literally as future history is devoid of sense. It is the myth in its entirety which is alone important: its parts are only of interest in so far as they bring out the main idea. No useful purpose is seived, therefore, in arguing about the incidents which, may occur in the course of a social war, and about the decisive conflicts which may give victory to the proletariat; even supposing the revolutionaries to have been wholly and entirely deluded in setting up this imaginary picture of the general strike, this picture may yet have been, in the course of the preparation for the Revolution, a great element of strength, if it has embraced all the aspirations of SociaUsm, and if it has given to the whole body of Revolutionary thought a precision and a rigidity which no other method of thought could have given.
To estimate, then, the significance of the idea of the general strike, all the methods of discussion which are current among politicians, sociologists, or people with pretensions to poHtical science, must be abandoned. Everything which its opponents endeavour to estabUsh may be conceded to them, without reducing in any way the value of the theory which they think they have refuted. The question whether the general strike is a partial reahty, or only a product of popular imagination, is of little importance. All that it is necessary to know is, whether the general strike contains ever5rthing that the Socialist doctrine expects of the revolutionary proletariat.
To solve this question we are no longer compelled to argue learnedly about the future; we are not obliged to indulge in lofty reflections about philosophy, history, or economics; we are not on the plane of theories, and we can remain on the level of observable facts. We have to question men who take a very active part in the real revolutionary movement amidst the proletariat, men who do not aspire to climb into the middle class and whose mind is not dominated by corporative prejudices. These men may be deceived about an infinite number of political, economical, or moral questions; but their testimony is decisive, sovereign, and irrefutable when it is a question of knowing what are the ideas which most powerfully move them and their comrades, which most appeal to them as being identical with their socialistic conceptions, and thanks to which their reason, their hopes, and their way of looking at particular facts seem to make but one indivisible unity. ^ Thanks to these men, we know that the general strike is indeed what I have said: the myth in which Sociahsm is wholly comprised, i.e. a body of images capable of evoking instinctively all the sentiments which correspond to the different manifestations of the war undertaken by Socialism against modem society. Strikes have engendered in the proletariat the noblest, deepest, and most moving sentiments that they possess; the general strike groups them all in a co-ordinated picture, and, by bringing them together, gives to each one of them its maximum of intensity; appeaUng to their painful memories of particular conflicts, it colours with an intense Ufe all the details of the composition presented to consciousness. We thus obtain that intuition of Socialism which language cannot give us with perfect clearness — and we obtain it as a whole, perceived instantaneously.^ We may urge yet another piece of evidence to prove the power of the idea of the general strike. If that idea were a pure chimera, as is so frequently said. Parliamentary Socialists would not attack it with such heat; I do not remember that they ever attacked the senseless hopes which the Utopists haye always held up before the dazzled eyes of the people.^ In the course of a polemic about realisable 1 This is another application of Bergson's theories.
' This is the " global knowledge " of Bergson's philosophy.
* I do not remember that the official Socialists have ever shown up social reforms, Clemenceau brought out the MachiaveHanism in the attitude of Jaurds, when he is confronted with popular illusions: he shelters his conscience beneath " some cleverly balanced sentence," but so cleverly balanced that it " will be received without thinking by those who have the greatest need to probe into its substance, while they will drink in with delight the delusive rhetoric of terrestrial joys to come " (Aurore, December 28, 1905). But when it is a question of the general strike, it is quite another thing; our poUticians are no longer content with complicated reservations; they speak violently, and endeavour to induce their listeners to abandon this conception.
It is easy to understand the reason for this attitude: politicians have nothing to fear from the Utopias which present a deceptive mirage of the future to the people, and turn " men towards immediate realisations of terrestrial felicity, which any one who looks at these matters scientifically knows can only be very partially realised, and even then only after long efEorts on the part of several generations. * ' (That is what Sociahst poUticians do, according to Clemenceau.) The more readily the electors beheve in the magical forces of the State, the more will they be disposed to vote for the candidate who promises marvels; in the electoral struggle each candidate tries to outbid the others: in order that the Socialist candidates may put the Radicals to rout, the electors must be credulous enough to beUeve every promise of future bUss; ^ our Sociahst politicians take very good care, fche ridiculousness of the novels of Bellamy, which have had so great a success. These novels needed criticism all the more, because they presented to the people an entirely middle-class ideal of life. They were a natural product of America, a country which is ignorant of the class war; but in Europe, would not the theorists of the class war have understood them?
