on this lower middle class, which hopes to make use of the strength of the really proletarian organisations for its own great personal advantage.^ The pohticians believe that this class will sdways have peaceful tendencies, that it may be organised and discipUned, and that since the leaders of such sane syndicates understand equally with the politicians the action of the State, this class will form an excellent body of followers. They would like to make use of it to govern the proletariat; it is for this reason that Ferdinand Buisson and Jaures are in favour of syndicates of the minor grades of civil servants, who, entering the Bourses du Travail, would inspire the proletariat with the idea of imitating their own feeble and peaceful attitude.
The poHtical general strike concentrates the whole of this conception into one easily imderstood picture: it shows us how the State would lose nothing of its strength, how the transmission of power from one privileged class to another would take place, and how the mass of the producers would merely change masters. These new masters would very probably be less able than those of to-day; they would make more flowery speeches than the capitalists, but there is every evidence that they would be much harder and much more insolent than their predecessors.
The new school approaches the question from quite another point of view: it cannot accept the idea that the historical mission of the proletariat is to imitate the middle class; it cannot conceive that a revolution as vast as that which would abolish capitaUsm could be attempted for a trifling and doubtful result, for a change of masters, for the satisfaction of theorists, politicians, 1 " A portion of the nation throwing in its lot with the proletariat to demand its just rights," says Maxime Leroy, in a book devoted to the defence of the S5aidicates o£ civil servants {Les Transformations de la puissance publique, p. 216).
and speculators — all worshippers and exploiters of the State. It does not wish to restrict itself to the formulas of Marx; although he gave no other theory than that of middle-class force, that, in its eyes, is no reason why it should confine itself to a scrupulous imitation of middleclass force.
In the course of his revolutionary career, Marx was not always happily inspired, and too often he followed inspirations which belong to the past; he even allowed from time to time a quantity of old rubbish which he found in the Utopists to creep into his writings. The new school does not in the least feel itself bound to admire the illusions, the faults, and the errors of the man who did so much to work out revolutionary ideas; it endeavours to separate what disfigures the work of Marx from what will immortalise his name; its attitude is thus the reverse of that of official Socialists, who admire especially in Marx that which is not Marxian. We shall therefore attach no importance whatever to the numerous extracts which may be quoted against us to prove that Marx often understood history as the politicians do.
We know now the reason for his attitude: he did not know the distinction, which appears to us nowadays so obvious, between middle-class force and proletarian violence, because he did not move in circles which had acquired a satisfactory notion of the general strike.^ We now possess sufficient material to enable us to imderstand the Syndicalist strike as thoroughly as we do the political strike; we know what differentiates the proletarian movement from the older middle-class movement; we find in the attitude of the revolutionaries towards the * The inadequacy of, and the errors contained in Marx's work in respect to everything concerning the revolutionary organisation of the proletariat may be cited as memorable examples of that law which prevents us from thinking anything but that which has actual bases in life. Let us not confuse thought and imagination.
State a means of elucidating ideas which were still very confused in Marx's mind.
The method which has served us to mark the difference which exists between middle-class force and proletarian violence may also serve to solve many questions which crop up in the course of researches about the organisation of the proletariat. In comparing attempts to organise the Syndicalist strike, and attempts to organise the political strike, we may often judge what is good and what is bad, i.e. what is specifically socialistic and what has middle-class tendencies.
Popular education, for example, seems to be wholly carried on in a middle-class spirit; history shows us that the whole effort of capitalism has been to bring about the submission of the masses to the conditions of the capitalist economic system, so that society might become an organism; the whole revolutionary effort tends to create/r^^ w^«, but democratic rulers adopt as their mission the accomplishment of the moral unity of France. This moral imity is the automatic discipline of the producers, who would doubtless be happy to work for the glory of their intellectual leaders.
It may be said, too, that the greatest danger which threatens Syndicalism would be an attempt to imitate democracy; it would be better for it to remain content for a time with weak and chaotic organisations rather than that it should fall beneath the sway of syndicates which would copy the political forms of the middle class.
The revolutionary Syndicalists have never yet made that mistake, because those who seek to lead them into an imitation of middle-class methods happen to be adversaries of the Syndicalist general strike, and have thus stood confessed as enemies.
