"Political Ideals" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Bertrand)

its own processes, but should endeavor to prevent undeserved loss or
gain through changes in external economic conditions. In this way
there would be every incentive to progress, with the least possible
danger of unmerited destitution. And although large economic
organizations will continue, as they are bound to do, there will be a
diffusion of power which will take away the sense of individual
impotence from which men and women suffer at present.


III

Some men, though they may admit that such a system would be desirable,
will argue that it is impossible to bring it about, and that therefore
we must concentrate on more immediate objects.

I think it must be conceded that a political party ought to have
proximate aims, measures which it hopes to carry in the next session
or the next parliament, as well as a more distant goal. Marxian
socialism, as it existed in Germany, seemed to me to suffer in this
way: although the party was numerically powerful, it was politically
weak, because it had no minor measures to demand while waiting for the
revolution. And when, at last, German socialism was captured by those
who desired a less impracticable policy, the modification which
occurred was of exactly the wrong kind: acquiescence in bad policies,
such as militarism and imperialism, rather than advocacy of partial
reforms which, however inadequate, would still have been steps in the
right direction.

A similar defect was inherent in the policy of French syndicalism as
it existed before the war. Everything was to wait for the general
strike; after adequate preparation, one day the whole proletariat
would unanimously refuse to work, the property owners would
acknowledge their defeat, and agree to abandon all their privileges
rather than starve. This is a dramatic conception; but love of drama
is a great enemy of true vision. Men cannot be trained, except under
very rare circumstances, to do something suddenly which is very
different from what they have been doing before. If the general
strike were to succeed, the victors, despite their anarchism, would be
compelled at once to form an administration, to create a new police
force to prevent looting and wanton destruction, to establish a
provisional government issuing dictatorial orders to the various
sections of revolutionaries. Now the syndicalists are opposed in
principle to all political action; they would feel that they were
departing from their theory in taking the necessary practical steps,
and they would be without the required training because of their
previous abstention from politics. For these reasons it is likely
that, even after a syndicalist revolution, actual power would fall
into the hands of men who were not really syndicalists.

Another objection to a program which is to be realized suddenly at