1 In the article which I have already quoted, Clemenceau recalls that Jaur^s made use of these outbidding tactics in a long speech which he made at Beziers.
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE ijg therefore, not to combat these comfortable Utopias in any very effective way.
They struggle against the conception of the general strike, because they recognise, in the course of their propagandist roimds, that this conception is so admirably adapted to the working-class mind that there is a possibihty of its dominating the latter in the most absolute manner, thus leaving no place for the desires which the Parliamentarians are able to satisfy. They perceive that this idea is so effective as a motive force that once it has entered the minds of the people they can no longer be controlled by leaders, and that thus the power of the deputies would be reduced to nothing. In short, they feel in a vague way that the whole Socialist movement might easily be absorbed by the general strike, which would render useless all those compromises between political groups in view of which the Parhamentary regime has been built up.
The opposition it meets with from official SociaHsts, therefore, furnishes a confirmation of our first inquiry into the scope of the general strike.
II We must now proceed further, and inquire whether the picture furnished by the general strike is really complete; that is to say, whether it comprises all those features of the struggle which are recognised by modern Socialism. But, first of all, we must state the problem more precisely; this will not be difficult if we start from the explanations given above on the nature of the conception. We have seen that the general strike must be considered as an undivided whole; consequently, no details about ways and means will be of the slightest help to the imderstanding of Socialism; it must even be added that there is always a danger of losing something of this understanding, if an attempt is made to split up this whole into parts. We will now endeavour to show that there is a fundamental identity between the chief tenets of Marxism and the co-ordinated aspects furnished by the picture of the general strike.
This affirmation is certain to appear paradoxical to many who have read the pubhcations of the most accredited Marxians; gind, in fact, for a very long time a well-marked hostility to the general strike existed in Marxian circles. This tradition has done a good deal of harm to the progress of Marx's doctrine; and it is in fact a very good illustration of the way in which, as a rule, disciples tend to restrict the application of their master's ideas. The new school has had considerable difficulty in Uberating itself from these influences; it was formed by people who had received the Marxian imprint in a very marked degree; and it was a long time before the school recognised that the objections brought against the general strike arose from the incapacity of the official representatives of Marxism rather than from the principles of the doctrine itself.^ The new school began its emancipation on the day when it perceived clearly that the formulas of Socialism were often very far from the spirit of Marx, and when it recommended a return to that spirit. It was not without a certain amount of stupefaction that it discerned that it had credited the master with many so-called inventions which were in reality taken from his predecessors, or which were commonplaces, even, at the time when the Communist Manifesto was drawn up. According to an author — who, in the opinion of the Government and the 1 In an article, Introduction d la meiaphysique, published in 1903, Bergson points out that disciples are always inclined to exaggerate the points of difference between masters, and that " the master in so far as he formulates, develops, translates into abstract ideas what he brings is already in a way his own disciple." [Eng. trans, by T. E. Hulme.]
Musee Social is considered to be well informed, — " the accumulation (of capital in the hcinds of a few individuals) is one of the great discoveries of Marx, one of the discoveries of whch he was most proud. ^ With all due deference to the historical science of this notable university light, this theory was one which was in everybody's mouth long before Marx had ever written a word, and it had become a dogma in the Socialist world at the end of the reign of Louis-Philippe. There are many Marxian theories of the same kind.