CHAPTER VI I. Observations of P. Bureau and of P. de Rousiers — The era of martyrs — Possibility of maintaining the cleavage with very little violence, thanks to a catastrophic myth.
II. Old habits of brutality in schools and workshops — The dangerous classes — Indulgence for crimes of cunning — Informers.
III. Law of 1884 passed to intimidate Conservatives — Part played by Millerand in the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry — Motives behind present ideas on arbitration.
IV. Search for the sublime in morality — Proudhon — No moral development inTrade Unionism — The "sublime " in Germany and the catastrophic conception.
I There are so many legal precautions against violence, and our upbringing is directed towards so weakening our tendencies towards violence, that we are instinctively inclined to think that any act of violence is a manifestation of a return to barbarism. Peace has always been considered the greatest of blessings and the essential condition of all material progress, and it is for this reason that industrial societies have so often been contrasted favourably with military ones. This last point of view explains why, almost uninterruptedly since the eighteenth century, economists have been in favour of strong central authorities, and have troubled little about political Hberties. Condorcet levels this reproach at the followers of Quesnay, and Napoleon III. had probably no greater admirer than Michel Chevalier.^ It may be questioned whether there is not a little stupidity in the admiration of our contemporaries for gentle methods. I see, in fact, that several authors, remarkable for their perspicacity and their interest in the ethical side of every question, do not seem to have the same fear of violence as our official professors.
P. Bureau was extremely surprised to find in Norway a rural population which had remained profoundly Christian. The peasants, nevertheless, carried a dagger at their belt; when a quarrel ended in a stabbing affray, the police enquiry generally came to nothing for lack of witnesses ready to come forward and give evidence.
The author concludes thus: "In men, a soft and effeminate character is more to be feared than their feeling of independence, however exaggerated and brutal, and a stab given by a man who is virtuous in his morals, but violent, is a social evil less serious and more easily curable than the excessive profligacy of young men reputed to be more civilised." ^ I borrow a second example from P. de Rousiers, who, like P. Bureau, is a fervent CathoHc and interested especially in the moral side of all questions. He narrates how, towards i860, the country of Denver, the great mining centre of the Rocky Mountains, was cleared of the bandits who infested it; the American magistracy being impotent, courageous citizens undertook the work. " Lynch law was frequently put into operation; a man accused of murder or of theft might be arrested, condemned and hanged in less than a quarter of an hour, if 1 " One day Michel Chevalier came beaming into the editorial room of the louvnal des dibats. His first words were: ♦ I have achieved liberty! ' Everybody was all agog; he was asked to explain. He meant the liberty of the slaughter-houses " (Renan, Feuilles ditachies, * P. Bureau, Le Paysan des fjords de Norwige, pp. 114 and 115.
an energetic Vigilance Committee could get hold of him. The American who happens to be honest has one excellent habit — he does not allow himself to be crushed on the pretext that he is virtuous. A law-abiding man is not necessarily a craven, as is often the case with us; on the contrary, he is convinced that his interests ought to be considered before those of an habitual criminal or of a gambler. Moreover, he possesses the necessary energy to resist, and the kind of life which he leads makes him capable of resisting effectively, even of taking the initiative and the responsibility of a serious step when circumstances demand it...Such a man, placed in a new country, full of natural resources, wishing to take advantage of the riches it contains and to acquire a superior situation in life by his labour, will not hesitate to suppress, in the name of the higher interests he represents, the bandits who compromise the future of this country. That is why, twenty-five years ago at Denver, so many corpses were dangling above the little wooden bridge thrown across Cherry Creek." ^ This is a considered opinion of P. de Rousiers, for he returns elsewhere to this question. " I know," he says, " that lynch law is generally considered in France as a symptom of barbarism...; but if honest virtuous people in Europe think thus, virtuous people in America think quite otherwise." ^ He highly approved of the Vigilance Committee of New Orleans which, in 1890, " to the great satisfaction of all virtuous people," hanged maffiosi acquitted by the jury.^ In Corsica, at the time when the vendetta was the regular means of supplying the deficiencies or correcting the action of a too halting justice, the people do not appear to have 1 De Rousiers, La Vie americaine: ranches, fermes et usines, pp.
