitalism and democracy, a parallel opposition has developed between the main current of democracy, which is conservative, individualistic, anti-collectivist, and fundamentally bourgeois in its general outlook, and the fundamental trend of socialist thinking.
It is generally admitted that if democracy survives this war it will become much more socialistic than it has ever been before. In fact, many believe that socialism is the natural heir to the capitalist democracy which we know today. This may be so, but it implies a rather profound reform or rejuvenation of the whole socialist doctrine in so far as the problems of nationalism and international relations are concerned.
Capitalist democracy and socialism have both proved their inability to cope successfully with the phenomenon of war, but the record of socialism is even more lamentable than that of democracy. If the bourgeois democrats and the liberals of England, France, and the United States have shown blindness, incoherence, and weakness from the Versailles Treaty up to the present day, and if their prestige as an elite has deteriorated constantly, they have not equaled the confusion of socialist leadership, nor have they accumulated such a record of failures.
Admitting the validity of Talleyrand’s theory of ‘legitimacy,’ one can say that every political doctrine is in the position of bidding constantly for power, but can only obtain it if, over a long period of time, it has succeeded in gaining the confidence and the respect of large sections of the population. Judged by such standards, socialism was in a good position at the end of the nineteenth century and up to 1914 to offer its solutions to the economic, social, and political problems of the modern industrial world, because it was the only doctrine that seemed prepared to launch a frontal attack on the growing peril of extreme nationalism and to suggest an international solution to humanity’s problems.
Democracy, in spite of all its errors, has not lost its claim to ‘legitimacy’ in the future. Socialism has not acquired it, and has even lost much of the progress made before the opening of the cataclysmic era which began in 1914.
Wars and the present revolutionary assault against civilization have badly shaken the democratic principles, but have not destroyed them. Doctrinary socialism is in a condition of chaos and — as an international force — reduced to impotence.
II
Up to the war of 1914, the position of the socialist parties and leftist groups was fairly clear. Since the conservative and economically privileged groups in each country were identified with nationalism, the socialist attacks were directed against militarism, capitalism, and all forms of power politics. In Germany, in France, as well as in all other European countries, the socialists had pledged themselves to do all in their power to prevent war, not excluding sabotage and rebellion in case of mobilization. Socialism, in other words, appeared as the most powerful movement for peace because it proclaimed that unified labor, as an international force, was stronger than the sense of national discipline which prompts men to fight.
Before Germany and France mobilized in August 1914, there was no reason to believe that this was not so. Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, there had been several wars, but they had all been localized. None had produced the universal disruption caused by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. For one hundred years Europe had enjoyed, if not perfect peace, at least sufficient stability to make the nineteenth century appear in retrospect as one of the most prosperous and progressive that history has recorded. Material comfort due to industrial development was spreading like an irresistible wave, and this in turn increased the power of organized labor all over Western Europe.
The evolution of the class struggle defined by Karl Marx seemed to be taking shape according to prophecies. The governments of the big powers were seriously preoccupied by such things as anti-militaristic propaganda in the armies and by threats of rebellion in the war industries in case of mobilization. Many liberals and intellectuals had definitely taken sides for internationalism. There was no real assurance that the workers, and with them a considerable part of the small bourgeoisie, would not strike against war.
When the test came, however, in August 1914, nothing of the kind happened. The German socialist party — the strongest of all at the time — immediately rallied to the call of the Kaiser, which gave the French socialist leaders a good excuse to act likewise. The French Government, which had a list of dangerous persons to be arrested in case of mobilization, — called the ‘ Carnet B,’ — merely filed this list. Jean Jaurès, the head of the French socialist party, was assassinated by a fanatic on the eve of mobilization, but he and his friends had already decided to support the war.
Thus the great fear of sabotage and betrayal proved groundless. The German worker acted as a German and the French worker as a Frenchman. National unity prevailed.
But if the socialists and their followers did not betray their flag, they certainly betrayed their own doctrine of resistance to war.
It matters little whether the blame for the betrayal of international socialism should be placed on the German socialists or elsewhere. It can only be said that, early in August 1914, socialism as an international movement received its first deadly blow. It was the first tangible evidence that, when an international force like socialism is in direct opposition to nationalism, the latter triumphs.
Later on, during the World War, there were some attempts made to revive international pacifism, such as the Congress of Zimmerwald. The mutinies that took place in the French Army in 1917 showed that the old doctrine of rebellion against war was still very much alive, but such attempts were, on the whole, abortive and the war went on in an atmosphere of ‘national unity.’