A decided step towards reform was made when those Marxians who aspired to think for themselves began to study the syndicalist movement; they discovered that *'the genuine trade unionists have more to teach us than they have to learn from us." ^ This was the beginning of wisdom; it was a step towards the realistic method which had led Marx to his real discoveries; in this way a return might be made to those methods which alone merit the name philosophical, ** for true and fruitful ideas are so many close contacts with currents of reality," and they " owe most of their clearness to the light which the facts, and the applications to which they led, have by reflection shed on them — the clearness of a concept being scarcely anything more at bottom than the certainty, at last obtained, of manipulating the concept profitably." ^ And yet another profound thought of Bergson may usefully be quoted: " For we do not obtain an intuition from reality — that is, an intellectual sympathy with the most intimate part of it — unless we have won its confidence by a long fellowship with its superficial manifestations. And it is not merely a question of assimilating the most conspicuous facts; so immense a mass of facts must be acciunulated and fused together, that in this fusion all * G. Sorel, Avenir socialiste des syndieats, p. 12.
» Bergson, loc. cit.
the preconceived and premature ideas which observers may miwittingly have put into their observations will be certain to neutralize each other. In this way only can the bare materiality of the known facts be exposed to view." Finally, what Bergson calls an integral experience is obtained.^ Thanks to the new principle, people very soon came to recognise that the propositions which in their opinion contained a complete statement of Socialism were deplorably inadequate, so that they were often more dangerous than useful. It is the superstitious respect paid by social democracy to the mere text of its doctrines that nuUified every attempt in Germany to perfect Marxism.
When the new school had acquired a full understanding of the general strike, and had thus obtained a profoimd intuition of the working-class movement, it saw that all the SociaUst theories, interpreted in the light of this powerful construction, took on a meaning which till then they had lacked; it perceived that the clumsy and rickety apparatus which had been manufactured in Germany to explain Marx's doctrines, must be rejected if the contemporary transformation of the proletarian idea was to be followed exactly; it discovered that the conception of the general strike enabled them to explore profitably the whole vast domain of Marxism, which imtil then had remained practically unknown to the big-wigs who professed to be guiding Socialism. Thus the fundamental principles of Marxism are perfectly inteUigible only with the aid of the picture of the general strike, and, on the other hand, the full significance of this picture, it may be supposed, is apparent only to those who are deeply versed in the Marxian doctrine.
A. First of all, I shall speak of the class war, which is the point of departure for all Sociahstic thought, and which stands in such great need of elucidation, » Bergson, loc. cit.
since sophists have endeavoured to give a false idea of it.
(i) Marx speaks of society as if it were divided into two fundamentally antagonistic groups; observation, it has often been urged, does not justify this division, and it is true that a certain efEort of will is necessary before we can find it verified in the phenomena of everyday life.
The organisation of a capitalistic workshop fimiishes a first approximation, and piece-work plays an essential part in the formation of the class idea; in fact, it throws into reUef the very clear opposition of interests about the price of commodities; ^ the workers feel themselves under the thumb of the employers in the same way that peasants feel themselves in the power of the merchants and the money-lenders of the towns; history shows that no economic opposition has been more clearly felt than the latter; since civilisation has existed, country and town have formed two hostile camps.* Piece-work also shows that in the wage-earning world there is a group of men somewhat analogous to the retail shopkeepers, possessing the confidence of the employer, and not belonging to the proletariat class.
The strike throws a new light on all this; it separates the interests and the different ways of thinking of the two groups of wage-earners — the foremen clerks, engineers, etc., as contrasted with the workmen who alone go on strike — much better than the daily circumstances of life do; it then becomes clear that the administrative group has a natural tendency to become a Httle aristocracy; * I do not know whether the learned (economists and other people who make inquiries on social conditions) have always quite understood the function of piece-work. It is evident that the well-known formula, " the producer should be able to buy back his product," arose from reflections on the subject of piece-work.
* " It may be said that the economic history of society turns on this antithesis," — of town and country {Capital, vol. i. p. 152, col. I).
for these people. State Socialism would be advantageous, because they would go up one in the social hierarchy.
But all oppositions become extraordinarily clear when conflicts are supposed to be enlarged to the size of the general strike; then all parts of the economico-judicial structure, in so far as the latter is looked upon from the point of view of the class war, reach the smnmit of their perfection; society is plainly divided into two camps, and only into two, on a field of battle. No philosophical explanation of the facts observed in practical affairs could throw such vivid light on the situation as the extremely simple picture called up by the conception of the general strike.