* De Rousiers, La Vie amirioaine, VedMcation et la sociiU, p. 218. » De Rousiers, loc. cit. p. 221.
been less moral than to-day. Before the French conquest, Kabylie had no other means of punishment but private vengeance, yet the Kabyles were not a bad people.
It may be conceded to those in favour of mild methods that violence may hamper economic progress, and even, when it goes beyond a certain Umit, that it is a danger to morality. This concession cannot be used as an argument against the doctrine set forth here, because I consider violence only from the point of view of its influence on social theories. It is, in fact, certain that a great development of brutality accompanied by much blood-letting is quite imnecessary in order to induce the workers to look upon economic conflicts as the reduced facsimiles of the great battle which will decide the future. If a capitalist class is energetic, it is constantly affirming its determination to defend itself; its frank and consistently reactionary attitude contributes at least as greatly as proletarian violence towards keeping distinct that cleavage between the classes which is the basis of all Sociahsm.
We may make use here of the great historical example provided by the persecutions which Christians were obUged to suffer during the first centuries. Modem authors have been so struck by the language of the Fathers of the Church, and by the details given in the Acts of the Martyrs, that they have generally imagined the Christians as outlaws whose blood was continuedly being spilt. The cleavage between the pagan world and the Christian world was extraordinarily well marked; without this cleavage the latter would never have acquired all its characteristic features; but this cleavage was maintained by a combination of circumstances very different from that formerly imagined.
Nobody believes any longer that the Christians took refuge in subterranean quarries in order to escape the searches of the police; the catacombs were dug out at great expense by communities with large resources at their disposal, under land belonging generally to powerful families which protected the new cult. Nobody has any doubt now that before the end of the first century Christianity had its followers among the Roman aristocracy; "in the very ancient catacomb of Priscilla...has been found the family vault in which was buried from the first to the fourth century the Christian line of the Acilii/' ^ It seems also that the old belief that the number of the martyrdoms was very great must be abandoned.
Renan still asserted that the literature of martyrdom should be taken seriously. *' The details of the Acts of the Martyrs," he said, ** may be false for the most part; the dreadful picture which they unroll before us was nevertheless a reality. The true nature of this terrible struggle has often been misconceived, but its seriousness has not been exaggerated." ^ The researches of Hamack lead to quite another conclusion: the language of the Christian authors was entirely disproportionate to the actual importance of the persecutions; there were very few martyrs before the middle of the third century. Tertullian is the writer who has most strongly indicated the horror which the new rehgion felt for its persecutors, and yet here is what Harnack says: "If, with the help of the works of Tertullian, we consider Carthage and Northern Africa we shall find that before the year 180 there was in those regions no case of martyrdom, and that from that year to the death of Tertullian (after 220), and adding Numidia and the Mauritanias, scarcely more than two dozen could be counted." ^ It must be remembered that at that time there was in Africa a rather large number of Montanists. who extolled the glory of martyrdom, ^ p. Allard, Dix lepons sur le martyre, p. 171. * Renan, i.glise chritienne, p. 137.
and denied that any one had the right to fly from persecution.
P. Allard combats Hamack's proposition with arguments which seem to me somewhat weak.^ He is unable to understand the enormous difference which probably exists between the reality of the persecutions and the conceptions which the persecuted formed of them. " The Christians," says the German professor, *' were able to complain of being persecuted flocks, and yet such persecution was exceptional; they were able to look upon themselves as models of heroism, and yet they were rarely put to the proof; and I call attention to the end of this sentence: " They were able to place themselves above the grandeurs of the world, and yet at the same time to make themselves more and more at home in it." * There is something paradoxical at first sight in the situation of the Church, which had its followers in the upper classes, who were obliged to make many concessions to custom, and who yet could hold beliefs based on the idea of an absolute cleavage. The inscriptions on the catacomb of Priscilla prove " the continuance of the faith through a series of generations of the Acilii, among whom were to be found not only consuls and magistrates of the highest order, but also priests, priestesses, even children, members of illustrious idolatrous colleges, reserved by privilege for patricians and their sons." ^ If the Christian system of ideas had been rigorously based on actual facts, such a paradox would have been impossible.
The statistics of persecutions therefore play no great part in this question; what was of much greater importance than the frequency of the torments were the remarkable occurrences which took place during the scenes of * Revue des questions historiques, July 1905.
* P. Allard, op. cit. p. 142. Cf >vhat I have said in Le Systiihr hisiorique de Renan, pp. 312-315.
martyrdom. The Christian ideology was based on these rather rare but very heroic events; there was no necessity for the martyrdoms to be numerous in order to prove, by the test of experience, the absolute truth of the new religion and the absolute error of the old, to establish thus that there were two incompatible ways, and to make it clear that the reign of evil would come to an end. " In spite of the small number of martyrs,*' says Hamack, " we may estimate at its true value the courage needed to become a Christian and to live as one. Above all else we ought to praise the conviction of the martyr whom a word or a gesture could save, and who preferred death to such freedom." ^ Contemporaries who saw in martyrdom a judicial proof ^ testifying to the honour of Christ,^ drew from these facts quite other conclusions than those which a modem historian, whose mind runs in modem grooves, might draw from them; no ideology was ever more remote from the facts than that of the early Christians.
The Roman administration dealt very severely with any one who showed a tendency to disturb the public peace, especially with any accused person who defied its majesty. In striking down from time to time a few Christians who had been denounced to it (for reasons which have generally remained hidden from us) it did not think that it was accomplishing an act which would ever interest posterity; it seems that the general pubhc itself hardly ever took any great notice of these punishments; and this explains why the persecutions left scarcely any trace on pagan literature. The pagans had no reason to attach to martyrdom the extraordinary importance which the faithful and those who already sympathised wdth them attached to it.
This ideology would certainly not have been formed * G. Sorel, Le Systime historique de Renan, pp. 33'5-336.
in so paradoxical a manner had it not been for the firm beUef that people had in the catastrophes described by the numerous apocalypses which were composed at the end of the first century and at the beginning of the second; it was the conviction of all that the world was to be delivered up completely to the reign of evil, and that Christ would then come and give the final victory to His elect. Any case of persecution borrowed from the mythology of the Antichrist something of its dread dramatic character; instead of being valued on its actual importance as a misfortune which had befallen a few individuals, a lesson for the community, or a temporary check on propaganda, it became an incident of the war carried on by Satan, prince of this world, who was soon to reveal his Antichrist. Thus the cleavage sprang at the same time from the persecutions and from the feverish expectation of a decisive battle. When Christianity had developed sufficiently, the apocalyptic hterature ceased to be cultivated to any extent; although the root idea contained therein still continued to exercise its influence, the Acts of the Martyrs were drawn up in such a way that they might excite the same feelings that the apocalypses excited; it may be said that they replaced these: ^ we sometimes find in the literature of the persecutions, set down as clearly as in the apocalypses, the horror which the faithful felt for the ministers of Satan who persecuted them.^ It is possible, therefore, to conceive Socialism as being perfectly revolutionary, although there may only be a few short conflicts, provided that these have strength enough to evoke the idea of the general strike: all the ^ It is probable that the first ChrisLian generation had no clear idea of the possibility of replacing the apocalypses imitated from Jewish literature by the Acts of the Martyrs; this would explain why we possess no accounts prior to the year 155 (letter of Smx-rniotes telling of the death of Saint Polycarpe), and why all memory of a certain number of very ancient Roman martyrs has been lost.
events of the conflict will then appear under a magnified form, and the idea of catastrophe being maintained, the cleavage will be perfect. Thus one objection often urged against revolutionary Socialism may be set aside — there is no danger of civilisation succumbing under the consequences of a development of brutality, since the idea of the general strike may foster the notion of the class war by means of incidents which would appear to middleclass historians as of small importance.
When the governing classes, no longer daring to govern, are ashamed of their privileged situation, are eager to make advances to their enemies, and proclaim their horror of all cleavage in society, it becomes much more difficult to maintain in the minds of the proletariat this idea of cleavage which without Socialism cannot fulfil its historical role. So much the better, declare the worthy progressives; we may then hope that the future of the world will not be left in the hands of brutes who do not even respect the State, who laugh at the lofty ideas of the middle class, and who have no more admiration for the professional expounders of lofty thought than for priests. Let us therefore do more and more every day for the disinherited, say these gentlemen; let us show ourselves more Christian, more philanthropic, or more democratic (according to the temperament of each); let us unite for the accomplishment of social duty. We shall thus get the better of these dreadful Socialists, who think it possible to destroy the prestige of the Intellectuals now that the Intellectuals have destroyed that of the Church. As a matter of fact, these cunning moral combinations have failed; it is not difficult to see why.
The specious reasoning of these gentlemen — the pontiffs of " social duty ** — supposes that violence cannot increase, and may even diminish in proportion a.s the Intellectuals unbend to the masses and make platitudes and grimaces in honour of the union of the classes. Unfortunately for these great thinkers, things do not happen in this way; violence does not diminish in the proportion that it should diminish according to the principles of advanced sociology. There are, in fact. Socialist scoundrels, who, profiting by middle -class cowardice, entice the masses into a movement which every day becomes less like that which ought to result from the sacrifices consented to by the middle class in order to obtain peace. If they dared, the sociologists would declare that the Socialists cheat and use unfair methods, so httle do the facts come up to their expectations. However, it was only to be expected that the Socialists would not allow themselves to be beaten without having used all the resources which the situation offered them.
People who have devoted their life to a cause which they identify with the regeneration of the world, could not hesitate to make use of any weapon which might serve to develop to a greater degree the spirit of the class war, seeing that greater efforts were being made to suppress it. Existing social conditions favour the production of an infinite number of acts of violence, and there has been no hesitation in urging the workers not to refrain from brutality when this might do them service. Philanthropic members of the middle class having given a kindly reception to members of the syndicates who were willing to come and discuss matters with them, in the hope that these workmen, proud of their aristocratic acquaintances, would give peaceful advice to their comrades, it is not to be wondered their fellow-workmen soon suspected them of treachery when they became upholders of ** social reform." Finally, and this is the most remarkable fact in the whole business, anti-patriotism becomes an essential element of the Syndicalist programme.^ ^ As we consider everything from the historical point of view, it is of small importance to know what reasons were actually in the mind of The introduction of anti-patriotism into the workingclass movement is all the more remarkable because it came just when the Government was about to put its theories about the solidarity of the classes into practice. It was in vain that Leon Bourgeois approached the proletariat with particularly amiable airs and graces; in vain that he assured the workers that capitalist society was one great family, and that the poor had a right to share in the general riches; he maintained that the whole of contemporary legislation was directed towards the appUcation of the principles of solidarity; the proletariat repUed to him by denying the social compact in the most brutal fashion — by denying the duty of patriotism. At the moment when it seemed that a means of suppressing the class war had been found, behold, it springs up again in a particularly displeasing form.^ Thus all the efforts of the worthy progressives only brought about results in fiat contradiction with their aims; it is enough to make one despair of sociology I If they had any common sense, and if they really desired to protect society against an increase of brutality, they would not drive the Socialists into the necessity of adopting the tactics which are forced on them to-day; they would remain quiet instead of devoting themselves to *' social duty "; they would bless the propagandists of the general strike, who, as a matter of fact, endeavour to render the maintenance of Socialism compatible with the minimum of brutality. But these well-intentioned people are not blessed with common sense; and they have yet to suffer many blows, many humiliations, aoid many losses the first apostles of anti-patriotism; reasons of this kind are almost never the right ones; the essential thing is that for the revolutionary workers anti-patriotism appears an inseparable part of Socialism.
^ This propaganda produced results which went far beyond the expectations of its promoters, and which would be inexplicable without the revolutionary idea.
P of money, before they decide to allow Socialism to follow its own course.
II We must now carry our investigations farther, and enquire what are the motives behind the great aversion felt by moralists for acts of violence; a very brief simimary of a few very curious changes which have taken place in the manners of the working classes is first of all indispensable.
A. I observe, in the first place, that nothing is more remarkable than the change which has taken place in the methods of bringing up children; formerly it was believed that the rod was the most necessary instnunent of the schoolmaster; nowadays corporal punishments have disappeared from our public elementary schools. I believe that the competition which the latter had to maintain against the Church schools played a very great part in this progress; the Brothers applied the old principles of clerical pedagogy with extreme severity; and these, as is well known, involve an excessive amount of corporal punishment inflicted for the purpose of taming the demon who prompted so many of the child's bad habits.^ The Government was inteUigent enough to set up in opposition to this barbarous system a milder form of education which brought it a great deal of sympathy; it is not at all improbable that the severity of clerical punishments is largely responsible for the present tumult of hatred against which the Church is struggling with such difficulty. In 1901 I wrote: *' If (the Church) were well advised, it would suppress entirely that part of its activities which is devoted to children; it would do away 1 Cf. Renan, Histoire du peuple d'Jsrael, tome iv. pp. 289 and 296; Y. Guyot, La Morale, pp. 212-215; Alphonse Daudet, Numa Roumestan, chap. iv.
with its schools and workshops; it would thus do away with the principal sources of anti-clericalism: far from showing any desire to adopt this course, it seems to be its intention to develop these establishments still further, and thus it is laying up for itself still further opportunities for displays of popular hatred for the clergy." ^ What has happened since 1901 surpasses my forecast.
In factories and workshops customs of great brutality formerly existed, especially in those where it was necessary to employ men of superior strength, to whom was given the name of "grosses culottes " (big breeches); in the end these men managed to get entrusted with the task of engaging other men, because " any individual taken on by others was subjected to an infinite number of humiUations and insults "; the man who wished to enter their workshop had to buy them drink, and on the following day to treat all his fellow- workers. " The notorious Whens it to he? (Quand est-ce?) ^ would be started; everybody gets tipsy...When's it to he? is the devourer of savings; in a workshop where When's it to he? is the custom, you must stand your turn or beware." Denis Poulot, from whom I borrow these details, observes that machinery did away with the prestige of the grosses culottes, who were scarcely more than a memory when he wrote in 1870.^ The manners of the compagnonnages * (a kind of trade « Quand est-ce? This was the question addressed to the newcomer in a workshop, to remind him that according to custom he must pay for drinks all round — " Pay your footing."
» Denis Poulot, Le Sublime, pp. 150-153. I quote from the edition of 1887. This author says that the grosses culottes very much hampered progress in the forges.
* The compagnonnages were very ancient workmen's associations, whose principal purpose was to enable carpenters, joiners, locksmiths, farriers, and others, to make a circular tour round France, in order to learn their trades thoroughly. In the towns on this circuit there was an hotel kept bj' the Mere des • compagnons; the newly arrived union) were for a long time remarkable for their brutality. Before 1840 there were constant brawls, often ending in bloodshed, between groups with different rites. Martin Saint Leon, in his book oh the compagnonnage, gives extracts from really barbarous songs. ^ Initiation into the lodge was accompanied by the severest tests; young men were treated as if they were pariahs in the " Devoirs de Jacques et de Suhise ": ^ " Compagnons (carpenters) have been known," says Perdiguier, " to call themselves the Scourge of the Foxes (candidates for admission), the Terror of the Foxes...In the provinces, a * fox ' rarely works in the towns; he is himted back, as they say, into the brushwood." ' There were many secessions when the tyranny of the companions came into opposition with the more liberal habits which prevailed in society. When the workers were no longer in need of protection, especially for the purpose of j&nding work, they were no longer so willing to submit to the demands which had formerly seemed to be of little consequence in comparison with the advantages of the compagnonnage. The struggle for work more than once brought candidates into opposition with companions who wished to reserve certain privileges.* We might find still other reasons to explain workman was received there and the older men found him work. The compagnonnages are now in a state of decay.
* Each trade possessed often several rjval associations of workmen, which often engaged each other in bloody combats. Each association was called a Devoir. What was intended by de Jacques and de Subisf has long been forgotten. They are traditional words indicating the rules, and so by extension, the associations which follow these rules.
* In 1823, the companion joiners claimed La Rochelle as theirs, a town which they had for a long time neglected as being of too little importance; they had previously only stopped at Nantes and Bordeaux (Martin Saint-Leon, op. cit. p. 103). L' Union des travailleurs du tour de France was formed in 1830 to 1832 as a rival organisation to the the decline of an institution which, while rendering many important services, had contributed very much to maintaining the idea of brutahty.