The first really effective revolt of socialism against nationalism took place in 1917, when Lenin, having reëntered Russia, overthrew the ‘democratic’ government of Kerensky, and established the Soviets, later signing the peace of BrestLitovsk. This peace was worse than shameful from the nationalist point of view, but it reaffirmed one of the fundamental aims of socialism: that peace can only be assured by an international rebellion of the proletariat against capitalist imperialism. Although committing Russia alone, it was an appeal to revolt intended to reverberate throughout the world.
The Communist Revolution naturally created a state of extreme alarm among all the Western powers, who saw in it the greatest threat against any form of nationalism and therefore against the bourgeois society itself. But once again the attempt to establish internationalism from below was to prove a failure. The example of Brest-Litovsk was not followed. The world revolution did not spread. Lenin was compelled to compromise on fundamental points of the Marxian doctrine, even inside Russia. After his death, whatever hopes there might have been among intellectual idealists that Communism offered a solution to the complex problems of the postwar world died. ‘From its very start,’ wrote H. G. Wells, ‘the Russian Revolution failed in its ambition to lead mankind.’
There were many reasons for this, but one of the most important, in my opinion, has often been overlooked: the very fact that the attempts to achieve world revolution were directed from Moscow weakened the chances of the world proletariat in their attempt to overthrow the existing order. Geographic conditions are as important in revolutionary movements as they are in power politics. London, Paris, Berlin, can be the capitals of Europe because they are in Europe proper. Moscow is not. However great may have been the influence of the Third International on the destinies of the laboring classes, the fact that the Komintern is located in Russia has been an insuperable handicap. For the Communist Revolution to succeed, it would have had to conquer one of the big Western countries. This it failed to do, with the result that, ever since the death of Lenin, Communism has tended to become subservient to Russian power politics. Its adherents in foreign countries still take their orders from Stalin, but in doing so they cannot help knowing that they are serving Russian national interests first and that world revolution has become a mere by-product of Soviet power politics.
III
In spite of the fact that since June 22, 1941, Russia has found herself fighting on the side of the democracies — which has rehabilitated to a certain extent the cause of the partisans of Moscow — this rehabilitation has not benefited Communism as such. In fact the net result of Stalin’s policy has been to emphasize the nationalist character of the present Russian leadership. From the point of view of pure doctrine, Stalin is no better off now that he is fighting on the side of the capitalist democracies of the West than when he aligned himself against them by signing a pact with Hitler in August 1939.
It may be argued that Stalin’s calculations went wrong. He may have overestimated — like everybody else — the strength of the French Army and of the Maginot Line. He may have hoped that Nazi Germany and the Allies would exhaust one another in a long-drawn-out war. Perhaps his thoughts ran as follows : —
‘There is no righteousness in either cause. Both are motivated by the same evil impulse, which is greed. It is not the little people, who are doing the fighting and the suffering, who are the greedy ones. They are innocent of that. Their only guilt is idleness. Idleness has made them stupid, and stupidity has made it easy for the big ones, the greedy ones, to lead them into war. If we can keep both sides fighting long enough, until they cannot fight any more, then maybe the little people will open their eyes. Then they can see that they have been the dupes of this international clique of greed. . . . Maybe then they will revolt and free themselves from being led into destruction again as soon as they have rested and recovered for a generation or so.’
This way of looking at the situation — which is not that of a Communist, nor even of a fellow traveler, but of Henry Ford — may have been that of Stalin, and he may have concluded, like the American industrialist, that ‘when both nations [Germany and England] finally collapse into internal dissolution, then the United States [or Soviet Russia] can play the rôle for which it has the strength and the ability.’
If Stalin reasoned in this fashion — that is, like Henry Ford — when he signed the German-Soviet Pact, his reasoning was faulty, as proved by Hitler, who, far from exhausting himself in his fight against the Western capitalist democracies, gained enough strength through a series of victories over them to turn against Soviet Russia with the purpose of wiping out Bolshevism from the earth.
It may be that by siding with the democracies (much against his will) Stalin will eventually save the independence of his country and his own régime. But, even if he should sit among the victors, it will not be in the capacity of the head of Communism and world revolution, but as the national leader of the Russian people. I do not say that a joint victory of the United States, England, and the USSR will mean necessarily the disappearance of Communist rule in Russia, but if there is to be a new international order after this war (provided it is not Hitler’s) those who will give shape to this order are men like Roosevelt and Churchill, or their successors — not Stalin.
The fact that Stalin has been compelled to follow a national policy as did the Czars who preceded him has discredited the cause of Communism as a formula to solve the problems involved in the present crisis. There is a growing desire that the world of the future should rest on something less fragile and less artificial than the Marxian doctrine of the class struggle. The slogans ‘Workers of the world, unite,’ ‘You have nothing to lose but your chains,’ and so forth, have proved inoperative too many times in the last twenty-five years. It is a strange irony of fate that the prestige of the Russian people has never been so high, owing to their magnificent heroism, while at the same time the régime under which they live, far from extending its ideological influence, would seem to be constantly losing ground and prestige. The democracies which, at the time of writing, are supporting Russia in her war effort have lost none of their hostility to Communism. In fact the tendency is to believe that the remarkable exploits of the Russians and their surprising ability to resist the German onslaught have been possible in spite of Communism. ‘The Russia of today’s firing line is manifestly not the Russia of 1914-1918,’ wrote the New York Times editorially in October 1941. ‘It has progressed in industrial power and proficiency. ... It is probably less provincial and more nationalistic. These changes could have taken place without Communism. They may have taken place in spite of Communism. . . . After the victory, the democracies will be no more tolerant than they are now of the doctrines and practices of the Communist dictatorship. But they will owe a debt of gratitude to the Russian people, whose essential qualities will outlast Communism.’
There may be a good deal of wishful thinking in this attitude, but it does not destroy the essential fact that nationalism has once more proved stronger than the doctrine of international class resistance to war. The Russia of Stalin is not the Russia of Tannenberg, indeed, but it is not the Russia of Brest-Litovsk, either.
IV
Thus, ever since 1914 one of the fundamental purposes of Marxism, which is to make war impossible by opposing to it the organized revolt of the world proletariat, has failed. The later failures such as the Spanish War, the Popular Front policy, the German-Soviet pact of 1939, and now the realignment of Moscow with London and Washington, have brought clearly into light the limitations and inadequacies of the Marxian class struggle. The simple idea that the destruction of capitalism would solve all problems, including the problem of war, appears rather naïve in the presence of the complex situation that now faces the world.
This does not mean that socialist thinking is condemned. Quite the contrary. But it would appear that the attempt to impose socialism by revolution, as is the purpose of the Communist, cannot succeed better than the compromise method of the now doomed Social Democrats of Europe. A reform of socialist thinking and socialist tactics seems to be under way both in England and in the United States. In the same way that the reality of the war has revealed the weakness of absolute capitalism, doctrinaire socialism has also shown its fragility. The real conflict in which the world is engaged has not as yet taken shape very clearly in the eyes of the average citizen. But certain facts are plain enough. The idea that there are three main currents of force in this conflict — democracy, Fascism, and Communism — and that they can be combined and reshuffled according to the hazards of war is an illusion. Hitler has clearly seen the truth when he said that there were two worlds (not three) opposed, and that one of the two must succumb.
Hitler, of course, does not think in terms of politics, but of demonology. His method is to throw into one inferno all his enemies — whether real or imaginary. This is why he makes no distinction between Bolshevism, democracy, socialism, capitalism, and the Jews. All these he fights regardless of subtle distinctions. But, leaving aside the propaganda effect of such a method, the fact remains that Hitler is correct in recognizing an unconscious alliance between all those he considers enemies of National Socialism. If that alliance did not exist, he would create it.
It should not be forgotten, however, that the real opposition to Hitlerism is not to be found either in Bolshevism, capitalism, socialism, or in the Jews. There is only one real peril for Hitler: democracy, and the principles upon which it is founded. If he can destroy that, he destroys all the rest. This word — so derided by some today, so meaningless to others — contains nevertheless the essential idea of continuity and evolution, of progress and permanence, without which there can be no civilization.
And it is because socialism cannot hope to fight Hitler alone that a whole reorientation of progressive thinking has taken place in the last few years, more especially in America and in England.
V
Credit for this reorientation must go first to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal — a movement that in spite of its empirical character, its vagueness and its errors, is the only one that to date has shown enough vitality and rallied enough support to withstand all serious attacks either from the Fascist or from the Communist ideology.
It is true that the war and the urgency of national defense have suspended for the time being any new social reform in America. The United States, like England, is mostly concerned with maintaining national unity, but it should be noted that the war has not induced either the British or the American government to cancel the social reforms obtained in previous years. In contrast to what happened in France, where Daladier seized the pretext of the war to wipe out the social gains of the Popular Front government, President Roosevelt has been careful, up to now, to reassert the intangibility of the New Deal. War has brought no reaction as yet in America, and it is certainly the purpose of the present administration to pursue its present policies through the war and after it.