(2) It would be impossible to conceive the disappearance of capitalistic dominance if we did not suppose an ardent sentiment of revolt, always present in the soul of the worker; but experience shows that very often the revolts of a day are far from possessing a really specifically socialistic character; more than once the most violent outbursts have depended on passions which could be satisfied inside the middle-class world; many revolutionaries have been seen to abandon their old irreconcilability when they found themselves on the road to fortune.^ It is not only satisfactions of a material kind " which produce these frequent and scandalous conversions; vanity, much more than money, is the great motive force in transformation of the revolutionary into a bourgeois. All that would be negUgible if it were only a question of a few exceptional people, but it has often been maintained that the psychology of the working classes would so easily adapt itself to the capitalistic order of things that social peace would be 1 It may be remembered that in the eruption at Martinique a governor perished who, in 1879, had been one of the protagonists of the Socialist congress held at Marseilles. The Commune itself was not fatal to all its partisans; several have had fairly distinguished careers; the ambassador of France at Rome was among the most importunate of those who, in 1871, demanded the death of the hostages.
rapidly obtained if employers on their part would make a few sacrifices of money and amour propre.
G. Le Bon says that the belief in the revolutionary instincts of crowds is a very great mistake, that their tendencies are conservative, that the whole power of Socialism lies in the rather muddled state of mind of the middle class; he is convinced that the masses will always flock to a Caesar.^ There is a good deal of truth in these judgments, which are founded on a very wide knowledge of history, but G. Le Bon's theories must be corrected in one respect: they are only valid for societies which lack the conception of the class war.
Observation shows that this last conception is maintained with an indestructible vitality in every circle which has been touched by the idea of the general strike: the day when the slightest incidents of daily life become symptoms of the state of war between the classes, when every conflict is an incident in the social war, when every strike begets the perspective of a total catastrophe, on that day there is no longer any possibihty of social peace, of resignation to routine, or of enthusiasm for philanthropic or successful employers. The idea of the general strike has such power behind it that it drags into the revolutionary track everything it touches. In virtue of this idea. Socialism remains ever young; all attempts made to bring about social peace seem childish; desertions of comrades into the ranks of the middle class, far from discouraging the masses, only excite them still more to rebellion; in a word, the line of cleavage is never in danger of disappearing.
(3) The successes obtained by politicians in their attempts to make what they call the proletarian influence 1 G. Le Bon, Psychologie du socialisme, 3rd ed. p. in and pp. 457-459. The author, who a few years ago was treated as an imbecile by the little bullies of university Socialism, is one of the most original physicists of our time.
felt in middle-class institutions, constitute a very great obstacle to the maintenance of the notion of class war. The world has always been carried on by compromises between opposing parties, and order has always been provisional. No change, however considerable, can be looked upon as impossible in a time Hke ours, which has seen so many novelties introduced in an imexpected manner. Modem progress has been brought about by successive compromises; why not pursue the aims of SociaUsm by methods which have succeeded so well? Many means of satisfying the more pressing desires of the imfortunate classes can be thought of. For a long time these proposals for improvement were inspired by a conservative, feudal, or Catholic spirit. We wish, said the inventors, to rescue the masses from the influence of the Radicals. The latter, seeing their pohtical influence assailed, not so much by their old enemies as by Socialist poHticians, invent nowadays all kinds of projects of a progressive, democratic, free-thinking colour. We are beginning at last to be threatened with socialistic compromises!
Enough attention has not always been paid to the fact that many kinds of political, administrative, and financial systems engender and support the domination of a middle class.^ We must not always attach too much importance to violent attacks on the middle class; they may have behind them the desire to reform and perfect capitalism.* There are, it seems, quite a number of people about nowadays who, though not in the least desiring the disappear- * The Socialists are mistaken in believing that the existence of a middle class is bound up with the existence of the capitalist industrial system. Any country submitted to a bureaucracy, directing production — either directly or through corporations — would have a middle class.
» I know, for instance, a very enlightened CathoUc, who gives vent with singular acrimony to his contempt for the French middle class; but his ideal is Americanism, i.e. a very young and very active capital' istic society.
ance of the capitalistic regime, would willingly abolish inheritance like the followers of Saint Simon.* The idea of the general strike destroys all the theoretical consequences of every possible social policy; its partisans look upon even the most' popular reforms as having a middle-class character; so far as they are concerned, nothing can weaken the fundamental opposition of the class war. The more the policy of social reforms becomes preponderant, the more will Sociahsts feel the need of placing against the picture of the progress which it is the aim of this policy to bring about, this other picture of complete catastrophe furnished so perfectly by the general strike.
B. Let us now examine, with the aid of the conception of the general strike, certain very essential aspects of the Marxian Revolution.
(i) Marx says that on the day of the Revolution the proletariat will be discipUned, imited, and organised by the very mechanism of production. This exceedingly concentrated formula would not be very intelligible if we did not read it in connection with its context; according to Marx, the working class is bowed beneath a system in which '* abject poverty, oppression, slavery, degradation, and exploitation increase," and against which it is organising an ever-increasing resistance until the day when the whole social structure breaks up.^ The accuracy of this description has been many times disputed; it seems indeed to be more suited to the Manifesto period (1847) than to the time when Capital was published (1867); but this objection must not stop us, and it may be thrust on * p. de Rousiers was very much struck by the way rich fathers in the United States forced their sons to earn their own living; he often met " Frenchmen who were profoundly shocked by what they called the egoism of American fathers. It seemed revolting to them that a rich man should leave his son to earn his own living, that he did nothing to set him up in life" {La Vie am^ricaine, V Education et la sociiti, p. 9).
one side by means of the theory of m5rths. The different terms which Marx uses to describe the preparation for the decisive combat are not to be taken Hterally as statements of fact about a determined future; it is the description in its entirety which should engage our attention, and taken in this way it is perfectly clear: Marx wishes us to understand that the whole preparation of the proletariat depends solely on the organisation of a stubborn, increasing, and passionate resistance to the present order of things.
This argument is of supreme importance if we are to have a sound conception of Marxism; but it is often contested, if not in theory, at least in practice; the proletariat, it has been held, sh9uld prepare for the part it is to play in the future by other ways than those of revolutionary Syndicalism. Thus the exponents of cooperation hold that a prominent place in the work of enfranchisement must be given to their own particular remedy; the democrats say that it is essential to aboUsh all the prejudices arising from the old CathoUc influence, etc. Many revolutionaries believe that, however useful S5mdicaUsm may be, it is not, in itself, sufficient to organise a society which needs a new philosophy, a new code of laws, etc.; as the division of labour is a fimdamental law of the world, SociaUsts should not be ashamed to apply to specialists in philosophy and law, of whom there is never any lack. Jaur^ never stops repeating this kind of stuff. This expansion of Socialism is contrary to the Marxian theory, as also to the conception of the general strike; but it is evident that the conception of the general strike makes a much more striking appeal to the mind than any formula.
(2) I have already called attention to the danger for the future of civilisation presented by revolutions which take pla^e in a period of economic decadence; many Marxists do not seem to have formed a clear idea of Marx's thought on this subject. The latter believed that the great catastrophe would be preceded by an enormous economic crisis, but the crisis Marx had in mind must not be confused with an economic decadence; crises appeared to him as the result of a too risky venture on the part of production, which creates productive forces out of proportion to the means of regulation. which the capitaUstic system automatically brings into play. Such a venture supposes that the future was looked upon as favourable to very large enterprises, and that the conception of economic progress prevailed absolutely at the time. In order that the lower middle classes, who are still able to find tolerable conditions of existence imder the capitalist regime, may join hands with the proletariat, it is essential that they shall be able to picture the future of production as bright with hope, just as the conquest of America formerly appeared to the EngUsh peasants, who left Europe to throw themselves into a life of adventure* The general strike leads to the same conclusions. The workers are accustomed to seeing their revolts against the restrictions imposed by capitalism succeed during periods of prosperity; so that it may be said that if you once identify revolution and general strike it then becomes impossible to conceive this of an essential transformation of the world taking place in a time of economic decadence. The workers are equally well aware that the peaisants and the artisans will not join hands with them unless the future appears so rosy-coloured that industriaUsm will be able to ameliorate the lot not only of the producers, but that of everybody.^ It is very important always to lay stress on the high * It is not difficult to see that propagandists are obliged to refer frequently to this aspect of the social revolution: this wiU take place while the intermediary classes are still in existence, but when they become sickened by the farce of social pacification, and when a period of such great economic progress has been reached that the future will appeau: in colours favourable to everybody.