In England, the participation of Labor in the government is not a mere gesture symbolic of national unity. It is a serious challenge to the ability of the conservative leaders of England not only to conduct the war successfully but to prepare the future peace. British Laborites and Liberals are growing every day more aware that at the end of the First World War they got ‘no new Britain and no new Europe,’ and that some attempt must be made this time to obtain both.
Many Roosevelt supporters as well as many English Liberals may object to applying the term ‘socialistic’ to the kind of society which they are trying to foreshadow as a solution for the future. But whether this word or another is used, the basic trend remains the same. That trend is towards an increase of power of the people, and the consequent elimination of the rulers of the last twenty years. It may eventually imply the elimination of those who are now at the helm. It is a trend that points towards a more militant and more virile form of democracy, the general outlines of which can only be vaguely perceived as yet, but which is already an accomplished fact in England today. It is the natural sequence of the experiments in Social Democracy that were carried on before, and failed, but the inspiration is different, because it is born out of the mortal perils of the war. As far as England is concerned, Göring and his Luftwaffe are as much responsible for this awakening of a new democratic spirit as the new leaders of revolutionary England.
VI
A fundamental distinction should be made in the way social-democratic experiments were conducted in Europe and in America.
In Europe, more especially on the Continent, the socialist dream of international brotherhood, of a more even distribution of wealth, and of stable peace, was shattered by two perverting forces: National Socialism and Communism. The former has used socialism and distorted it into a method of enslaving people to the German war machine. The latter has bogged down into autocracy and bureaucracy.
In central and western Europe, socialist and labor leaders and all forces of the Left failed to realize that their effort to resist Fascism could not succeed if they relied on the workers alone. The great error of Karl Marx was to believe that the small bourgeoisie, being gradually impoverished, would finally join hands with the proletariat. But this small bourgeoisie reacted everywhere more or less as it had done in Germany. It refused to make a common front with the workers, whom it had always considered as a class socially inferior. Whenever a showdown came, as in Austria, in Spain, or in France, the small bourgeoisie balked at the idea of allying itself with the forces of organized labor — not because the economic interests of the workers were different from theirs, but because they feared that socialism or Communism meant the leveling down of all to the social status of the proletariat.
Moreover, this small bourgeoisie of Europe had remained fundamentally nationalistic, and the idea of joining hands with those who were fighting with the weapons and the slogans of the international revolution seemed sacrilegious.
On the other hand, the governments of England, France, and the other countries threatened by Fascism and Naziism were unable to understand that the totalitarian states had effectively solved certain technological problems common to all the Western world and that a purely negative attitude towards these problems was bound to discredit and doom democracy itself.
As has been explained before, the economic solution offered by the National Socialist leaders (which is to harness to the maximum capacity the technological knowledge, the industrial plants, and the labor available) is vitiated by its ultimate purpose, which is war and destruction. But there is little doubt that the governments of the Western democracies, committed as they were to the formulas of capitalism and classical financing, made little or no effort to modify their outworn conceptions. They fought for the preservation of capitalist democracy such as had developed in the Victorian era. The obsolete and inadequate opposition between the Marxists and the anti-Marxists was emphasized. Conservative and reactionary ‘realists,’ on the one hand, and befuddled Marxists, socialists, and Communists on the other, chose to fight one another to death, not realizing that they had nothing but antiquated weapons to fight with. This is literally true when one considers the kind of armies and armaments that the capitalist democracies put into the field, and figuratively also, as is proved by the insistence on both sides that this world crisis is essentially a class struggle.
VII
When one envisages the development of social democracy in America, the same general pattern is found, but there are very important differences.
The first one is the fact that in America no idea can express itself except through a system which, during one hundred and fifty years, has proved at once sufficiently solid and flexible to absorb every new doctrine provided it did not clash too obviously with the concepts of American democracy.
The second is the existence of the two-party system, which prevents the emergence of any party based on a doctrine so rigid that it could not appeal to the majority of the whole electorate.
If one wishes, therefore, to identify the New Deal reforms with a series of experiments in social democracy, it is necessary to keep in mind that, whereas political doctrines in Europe are always represented by a party bearing a recognizable label, these same doctrines when transplanted in America must find their expression through the established tradition of the two-party system. The result is that European political doctrines, in their pure form, seldom find an echo in America. They blend with the ways of thinking and the ways of life of the Americans. When they do not, as is the case with socialism as represented by the party of Mr. Norman Thomas, they fail to take root or progress.
Usually political conceptions are identified with the name of a leader. More often than not that leader is the President. The names of Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, assume the value of political programs considerably more precise and informative than the Democratic or Republican platforms upon which they were elected. This identification of American trends with individuals is another reason why it is always dangerous to look for too much correspondence between what happens in Europe and in America — especially when the individual is the President of the United States, who, by the very nature of his office, cannot assert his leadership if his point of view is too sectarian and and therefore too obviously in contradiction of large sections of public opinion.
It is nevertheless true that the general trend of the New Deal has been towards socialization and centralization. But if one envisages the accomplishments of the Roosevelt Administration as a whole it is difficult to decide whether they are the results of a concerted effort to find a new formula for a working democracy or merely the products of empiricism. President Roosevelt has always given the impression that the measures he took from time to time were made necessary by the emergency of the moment, and if most of his social reforms have now assumed a permanent character it is not because they were clearly planned as such. American public opinion has been led to accept the New Deal legislation as a temporary expedient. This has had the advantage of depriving the opposition of a good deal of its possible strength. But it has had the inconvenience of preventing any clear formulation of the New Deal philosophy as a solution to the problems that confront democratic governments in the United States and elsewhere.
The fundamental trend towards collectivism has certainly been taken into account by the New Dealers, but they have not had the opportunity or the inspiration to face squarely the unavoidable consequences of this trend. They have understood that capitalist methods and the folklore of business stood in the way of democratic progress. And so they have tried to curb the large corporations, the monopolies, and speculation, and they have attempted to replace the primacy of the business man’s point of view by a wider concept of human rights. But while they have acted as if they perceived the inner contradiction of capitalist democracy, they seem to have overlooked the fact that social democracy is also discredited by its own failures, its own Marxist or Y. M. C. A. mythology. More especially, it has not been able to solve the riddle of the man in the street who knows that the improvement of his own status is dependent on the improvement of the status of millions of other men all over the planet, and yet finds himself drawn irresistibly into the orbit of nationalism and war.
The New Deal, in so far as it is colored with socialism, has not succeeded as yet in shaking off the liabilities attached to a doctrine which was founded on the abstract and outworn notions of internationalism, as conceived by Marx and his disciples. There is no doubt that a good deal of thought is given to the rôle of democracy as a new force in a new world, but the blueprints now available — such as the eight points of the Atlantic Chart a — throw little light on the fundamental problems. They seem to uphold the principle of the sovereignty of states while at the same time proposing a solution of economic problems on an international basis. Once more the inherent contradiction of the Western world is put before that world, but no solution is offered.
The reason for this is obvious: nothing practical or constructive can be done until the elimination of Naziism and all that it stands for is assured. Nevertheless it is already clear that even if we had victory in our hands tomorrow there would be no ready solution for the construction of a rational and workable peace. The future remains unthinkable.
VIII
Those who feel that Western civilization has arrived at a turning point as critical as the period of the Reformation or the French Revolution are right. But for us who are living through this crisis it is as difficult to foresee its outcome as it was difficult for the contemporaries of Martin Luther or Robespierre to predict the kind of world that they were helping to create. The Reformation broke the unity of the Christian world, but its consequences were infinitely more far-reaching than a mere religious schism. The mediæval world in which the Catholic Church exerted the functions of an absolute international state came to an end. Secular power increased and nations as such began to assert their independence. Simultaneously rational thinking and scientific criticism received a tremendous impetus from the liberation of dogmatic tyranny. None of these consequences were foreseen by the Protestants, who merely believed that they were engaged in a religious dispute.
Similarly, the men of the French Revolution in attacking the privileges of the monarchy and feudalism had no inkling that they were working for the establishment of a new privileged class: the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie. The smugness of the Louis-Philippe era, the militarism of Napoleon III, and the capitalist democracy of the Third Republic are strange heirs to the Jacobins.
Today we find ourselves in a comparable predicament. We are trying to preserve the framework of democracy, because we feel that we must maintain, if we can, a certain continuity in the evolution of our civilization. The Nazi revolution, if it should succeed, would mark a complete break in this continuity, and one need not be a ‘reactionary’ to understand that a break, coming at this time, would entail a regression of culture which might well be fatal to the whole Western world. The rapidity with which Europe is being plunged into a state of barbarism — both materially and intellectually — is sufficiently instructive.
The question is not whether democracy can be made to work according to capitalist formulas or socialist doctrines. The imperative of collectivism disregards such subtleties. The dilemma is whether a collectivist society — that is, one founded on our real possibilities of production — can be established without destroying the essential principles upon which democracy rests.