rso REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE degree of prosperity which industry must possess in order that the reaUsation of Socialism may be possible; for experience shows us that it is by seeking to stop the progress of capitalism, and to preserve the means of existence of classes who are on the down-grade, that the prophets of social peace chiefly endeavour to capture popular favour. The dependence of the revolution on the constant and rapid progress of industry must be demonstrated in a striking manner.^ (3) Too great stress cannot be laid on the fact that Marxism condemns every hypothesis about the future manufactured by the Utopists. Professor Brentano of Munich relates that in 1869 Marx wrote to his friend Beesly (who had pubhshed an article on the future of the working class) to say that up till then he had looked upon him as the sole revolutionary Enghshman, and that henceforth he looked upon him as a reactionary — for, he said, " the man who draws up a programme for the future is a reactionary/' ^ He considered that the proletariat had no need to take lessons from the learned inventors of solutions to social problems, but simply to take up production where capitahsm left it. There was no need for programmes of the future; the programmes were already worked out in the workshops. The idea of a technological continuity dominates the whole of the Marxian position.
* Kautsky has often dwelt on this idea, of which Engels was particularly fond.
* Bernstein said about this story that Brentano might have exaggerated a little, but that " the phrase quoted by him was not inconsistent with Marx's general line of thought " (Mouvement socialiste, September i, 1899, p. 270). Of what can Utopias be composed? Of the past and often of a very far-ofi past; it is probably for this reason that Marx called Beesly a reactionary, while everybody else was astonished at his revolutionary boldness. The Catholics are not the only people who are hypnotised by the Middle Ages, and Yves Guyot pokes fun at the collectivist troubadourism of Lafargue (Lafargue and Y. Guyot, La Propriiti, pp. 121-122).
Experience gained in strikes leads us to a conception identical with that of Marx. Workmen who put down their tools do not go to their employers with schemes for the better organisation of labour, and do not offer them assistance in the management of their business; in short, Utopias have no place in economic conflicts. Jaur^ and his friends are well aware that this is a very strong argument against their own ideas of the way in which SociaUsm is to be realised: they would like even now to have fragments of the industrial programmes manufactured by learned sociologists and accepted by the workers introduced into strike negotiations; they would like to see the creation of what they call industrial parliamentarism which, exactly as in the case of political parhamentarism would imply, on the one hand, the masses who are led and, on the other, demagogues to show them the way. This would be the apprentice stage of their sham SociaHsm, and might begin at once.
With the general strike all these fine things disappear; the revolution appears as a revolt, pure and simple, and no place is reserved for sociologists, for fashionable people who are in favour of social reforms, and for the Intellectuals who have embraced the profession of thinking for the proletariat.
Cs Socialism has always inspired terror because of the enormous element of the unknown which it contains; people feel that a transformation of this kind would permit of no turning back. Utopists have used all their literary art in the endeavour to lull anxiety by pictures of tlie future, so enchanting that fear might be banished; but the more they accumulated fine promises, the more did thoughtful people suspect traps, and in this they were not altogether mistaken, for the Utopists would have led the world to disasters, tyranny, and stupidity, if they had been hearkened to.
Mairx was firmly convinced that the social revolution L IS2 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE