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 Reflections on violence 
 
 Clin 
 
 3 1924 030 088 920 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030088920 
 
REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
REFLECTIONS ON 
 VIOLENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGES SOREL 
 
 AUTHORISED TRANSLATION 
 
 BY 
 
 T. E. HULME 
 
 T^^ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH 
 
 E.'v 
 
HP 
 
 Ki'^si^i 
 
 'O^ 
 
A LA MEMOIRE 
 
 DE LA COMPAGNE DE MA JEUNESSE 
 
 JE DEDIE CE LIVRE 
 
 TOUT INSPIRE PAR SON ESPRIT 
 
■V 
 
A NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION 
 
 I HAVE often been asked lately if I have not observed any 
 
 facts since 1906 which invalidated some of the arguments 
 
 set forth in this book. On the contrary, I am more than 
 
 ever convinced of the value of this philosophy of violence. 
 
 I have even thought it useful to add to this reprint an 
 
 " Apology for Violence " which I published in the Matin 
 
 of May 18, 1908, on the day when the first edition appeared. 
 
 This is one of those books which public opinion will 
 
 not permit an author to improve ; I have only allowed 
 
 myself to change a few words here and there in order to 
 
 make certain phrases clearer. 
 
 February 1912. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Introduction to the First Publication . 43 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Class War and Violence . . . . . 58 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 Violence and the Decadence of the Middle 
 
 Classes ........ 74 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Prejudices against Violence . . . . .100 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Proletarian Strike . . . 127 
 
X REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Political General Strike . . • .168 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Ethics of Violence . . . . .205 
 
 CHAPTER Vn 
 
 The Ethics of the Producers . . 253 
 
 APPENDIX . . . 297 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 
 
 My dear Halevy — I should doubtless have left these 
 studies buried in the bound volumes of a review if some 
 friends, whose judgment I value, had not thought that 
 it would be a good thing to bring them before the notice 
 of a wider public, as they serve to make better known 
 one of the most singular social phenomena that history 
 records. But it seemed to me that it would be necessary 
 to give this public some additional explanations, since 
 I cannot often expect to find judges as indulgent as you 
 have been. 
 
 When I published, in the Mouvement Socialiste, the 
 articles which are now collected in this voliune, I did not 
 write with the intention of composing a book : I simply 
 wrote down my reflections as they came into my mind. 
 I knew that the subscribers to that review would have 
 no difficulty in following me, since they were already 
 familiar with the theories, which for some years my 
 friends and I had developed in its pages. But I am con- 
 vinced that the readers of this book, on the contrary, 
 will be very bewildered if I do not submit a kind of 
 defence which will enable them to consider things from 
 my own habitual point of view. In the course of our 
 conversations, you have sometimes made remarks which 
 fitted so well into the system of my own ideas that 
 
 I B 
 
2 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 they often led me to investigate certain questions more 
 thoroughly. I am sure that the reflections which I here 
 submit to you, and which you have provoked, will be very 
 useful to those who wish to read this book with profit. 
 
 There are perhaps few studies in which the defects 
 of my method of writing are more evident ; I have been 
 frequently reproached for not respecting the rules of the 
 art of writing, to which all our contemporaries submit, 
 and for thus inconveniencing my readers by the disorder 
 of my explanations. I have tried to render the text clearer 
 by numerous corrections of detail, but I have not been 
 able to make the disorder disappear. I do not wish to 
 defend myself by pleading the example of great writers 
 who have been blamed for not knowing how to compose. 
 Arthur Chuquet, speaking of J. J. Rousseau, said : " His 
 writings lack harmony, order, and that conneption of the 
 parts which constitutes a unity." ^ The defects of 
 illustrious men do not justify the faults of the obscure, 
 and I think that it is better to explain frankly the origin 
 of this incorrigible vice in my writings. 
 
 It is only recently that the rules of the art of writing 
 have imposed themselves in a really imperative way ; 
 contemporary authors appear to have accepted them 
 readily, because they wished to please a hurried and 
 often very inattentive public, and one which is desirous 
 above aU of avoiding any personal investigation. These 
 rules were first apphed by the people who manufacture 
 scholastic books. Since the aim of education has been 
 to make the pupils absorb an enormous amount of 
 information, it has been necessary to put into their 
 hands manuals suitable to this extra rapid instruction ; 
 everything has had to be presented in a form so clear, 
 so logically arranged, and so calculated to dispel doubt, 
 that in the end the beginner comes to believe that science 
 is much simpler than our fathers supposed. In this 
 
 1 A. Chuquet, Jean Jacques Rousseau, p. 179. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 3 
 
 way the mind is very richly furnished in a very Uttle ■^' 
 
 time, but it is not furnished with implements which facili- 
 tate individual effort. These methods have been imitated 
 by political publicists and by the people who attempt 
 to popularise knowledge.^ Seeing these rides of the 
 art of writing so widely adopted, people who reflect little 
 have ended by believing that they were based on the 
 nature of things themselves. 
 
 I am neither a professor, a populariser of knowledge, 
 nor a candidate for party leadership. I am a self-taught ' 
 man exhibiting to other people the notebooks which have 
 served for my own instruction. That is why the rules of 
 the art of writing have never interested me very much. 
 
 Dming twenty years I worked to deliver myself from 
 what I retained of my education ; I read books, not so 
 much to learn as to efface from my. memory the ideas 
 which had beert thrust upon it. It is only during the 
 last fifteen years that I have really worked for the purpose 
 of learning ; but I have never found any one to teach 
 me what Iwanted to know. I have had to be my own 
 master, and in a way to educate myself. I make notes 
 in which I formulate my thoughts as they arise ; I return 
 three or four times to the same question, adding correc- 
 tions which amplify the original, and sometimes even 
 transform it from top to bottom ; I only stop when I have 
 exhausted the reserve of ideas stirred up by recent reading. 
 This work is very difficult for me ; that is why I like to 
 take as my subject the discussion of a book by a good 
 author : I can then arrange my thoughts more easily 
 than when I am left to ray own unaided efforts. 
 
 You will remember what Bergson has written about 
 the impersonal, the socialised, the ready-made, all of 
 which contains a lesson for students who need knowledge 
 
 1 I recall here a phrase of Renan : " Reading, in order to be of any 
 use, must be an exercise involving some effort " (Feuilles detacMes, 
 P- 231)- 
 
4 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 for practical life. A student has more confidence in 
 the formulas which he is taught, and consequently retains 
 them more easily, when he believes that they are accepted 
 by the great majority ; in this way all metaphysical pre- 
 occupations are removed from his mind and he is to feel 
 no need for a personal conception of things ; he often 
 comes to look on the absence of any inventive spirit as a 
 superiority. 
 
 My own method of work is entirely opposed to this ; 
 for I put before my readers the working of a mental 
 effort which is continually endeavouring to break through 
 the bonds of what has been previously constructed for 
 common use, in order to discover that which is truly 
 personal and individual. The only things I find it worth 
 while entering in my notebooks are those which I have 
 not met elsewhere ; I readily skip the transitions between 
 these things, because they nearly always come under the 
 heading of commonplaces. 
 
 The commtmication of thought is always very difficult 
 for any one who has strong metaphysical preoccupations ; 
 he thinks that speech will spoil the most fundamental 
 parts of his thought, those which are very near to the 
 motive power of the mind, those which appear so natural 
 to him that he never seeks to express them. A reader 
 has great difficulty in grasping the thought of an inventor, 
 because he can only attain it by finding again the path 
 traversed by the latter. Verbal commtmication is much^ 
 easier than written communication, because words act 
 on the feeUngs in a mysterious way and easily establish 
 a current of sympathy between people ; it is for this 
 reason that an orator is able to produce conviction by 
 arguments which do not seem very comprehensible to 
 any one reading the speech later. You know how useful 
 it is to have heard Bergson if one wants to recognise 
 clearly the tendencies of his doctrine and to understand 
 his books rightly. When one has followed his courses 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 5 
 
 of lectures for some time one becomes familiar with the 
 order of his ideas and gets one's bearings more easily 
 amidst the novelties of his philosophy. 
 
 The defects of my manner of writing prevent me ' 
 getting access to a wide pubhc ; but I think that we 
 ought to be content with the place that nature and 
 circumstances have assigned to each of us, without (v ^.-.jX 
 desiring to force our naturaLtalent. There is a necessary / :•' 
 ^visionof-functTons in the world ; it is a good thing 
 that some are content to work, simply that they may 
 submit their reflections to a few studious people, whilst 
 others love to address the great mass of busy humanity. 
 All things considered, I do not think that mine is the 
 worst lot, f or I am not exposed t o the danger of becoming 
 gi y own discip le, as has happened to the greatest philo- 
 sophers when they have endeavoured to give a perfectly 
 symmetrical form to the intuitions they brought into 
 the world. You will certainly not have forgotten the 
 smiling disdain with which Bergson has spoken of this 
 infirmity of genius. So little am I capable of becoming 
 my own disciple that I am unable to take up an old work 
 of mine again with the idea of stating it better, or even 
 of completing it ; it is easy enough for me to add correc- 
 tions and to annotate it, but I have many times vainly 
 tried to think the past over again. 
 
 Much more, then, am I prevented from ever becom- 
 ing the founder of a school ; ^ but is that really a great 
 
 1 I think it may be interesting to quote here some reflections borrowed 
 from an admirable book of Newman's : " It will be our wisdom to avail 
 ourselves of language, as far as it wiU go, but to aim mainly, by means 
 of it, to stimulate in those to whom we address ourselves, a mode of 
 thinking and trains of thought similar to our own, leading them on 
 by their own independent action, not by any syllogistic compulsion. 
 Hence it is that an intellectual school will always have something of an 
 esoteric character ; for it is an assemblage of minds that think, their 
 bond is unity of thought, and their words become a sort of tessera, not 
 expressing thought but symbolising it" {Grammar of Assent, p. 309). 
 As a matter of fact, the schools have hardly ever resembled this ideal 
 sketched out by Newman. 
 
>i 
 
 6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 misfortune ? Disciples have nearly always exercised a 
 pernicious influence on the thought of him they called 
 their master, and who has often beUeved himself obliged to 
 follow them. There is no doubt that his transformation 
 by young enthusiasts mto the leader of a party was a 
 real disaster for Marx; he would have done much 
 more useful work if he had not been the slave of the 
 Marxists. 
 
 People have often laughed at Hegel's belief — that 
 humanity, since its origins, had worked to give birth to 
 the HegeUan philosophy, and that with that philosophy 
 Spirit had at last completed its development. Similar 
 illusions are found to a certain extent in all founders of 
 schools ; disciples expect their master to close the era 
 of doubt by giving final solutions to all problems. I have 
 no aptitude for a task of that kind. Every time that I 
 have approached a question, I have found that njy 
 enquiries ended by giving rise to new problems, and the 
 farther I pushed my investigations the more disquieting 
 these new problems became. But philosophy is after 
 all perhaps only the recognition of the abysses which lie 
 on each side of the footpath that the vulgar follow with 
 the serenity of somnambulists. 
 
 It is my ambition to be able occasionally to stir up 
 personal research. There is probably in the mind of 
 every man, hidden under the ashes, a quickening fire, 
 and the greater the number of ready-made doctrines 
 the mind has received blindly the more is this fire 
 threatened with extinction ; the awakener is the man 
 who stirs the ashes and thus makes the flames leap up. 
 I do not think that I am praising myself without cause 
 when I say that I have sometimes succeeded in liberating 
 the spirit of invention in my readers ; and it is the spirit 
 ot invention which it is above all necessary to stir up in 
 the world. It is better to have obtained this result than 
 to have gained the banal approbation of people who 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 7 
 
 repeat formulas and enslave their own thought in the 
 disputes of the schools. 
 
 My Reflections on Violence have irritated many people 
 on accoimt of the pessimistic conception on which the 
 whole of the study rests ;~buriTaiowt'hat you do not share 
 this impression ; you have brilliantly shown in your Histoire 
 de quatre ans that you despise the deceptive hopes with 
 which the weak solace themselves. We can then talk 
 pessimism freely to each other, and I am happy to have 
 a correspondent who does not revolt against a doctrine 
 without which nothing very great has been accomplished 
 in this world. I have felt for some time that Greek 
 philosophy did not produce any great moral result, 
 simply because it was, as a rule, very optimistic. Socrates 
 was at times optimistic to an almost unbearable degree. 
 
 The aversion of most of our contemporaries from every 
 pessimistic conception is doubtless derived, to a great 
 extent, from our system of education. The Jesuits, who 
 created nearly everything that the University still con- 
 tinues to teach, were optimists because they had to combat 
 the pessimism which dominated Protestant theories, and 
 because they popularised the ideas of the Renaissance ; 
 the Renaissance interpreted antiquity by means of 
 the philosophers, and consequently misunderstood the 
 masterpieces of tragic art so completely that our con- 
 temporaries have had considerable difi&culty in redis- 
 covering their pessimistic significance.^ 
 
 1 " The significant melancholy found in the masterpieces of Hellenic 
 art prove that, even at that time, gifted individuals were able to peer 
 through the illusions of life to which the spirit of their own surrendered 
 itself without the slightest critical reflection " (Hartmann, The Philo- 
 sophy of the Unconscious, Eng. trans., vol. iii. p. 78 ; ii. p. 436). 
 
 I call attention to this view, which sees in the genius of the great 
 Greeks a historical anticipation ; few doctrines are more important 
 for an understanding of history than that of anticipations, which 
 Newman used in his researches on the history of dogmas. 
 
8 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there 
 was such a concert of groaning that pessimism became 
 odious. Poets, who were not, as a matter of fact, much 
 to be pitied, professed to be victims of fate, of human 
 wickedness, and still more of the stupidity of a world 
 which had not been able to distract them ; they eagerly 
 assumed the attitudes of a Prometheus called upon to 
 dethrone jealous gods, and with a pride equal to that of 
 the fierce Nimrod of Victor Hugo (whose arrows, hurled 
 at the sky, fell back stained with blood), they imagined 
 that their verses inflicted deadly wormds on the estab- 
 lished powers who dared to refuse to bow down before 
 them. The prophets of the Jews never dreamed of so 
 much destruction to avenge their Jehovah as these 
 literary people dreamed of to satisfy their vanity. When 
 this fashion for imprecations had passed, sensible men 
 began to ask themselves if all this display of pretended 
 pessimism had not been the result of a certain want of 
 meptal balance. 
 
 \The immense successes obtained by industrial civilisa- 
 tion has created the behef that, in the near future, happi- 
 ness will be produced automatically for everybody^ 
 " The present century," writes Hartmann, " has for the 
 last forty years only entered the third period of illusion. 
 In the enthusiasm and enchantment of its hopes, it rushes 
 towards the realisation of the promise of a new age of gold. 
 Providence takes care that the anticipations of the 
 isolated thinker do not disarrange the course of history 
 by prematurely gaining too many adherents." He 
 thinks that for this reason his readers will have some 
 difficulty in accepting his criticism of the illusion of future 
 happiness. The leaders of the contemporary world are 
 pushed towards optimism by economic forces.^ 
 
 ^o little are we prepared to understand pessimism, 
 that we generally employ the word quite incorrectly : 
 
 ^ Hartmann, loc. cit. vol. iii. p. 102. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY g 
 
 we call pessimists people who are in reality only dis- 
 illusioned optimists. ) When we meet a man who, having 
 been imfortmiate in his enterprises, deceived in his most 
 legitimate ambitions, humiliated in his affections, ex- 
 presses his griefs in the form of a violent revolt against 
 the duphcity of his associates, the stupidity of society, 
 or the blindness of destiny, we are disposed to look upon 
 him as a pessimist ; whereas we ought nearly always to 
 regard him as a disheartened optimist who has not had 
 the courage to start afresh, and who is unable to under- 
 stand why so many misfortunes have befallen him, con- 
 trary to what he supposes to be the general law governing 
 the^production of happiness. 
 
 (The optimist in politics is an inconstant and even 
 dangerous man, because he takes no account of the great 
 difficulties presented by his projects); these projects 
 seem to him to possess a force of their own, which tends 
 to bring about their realisation all the more easily as they 
 are, in his opinion, destined to produce the happiest results. 
 He frequently thinks that small reforms in the political 
 constitution, and, above all, in the personnel of the govern- 
 ment, wUl be sufficient to direct social development in 
 such a way as to mitigate those evils of the contemporary 
 world which seem so harsh to the sensitive mind. As 
 soon as his friends come into power, he declares that it 
 is necessary to let things alone for a little, not to hurry 
 too much, and to learn how to be content with whatever 
 their own benevolent intentions prompt them to do. It is 
 not always self-interest that suggests these expressions 
 of satisfaction, as people have often believed ; self- 
 interest is strongly aided by vanity and by the illusions 
 of philosophy. The optimist passes with remarkable 
 facility from revolutionary anger to the most ridiculous 
 social pacificism. 
 
 If he possesses an exalted temperament, and if unhappily 
 he finds himself armed with great power, permitting him 
 
10 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 to realise the ideal he has fashioned, the optimist may 
 lead his country into the worst disasters. He is not long 
 in finding out that social transformations are not brought 
 about with the ease that he had counted on ; he then 
 supposes that this is the fault of his contemporaries, 
 instead of explaining what actually happens by historical 
 necessities ; he is tempted to get rid of people whose 
 obstinacy seems to him to be so dangerous to the happi- 
 ness of all. During the Terror, the men who spilt most 
 blood were precisely those who had the greatest desire 
 to let their equals enjoy the golden age they had dreamt 
 of, and who had the most sympathy with human wretched- 
 ness : optimists, ideaUsts, and sensitive men, the greater 
 desire they had for universal happiness the more inexor- 
 able they showed themselves. 
 
 Pessimism is quite a different thing from the caricatures 
 of it which are usually presented to us ; it is a philosophy 
 of conduct rather than a theory of the world ; it considers 
 the march towards deliverance as narrowly conditioned, ; 
 on the one hand, by, the experimental knowledge" tliat 
 we have acquired frofn\:the obstacles which oppose! them- 
 selves to the satisfaction of our imaginations (or, if we 
 like, by the feeling of social determinism)^ and, on the 
 other, by a profound conviction of our natural weakness. 
 These two aspects of pessimism should neverte separated, 
 although, as a rule, scarcely any attention is paid to their 
 close connection. 
 
 I. The conception of pessimism springs from the fact 
 that literary historians have been very much struck 
 with the complaints made by the great poets of antiquity 
 on the subject of the griefs which constantly threaten 
 mankind. There are few people who have not, at one 
 time or another, experienced a piece of good fortune ; 
 but we are surrounded by malevolent forces always ready 
 to spring out on us from some ambuscade and overwhelm 
 us. Hence the very real sufferings which arouse the 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY ii 
 
 sympathy of nearly all men, even of those who have been 
 more favourably treated by fortime ; so that the Hterature 
 of grief has always had a certain success throughout the 
 whole course of history.^ But a study of this kind of 
 literature would give us a very imperfect idea of pessim- 
 ism. It may be laid down as a general rule, that in order 
 to understand a doctrine it is not sufficient to study it 
 in an abstract manner, nor even as it occurs in isolated 
 people : it is necessary to find out how it^has been mani- 
 fested in historical groups ; it is for this reason that I am 
 here led to add the two elements that were mentioned 
 earher. 
 
 2. (The pessimist regards social- conditions as forming 
 a system bound together by an iron law which cannot be 
 evaded, so. that the system is given, as it were, in one 
 block, and cannot disappear" except in a catastrophe 
 which involves the whole. If this theory is admitted, it 
 then becomes absurd to make certain wicked men re- 
 sponsible for the 'evils from which society suffers ; the 
 pessimist is not shibject -to the sanguinary follies of the 
 optimist, infatuated by the unexpected obstacles that 
 his projects meet with ; he does not dream of bringing 
 about the happiness of future generations by slaughter- 
 ing existing egoists?) 
 
 3. The most flindamental element of pessimism is 
 its method of conceiving the path towards deliverance. 
 A man would not go very far in the examination either 
 of the laws of his own wretchedness or of fate, which 
 so much shock the ingenuousness of our pride, if he were 
 not borne up by the hope of putting an end to these 
 tjnrannies by an effort, to be attempted with the help of 
 a whole band of companions. The Christians would not '^ r^. 
 have discussed original sin so much if they had not felt 
 
 1 The sham cries of despair which were heard at the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century owed part of their success to the analogies of 
 form which they presented to the real literature of pessimism. 
 
 y . 
 
12 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 the necessity of justifying the deliverance (which was 
 to result from the death of Jesus) by supposing that this 
 sacrifice had been rendered necessary by a frightful crime, 
 which could be imputed to humanity. If the people of 
 the West were much more occupied with original sin than 
 those of the East, it was not solely, as Taine thought, 
 owing to the influence of Roman law,^ but also because 
 the Latins, having a more elevated conception of the 
 imperial majesty than the Greeks, regarded the sacrifice 
 of the Son of God as having realised an extraordinarily 
 marvellous dehverance ; from this proceeded the necessity 
 of intensifying human wretchedness and of destiny. 
 
 It seems to me that the optimism of the Greek philo- 
 sophers depended to a great extent on economic reasons ; 
 it probably arose in the rich and commercial urban 
 populations who were able to regard the universe as an 
 immense shop full of excellent things with which they could 
 satisfy their greed.^ I imagine that Greek pessimism 
 sprang from poor warlike tribes living in the mountains, 
 who were filled with an enormous aristocratic pride, but 
 whose material conditions were correspondingly poor ; 
 their poets charmed them by praising their ancestors and 
 made them look forward to triumphal expeditions con- 
 ducted by superhuman heroes ; they explained their 
 present wretchedness to them by relating catastrophes 
 in which semi-divine former chiefs had succumbed to 
 fate or the jealousy of the gods ; the courage of the 
 warriors might for the moment be unable to accomplish 
 anything, but it would not always be so ; the tribe must 
 remain faithful to the old customs in order to be ready 
 for great and victorious expeditions, which might very 
 well take place in the near future. 
 
 ^ Taine, he Regime Moderne, vol. ii. pp. 121-122. 
 
 " The Athenian comic poets have several times depicted a land of 
 Cokaigne, where there was no need to work (A. and M. Croiset, Histoire 
 de la litUrature Grecque, vol. iii. pp. 472-474). 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 13 
 
 Oriental asceticism has often been considered the most 
 remarkable manifestation of pessimism ; Hartmann is 
 certainly right when he regards it as having only the 
 value of an anticipation, which was useful since it re- 
 minded men how much there is that is illusory in vulgar 
 riches ; he was wrong, however, in saying that asceticism 
 taught men that the " destined end to all their efforts " 
 was the annihilation of will,^ for in the course of history 
 deliverance has taken quite other forms than this. 
 
 In primitive Christianity we find a fuUy developed 
 and completely armed pessimism : man is condemned 
 to slavery from his birth — Satan is the prince of the 
 world — ^the Christian, already regenerate by baptism, 
 can render himself capable of obtaining the resurrection 
 of the body by means of the Eucharist ; ^ he awaits the 
 glorious second coming of Christ, who will destroy the rule 
 of Satan and call his comrades in the fight to the heavenly 
 Jerusalem. The Christian life of that time was dominated 
 by the necessity of membership in the holy army which was 
 constantly exposed to the ambuscades set by the accom- 
 plices of Satan ; this conception produced many heroic 
 acts, engendered a courageous propaganda, and was the 
 cause of considerable moral progress. The deliverance did 
 not take place, but we know by innumerable testimonies 
 from that time what great things the march towards 
 deliverance can bring about. 
 
 Sixteenth - century Calvinism presents a spectacle 
 which is perhaps even more instructive ; but we must 
 be careful not to confuse it, as many authors have done, 
 with contemporary Protestantism ; these two doctrines 
 
 1 Hartmann, loc cit. p. 130. " Contempt for the world, combined 
 with a transcendent life of the spirit, had, indeed, in India, already found 
 a place in the esoteric doctrine of Buddhism. But this teaching was 
 only within the reach of a narrow circle of celibate adepts ; the outside 
 world had only taken the ' letter which kUls,' so that the thought only 
 attained realisation in the eccentric phenomena of hermits and 
 penitents " (p. 81). 
 
 2 Battifol, t-tudes d'histoire et de thSologie positive, 2nd series, p. 162. 
 
14 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 are the antipodes of each other. I cannot understand 
 how Hartmann came to say that Protestantism " is a 
 halting place in the journey of true Christianity," and 
 that it " alhed itself with the renaissance of ancient 
 paganism." ^ These judgments only apply to recent 
 Protestantism, which has abandoned its own principles 
 in order to adopt those of the Renaissance. Pessimism, 
 which formed no part of the current of ideas which char- 
 acterised the Renaissance,^ has never been so strongly 
 affirmed as it was by the Reformers. The dogmas of 
 sin and predestination which correspond to the two first 
 aspects of pessimism, the wretchedness of the human 
 species, and social determinism, were pushed to their 
 most extreme consequences. Deliverance was conceived 
 under a very different form to that which had been given 
 it by primitive Christianity ; Protestants organised them- 
 selves into a military force wherever possible ; they 
 made expeditions into Catholic countries, expelled the 
 priests, introduced the reformed cult, and promulgated 
 laws of proscription against papists. They no longer 
 borrowed from the apocalypses the idea of a great final 
 catastrophe, of which the brothers-in-arms who had for 
 so long defended themselves against the attacks of Satan 
 would only be spectators ; the Protestants, nourished 
 on the reading of the Old Testament, wished to imitate 
 the exploits of the conquerors of the Holy Land ; they 
 took the offensive, and wished to establish the kingdom 
 of God by force. In each locality they conquered the 
 Calvinists brought about a real catastrophic revolution, 
 which changed everything from top to bottom. 
 
 1 Hartmann, The Religion of the Future, Eng. trans., p. 23. 
 
 2 " At this epoch commenced the struggle between the Pagan love 
 of life and the Christian hatred of this world and avoidance of it " 
 (Hartmann, op. cit. p. 88). This pagan conception is to be found in 
 liberal protestantism, and this is why Hartmann rightly considers it 
 to be irreligious ; but the men of the sixteenth century took a very 
 different view of the matter. 
 
LETTER TO^ DANIEL If A LEVY ij 
 
 Calvinism was finally, conquered by the Renaissance ; 
 it was full of theol6gical prejudices derived from medieval 
 traditions, and {here came a time when it feared to be 
 thought too far behind the times ; it wished to be on the 
 level of modem culture, and it finished by becoming 
 simply a lax Ohristiajiity.^ To-day very few people 
 suspect what the' reformers of the sixteenth century 
 meant by " free examination " ; the Protestants of 
 to-day apply the same method to the Bible that philol- 
 ogists apply to any profane text; Calvin's exegesis has 
 been replaced by the criticisms, of the humanists. 
 
 The annalist who contents himself with recording ^v\.i 
 facts is tempted to regard the conception of deliverance 
 as a dream or an error, but the true historian considers -^ ''' 
 things from a different point of view; whenever he ' • ; 
 endeavours to find out what has been the influence of 
 the Calvinist spirit on morals, law, or literature, he is 
 always driven back to a consideration of the way in which 
 former Protestant thought was dominated by the con- 
 ception of the path to deliverance. The experience of 
 this great epoch shows quite clearly that in this warlike 
 excitement which accompanies this will-to-deliverance 
 the courageous man finds a satisfaction which is sufficient 
 to keep up his ardour. I am convinced that in the 
 history of that time you might find excellent illustrations 
 of the idea that you once expressed to me — ^that the 
 Wandering Jew may be taken as a S5anbol of the highest 
 aspirations of mankind, condemned as it is to march for 
 ever without knowing rest. 
 
 II 
 
 My theses have shocked many people' who are, to a 
 certain extent, under the influence of the ideas of natural 
 
 1 If Socialism comes to grief it will evidently be in the same way, 
 because it will have been alarmed at its own barbarity. 
 
i6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 justice implanted in us by our education ; very few 
 educated men have been able to free themselves from 
 these ideas. Whi le the philosophy of natural justice is 
 in perfect jigreement witji _that_ of_f orce^ (understanding 
 tEis'^ord in the special meaning that I have given it in 
 Chapters IV. and V.), it_ca nnot be reconciled with my 
 conception of the historical_function of violence. The 
 scholastic~doch-ines of_ natural right co n tain nothing but 
 t^_^^5lPl5^ If'^^^^ISSy — what is just is go od, and what 
 is unjus t is bad ; as if in enunciating such a doctrine we 
 did not implicitly admit that thejust inust adapt itself 
 to_the natural order of even,ts. It was for a reason of" 
 this kind that the economists for a long time asserted 
 that the conditions created imder the capitalist regime 
 of competition are perfectly just, because they result 
 from the natural course of things ; and inversely the 
 makers of XJtopias have always claimed that the actuaT 
 state of the worl3 was noiniziural ewoMgA^^'ttteyTiaVe 
 wished, consequently, to paint a picture of a society 
 naturally better regulated and therefore juster. 
 
 I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting some 
 of Pascal's Pensees which terribly embarrassed his con- 
 temporaries, and which have only been tmderstood in 
 our day. Pascal had considerable difficulty in freeing 
 himself from the ideas of natural justice which he found 
 in the philosophers ; he abandoned them because he did 
 not think them sufficiently imbued with Christianity. 
 " I have passed a great part of my life believing that 
 there was justice, and in this I was not mistaken, for 
 there is justice according as God has willed to reveal it 
 to us. But I did not take it so, and this is where I 
 made a mistake, for I believed that our justice was 
 essentially just, and that I possessed means by which 
 I could know this and judge of it " (fragment 375 
 of the Braunschvieg edition). "Doubtless there are 
 natural laws ; but this good reason once corrupted. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 17 
 
 has corrupted aH"i (fragment 294) ; " Veri juris. We 
 have it no longer " (fragment 297). 
 
 Moreover, mere observation showed Pascal the ab- 
 surdity of the theory of natural right ; if this theory was 
 correct, we ought to find laws which are universally ad- 
 mitted ; but actions which we regard as criminal have at 
 other times been regarded as virtuous. " Three degrees 
 of latitude nearer the Pole reverse all jurisprudence, a 
 meridian decides what is truth ; fundamental laws change 
 after a few years of possession, right has its epochs, the 
 entry of Saturn into the constellation of the Lion marks 
 to us the origin of such and such a crime. A strange 
 justice that is bounded by a river ! Truth on this side 
 of the Pyrenees becomes error on the other. . . . We must, 
 it is said, get back to the natural and fimdamental laws of 
 the State, which an unjust custom has abolished. This is 
 a game certain to result in the loss of all ; nothing will be 
 just on the balance" (fragment 294 ; cf. fragment 379). 
 
 As-tt is. thus impossible for us to reason about justice, 
 we ought to appeal tp custom ; and Pascal often falls 
 back on this precept (fragments 294, 297, 299, 309, 312). 
 He goes still further and shows how justice is praf-tiVany 
 dependent on forc g_i " Justice is sub ject to dispute : 
 might is easily recognised and is not d isputed. Thus it 
 is not possible to attribute might to justice, because 
 might has often contradicted justice, and said that it 
 itself was just. And thus not being able to make what 
 was just strong, what was strong has been made just " 
 (fragment 298 ; cf. fragments 302, 303, 306, 307, 311). 
 
 This criticism of natural right has not the perfect 
 clearness that we could give it at the present day, because 
 we know now that it is in economics we must seek for a 
 
 ' It seems to me that Pascal's editors in 1670 must have been 
 alarmed at his Calvinism. I am astonished that Sainte-Beuve should 
 have said nothing more than that there " was in Pascal's Christianity 
 something which they could not understand, that Pascal had a greater 
 need than they had of Christian faith (Port. Royal, vol. iii. p. 383). 
 
 C 
 
i8 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 type of force that has attained absolutely uncontrolled 
 development, and can thus be identified naturally with 
 right, whilst Pascal under the one heading confuses 
 together all the manifestations of force. ^ 
 
 Pascal was vividly impressed by the changes that the 
 conception of justice has experienced in the course of 
 time, and these changes still continue to embarrass 
 philosophers exceedingly. A well-organised social system 
 is destroyed by a revolution and is replaced by another 
 system, which in its turn is considered to be perfectly 
 just ; so that what was just before now becomes unjust. 
 Any amount of sophisms have been produced to show 
 that force has been placed at the service of justice during 
 revolutions ; these arguments hav^ been many times 
 shown to be absurd. But the public is so accustomed to 
 believe in natural rights that it cannot make up its mind 
 to abandon them. 
 
 There is hardly anything, not excepting even war, 
 that people have not tried to bring inside the scope of 
 natural right : they compare war to a process in which 
 one nation reclaims a right which a malevolent neighbour 
 refuses to recognise. Our fathers readily acknowledged 
 that God decided battles in favour of those who had 
 justice on their side ; the vanquished were to be treated 
 as an unsuccessful litigant : they must pay the costs of 
 the war and give guarantees to the victor in order that 
 the latter might enjoy their restored rights in peace. At 
 the present time there are plenty of people who propose 
 that international conflicts should be submitted to 
 arbitration ; this would only be a secularisation of the 
 ancient mythology.^ 
 
 1 Cf. what I say about force in Chapter V. 
 
 2 I cannot succeed in finding the idea of international arbitration 
 in fragment 296 of Pascal, where several people claim to have discovered 
 it ; in this paragraph Pascal simply points out the ridiculous aspect 
 of the claim made in his time by every belligerent — to condemn the 
 conduct of his adversary in the name of justice. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY ig 
 
 The people who beheve in natural right are not always 
 implacable enemies of civil struggles, and certainly not 
 of tumultuous rioting ; that has been sufficiently shown 
 in the course of the Dreyfus question. When the force 
 of the State was in the hands of their adversaries, they 
 acknowledged, naturally enough, that it was being 
 employed to violate justice, and they then proved that 
 one might with a good conscience " step out of the region 
 of legality in order to enter that of justice " (to borrow a 
 phrase of the BonapartiSts) ; when they could not over- 
 throw the government, they tried at least to intimidate 
 it. But when they attacked the people who for the 
 time being controlled the force of the State, they did not 
 at all desire to suppress that force, for they wished to 
 utilise it some day for their own profit ; all the revolu - 
 tionary distu rbances of the joineteenth century Jia^e ^^ 
 end ed in reinf orcing the power of the State. 
 
 Proletarian vi olenceL.entird3LJ£hajlg£S..^i^^ 
 all the conflicts in which it,i nlerven.e§..-sinefi..lt disowns l^ 
 the force orga nised by the middle class, and cl aims to [ 
 suppress Jthe^ State jvhich__seryes^as its central^^ucleus. I 
 Under such conditions, it is no longer possibl e to argu e 
 
 a hnnt ^Ti p primnrHicil n'gTi+c nf min That iS why OUr 
 
 parliamentary socialists,, who spring from the middle 
 classes and who know nothing outside the ideology of 
 the State, are so bewildered when they are confronted 
 with working-class violence. They cannot apply to it 
 the commonplaces which generally serve them when they 
 speak about force, and they look with terror on movements 
 which may result in the ruin of the institutions by which I 
 they live. If revolutionary syndicalism triumphs, there 
 will be no more brilliant speeches on immanent Justice, w' 
 and the parliamentary regime, so dear to the intellectuals, 
 will be finished with — ^it is the abomination of desolation ! 
 We must not be astonished, then, that they speak about 
 violence with so much anger. 
 
 / 
 
20 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 Giving evidence on June 5, 1907, before the Cours 
 d' Assises de la Seine, in the Bousquet-Levy case, Jaur^s 
 said, " I have no superstitious belief in legality, it has 
 already received too many blows; but I always advise 
 workmen to have recourse to legal means, fo r violence is 
 the sign of temporary weakness." This is clearly a remini- 
 scence of the Dreyfus question. Jaurds remembered 
 that his friends were obliged to have recourse to revolu- 
 tionary manifestations, and it is easy to understand that, 
 as a result of this affair, he had not retained very great 
 respect for legality. He probably likened the present 
 position of the syndicalists to the former position of the 
 Dreyfusards ; for the moment they are weak, but they 
 are destined ultimately to have the force of the 
 State at their own disposal ; they would then be 
 very imprudent to destroy by violence a force which 
 is destined to become theirs. He may even regret at 
 times that the State has been so severely shaken by 
 the Dreyfus agitation, just as Gambetta regretted that 
 the administration had lost its former prestige and 
 discipline. 
 
 One of the most elegant of Republican ministers ^ has 
 made a speciality of high-soimding phrases directed against 
 the upholders of violence. Viviani charms deputies, 
 senators, and the employes assembled to admire his 
 excellency on his official tours, by telling them that 
 violence is the caricature, or rather " the fallen and 
 degenerate daughter," of force. After boasting that he 
 has, by a magnificent gesture, extinguished the lamps of 
 
 1 The Petit Parisien, that one always quotes with pleasure as the 
 barometer of democratic stupidity, tells us that " this scornful definition 
 of the elegant and immoral M. de Morny — Republicans are people who 
 dress badly — seems to-day altogether without any foundation." I 
 borrow this philosophical observation from an enthusiastic description 
 of the marriage of the charming minister Clfementel (October 22, 1905). 
 This well-informed newspaper has accused me of giving the workers 
 hooligan advice (April 7, 1907). 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY si 
 
 Heaven, he assumes the attitudes of a matador, at whose 
 feet a furious bull has fallen.^ 
 
 If I were more vain about my literary efforts than I 
 am, I should like to imagine that he was thinking of me 
 when he said in the Senate, on November i6, 1906, that 
 " one must not mistake a fanatic for a party, nor rash 
 statements for a system of doctrine." There is only one 
 pleasure greater than that of being appreciated by in- 
 telligent people, and that is the pleasure of not being 
 understood by blunderheads, who are only capable of 
 expressing in a kind of jargon what serves them in the 
 place of thought. But I have every reason to suppose 
 that, in the briUiant set which surrounds this charlatan^ 
 there is not one who has ever heard of the Mouvement 
 Socialiste. It is quite within the comprehension of Viviani 
 and his companions in the Cabinet that people may 
 attempt an insurrection when they feel themselves 
 solidly organised enough to take over the State ; but 
 
 1 " I have seen violence myself," he told the Senate on November 
 16, 1906, " face to face. I have been, day after day, in the midst of 
 thousands of men who bore on their faces the marks of a terrifying 
 exaltation. I have remained in the midst of them, face to face and 
 shoulder to shoulder." He boasted that in the end he had triumphed 
 over the strikers in the Creusot workshops. 
 
 2 In the course of the same speech, Viviani strongly insisted on his 
 own Socialism, and declared that he intended " to remain faithful to 
 the ideal of his first years of pubUc life." If we are to judge by a 
 brochure in 1897 by the Allemanistes , under the title La ViriU sur 
 I'union socialiste, this ideal was opportunism ; when he left Algeria 
 for Paris, Viviani was transformed into a Socialist, and the brochure 
 then asserts that his new attitude is a lie. Evidently this work was 
 edited by fanatics with no understanding of the manners of polite 
 society. 
 
 [Allemanistes: this was the name given to the members of the 
 " Revolutionary Socialist Workmen's Party " because AUemane was 
 the best-known member of the group. They did not wish (in principle 
 at any rate) to admit any but workmen into the party ; they were for 
 a long time very hostile to the parUamentary Socialists. During the 
 Dreyfus afiair they went with the rest and demanded a retrial ; to-day 
 they have disappeared, but they had some influence in the formation 
 of the SyndicaUst idea. — Trans. Note.] 
 
/ 
 
 23 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 working-class violence which has no such aim, seems to 
 them only folly and an odious caricature of revolution. 
 Do what you hke, but don't kill the goose. 
 
 Ill 
 
 (In the course of this study one thing has always 
 been present in my mind, which seemed to me so 
 evident that I did not think it worth while to lay 
 much stress on it — that anen who are participating in 
 a grea t social movement always picture 'therf'cotHiH g 
 action as a battle in which their cause is certaiu to 
 
 , triumph^ These constructions, knowled ge oi w!iicK"'ii 
 / sounportairtlorTusg^ 
 
 tSejyndicahst^iiMrai strike " and Mafx^^s catastrophicj 
 revoluti£a are such mjths;^^ As remarkableexamples 
 ■ ' of such myths, I have given those which were constructed 
 by primitive Christianity, by the Reformation, by the 
 Revolution and by the followers of Mazzini. | I now 
 
 » wish to show that we should not attempt to analyse such 
 groups of images in the way that we analyse a thing into 
 its elements, but that they must be taken as a whple, 
 /. as historical forces, and that we should be especially 
 care CTnoFto ma ke any compariso jo betwee n accomplished 
 f act and the picture peopl e had formed for themselves , 
 before action. 
 
 1 could have given one more example which is perhaps 
 still more striking : Catholics have never been discouraged 
 even in the hardest trials, because they have always 
 pictured the history of the Church as a series of battles 
 between Satan and the hierarchy supported by Christ ; 
 every new difficulty which arises is only an episode in a 
 war which rnust finally end in the victory qfCatllplicism. 
 
 1 In the Introduction ct I'iconomie moderne, I have given the word 
 myth a more general sense, which closely corresponds to the narrower 
 meaning given to it here. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 23 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century the revolu- 
 tionary persecutions revived this myth of the struggle 
 with Satan, which inspired so many of the eloquent 
 pages in Joseph de Maistre ; this rejuvenation explains 
 to a large extent the religious renascence which took 
 place at that epoch. If Catholicism is in danger at the 
 present tune, it is to a great extent owmg to the fact that 
 the myth of the Church militant tends to disappear. 
 Ecclesiastical literature has greatly contributed to render- 
 ing it ridiculous ; thus in 1872, a Belgian writer recom- 
 mended a revival of exorcisms, as they seemed to him 
 an efficacious means of combating the revolutionaries.^ 
 Many educated Catholics are horrified when they discover 
 that the ideas of Joseph de Maistre have helped to 
 encourage the ignorance of the clergy, which did not 
 attempt to acquire an adequate knowledge of a science 
 which it held to be accursed ; to these educated Catholics 
 the myth of the struggle with Satan then appears 
 dangerous, and they point out its ridiculous aspects ; but 
 they do not in the least understand its historical bearing. 
 The gentle, sceptical, and, above all, pacific, habits of the 
 present generation are, moreover, unfavourable to its 
 continued existence ; and the enemies of the Church 
 loudly proclaim that they do not wish to return to a 
 regime of persecution which might restore their former 
 power to warlike images. 
 
 In employing the term myth I believed that I had 
 made a happy choice, because I thus put myself in a 
 position to refuse any discussion whatever with the 
 people who wish to submit the idea of a general strike 
 to a detailed criticism, and who accumulate objections 
 
 ' V.^yae&ViyLaCnse morale des temps nouveaux.'^.^x'i. The author, 
 a professor of the Institut Catholique de Paris, adds : " This recom- 
 mendation can only excite hilarity nowadays. We are compelled to 
 believe that the author's curious proposition was then accepted by a 
 large number of his correligionists, when we remember the astonishing 
 success of the writings of Leo Taxil after his pretended conversion." 
 
24 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 against its practical possibility. It appears, on the 
 contrary, that I had made a most unfortunate choice, 
 for while some told me that myths were only suitable 
 to a primitive state of society, others imagined that I 
 thought the modern world might be moved by illusions 
 analogous in nature to those which Renan thought might 
 usefully replace religion.^ But there has been a worse 
 misunderstanding than this even, for it has been asserted 
 that my theory of myths was only a kind of lawyer's 
 plea, a falsification of the real opinions of the revolu- 
 tionaries, the sophistry of an intellectualist. 
 
 If this were true, I should not have been exactly 
 fortunate, for I have always tried to escape the influence 
 of that intellectualist philosophy, which seems to me 
 a great hindrance to the historian who allows himself 
 to be dominated by it. The contradiction that exists 
 between this philosophy and the true understanding of 
 events has often struck the readers of Renan. Renan is 
 continually wavering between his own intuition, which 
 was nearly always admirable, and a philosophy which 
 cannot touch history without falling into platitudes ; but, 
 alas, he too often believed himself bound to think in 
 accordance with the scientific opinions of his day. 
 
 The inteUectuahst philosophy finds itself unable to 
 explain phenomena like the following— the sacrifice of 
 his life which the soldier of Napoleo n ma'de'urorHeFto" ' 
 haveTiiHlheTi^om^^ofla^^ in " immortal deeds " 
 
 aiidof livingin the glory o^f ^France, knowing ajjjhejmie 
 *llIZ?^^J^-9Hy„alwaysJbe a poor man ''; then, again, 
 the extraoidinajy_virtues_ diow^^ the Roman s^ho 
 resignedThemselves to _a frightful jnequality and who 
 suffered so much to conquer-the worldZ-" t he belief in 
 
 1 The principal object of these illusions seems to me to have been the 
 calming of the anxieties that Renan had retained on the subject of 
 the beyond (cf. an article by Mgr. d'Hulst in the Correspondant on 
 October 25, 1892, pp. 210, 224-225). 
 
 * Renan, Histoire du peuple d'IsraU, vol. iv. p. 191. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 23 
 
 g lory (whic h was) a value without equal," created, by 
 Greece^nd as^a result otj^ucB"^^ selection ,was,made 
 from the swarming masses of humanity, life acquired 
 aiTincentive^aiid tTiere waFaTrecdrnpense here for those 
 whs had"pursued the, good .and- the .heauiiiuJ." ^ The 
 inteUectualist philosophy, far from being able to explain 
 these things, leads, on the contrary, to an admiration for 
 the fifty-first chapter of Jeremiah, " the lofty though 
 profoimdly sad feeling with which tTie" peaceful inan 
 ''Contemplates these falls of empires, and the pity excited 
 in the heart of the wise man by the spectacle of the 
 nations labouring for vanity, victims of the arrogance of 
 the few." Greece, according to Renan, did not experience 
 anything of that kind, and I do not think that we need 
 complain about that.^ Moreover, he himself praises the 
 Romans for not having acted in accordance with the 
 conceptions of the Jewish thinker. " They laboured, 
 they wore themselves out for nothing, said the Jewish 
 thinker — ^yes, doubtless, but those are the virtues that 
 history rewards." ' 
 
 Religions constitute a very troublesome problem for 
 the inteUectualists, for they can neither regard them as 
 being without historical importance nor can they explain 
 them. Renan, for example, has written some very strange 
 sentences on this subject. " Religion is a necessary 
 imposture. Even the most obvious ways of throwing 
 dust in people's eyes cannot be neglected when you are 
 dealing with a race as stupid as the human species, a 
 race created for error, which, when it does admit the 
 truth, never does so for the right reasons. It is necessary 
 then to give it the wrong ones." * 
 
 Comparing Giordano Bruno, who " allowed himself 
 to be burnt at Champ - de - Flore " with Galileo, who 
 
 I Renan, loc. cit. p. 267. ' Renan, loc. cit. pp. 199-200. 
 
 » Renan, op. cit. vol. iii. pp. 458-459- 
 » Renan, op. cit. vol. v. pp. 105-106. 
 
36 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 submitted to the Holy See, Renan sides with the second, 
 because, according to him, the scientist need not bring 
 anything to support his discoveries beyond good argu- 
 ments. He considered that the Italian philosopher wished 
 to supplement his inadequate proofs by his sacrifice, and 
 he puts forward this scornful maxim : " A man suffer s 
 nia rtyrdom o nly for the sake of things about which 
 he is not certain."^ Renan here confuses conviction, 
 which must have been very powerful in Bruno's case, 
 with that particular kind of cgrfoYMifg "about t he accepted " 
 theories of science, which instruction ultimately produces ; 
 i t would be d ifficult to give a more misieadingJ,dea,fif 
 the forces which really move men. 
 
 The whole of this phUosophy can be summed up in 
 the following phrase of Renan's : " Human affairs are 
 always an approximation lacking gravity and precision " ; 
 and as a matter of fact, for an intellectualist, what lacks 
 precision must also lack gravity. But in Renan the 
 conscientious historian was never entirely asleep, and 
 he at once adds as a corrective : "To have realised this 
 truth is a great result obtained by philosophy ; but it is 
 an abdication of any active role. The future lies in the 
 'hands of those who are not disillusioned." ^ From this 
 / we may conclude that the intellectualist philosophy is 
 entirely unable to explain the great movements of 
 history. 
 
 The intellectualist phUosophy would have vainly 
 endeavoured to convince the ardent Catholics, who for 
 
 1 Renan, Nouvelles iltudes d'histoire religieuse, p. vii. Previously he 
 had said, speaking of the persecutions: " People die for opinions, and 
 
 ^1 J not for certitudes, because they beUeve and not because they know 
 
 (\ ... whenever beliefs are in question the greatest testimony and the 
 most ef&cacious demonstration is to die for them " (L'£glise chrUienne, 
 p. 317). This thesis presupposes that martyrdom is a kind of ordeal, 
 which was partly true in the Roman epoch, by reason of certain 
 special circumstances (G. Sorel, Le Systhme Ustorique de Renan, p. 
 335)- 
 
 2 Renan, Histoire du peuple d'Israel, vol. iii. p. 497. 
 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 27 
 
 SO long struggled successfully against the revolutionary 
 traditions, that the myth of the Church militant was not 
 in harmony with the scientific theories formulated by 
 the most learned authors according to the best rules of 
 criticism ; it would never have succeeded in persuading 
 them. It would not have been possible to shake the faith 
 that these men had in the promises made to the Church 
 by any argument ; and so long as this faith remained, 
 the myth was, in their eyes, incontestable. Similarly, the 
 objections urged by philosophy against the revolutionary 
 myths would have made an impression only on those 
 men who were anxious to find a pretext for abandoning 
 any active role, for remaining revolutionary in words 
 only. 
 
 I can understand the fear that this myth of the general 
 strike inspires in many worthy progressives} on account of 
 its (^aracter ofiniin^ ) ^ the world of to-day is very much 4^" 
 inclined to retum-to'^he opinions of the ancients anJ to 
 subordinate ethics to the smooth working of public affairs, 
 which results in a definition of vjrtue as_the golden mean ; 
 as long as socialism remains a doctrine expressed only in 
 words, it is very easy to deflect it towards this doctrine 
 oith.e, golden mean ; but this transformation is manifestly 
 impossible when the myth of ;the " general strike " is 
 introduced, as this implies an absolute revolution. You 1 
 know as well as I do that all that is best in the modern 
 mind is derived from this " torment of the infinite " ; 
 
 ^ Translator's Note. — In French, " braves gens." Sorel is using the 
 words ironically to indicate those naive, philanthropically disposed 
 people who believe that they have discovered the solution to the 
 problem of social reform — whose attitude, however, is often complicated 
 by a good deal of hypocrisy, they being frequently rapacious when 
 their own personal interests are at stake. ^ 
 
 1 Parties, as a rule, define the reforms that they wish to bring about ; \ 
 but the general strike has a character of infinity, because it puts on one 
 sjde all dis cussion of definite re forms and confronts men with a 
 catastrophe. Peop le who pride themselves on tha iC- PTar i tic a l wisdnm 
 are very inuch upset by such a conception, which puts forward no f 
 definite proje^f^g^tuTejocSr prganisafiarL. ~ ~ 
 
sS REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 you are not one of those people who look upon the tricks 
 by means of which readers can be deceived by words, as 
 happy discoveries. That is why you wUl not condemn 
 
 I me for having attached great worth to a mytti which 
 gives to so cialis nTsuch high mo ral_ value Jnd such great 
 smcCTit^ It Is because the theory of myths tends to 
 produce such fine results that so many seek to dispute it. 
 
 IV 
 
 The mind of man is so constituted that it cannot remain 
 content with the mere observation of facts, but always 
 attempts to penetrate into the inner reason of things. I 
 therefore ask myself whether it might not be desirable to 
 study this theory of myths more thoroughly, utilising the 
 i enlightenment we owe to the Bergsonian philosophy. 
 The attempt I am about to submit to you is doubtless 
 very imperfect, but I think that it has been planned in 
 accordance with the only method which can possibly 
 throw light on the problem. In the first place, we should 
 notice that the discussions of the moralists hardly ever 
 come into contact with what is truly fundamental in our 
 individuality. As a rule, they simply try to appraise 
 our already completed acts with the help of the moral 
 valuations formulated in advance by society, for the 
 different types of action commonest in contemporary 
 life. They say that in this way they are determining 
 motives ; but these motives are of the same nature as 
 those which jurists take account of in criminal justice ; 
 they are merely social valuations of facts known to 
 everybody. Many philosophers, especially the ancients, 
 have believed that all values could be deduced from 
 utility, and if any social valuation does exist, it is surely 
 ' , this latter, — theologians estimate transgressions by the 
 place they occupy on the road which, according to average 
 human experience, leads to mortal sin ; they are thus 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HA LEVY 2g 
 
 able to ascertain the degree of viciousness of any given 
 sin, — ^while the modems usually teach that we act after 
 having established a partictilar maxim (which is, as it 
 were, an abstraction or generalisation of our projected 
 conduct), and justify this maxim by deducing it (more 
 or less sophistically) from general principles which are, 
 to a certain extent, analogous to the Declaration of the 
 Rights of Man ; and, as a matter of fact, this theory 
 was probably inspired by the admiration excited by 
 the Bill of Rights placed at the head of each American 
 constitution.^ 
 
 We are.. all. so extremely concerned in knowing what 
 the world thinks of us that, sooner or later, considerations 
 analogous to those the moralists speak of do pass through 
 our mind ; as a result of this the moralists have been 
 able to imagine that they have really made an appeal to 
 experience for the purpose of finding out what exists at 
 the bottom of the creative conscience, when, as a matter 
 of fact, all they have done is to consider already accom- 
 plished acts from the point of view of its social effects. 
 
 Bergson asks us, on the contrary, to consider the inner 
 depths of the mind and what happens there during a 
 creative moment. " There are," he says, " two different 
 selves, one of which is, as it were, the external projection 
 of the other, its spatial and, so to speak, social representa- 
 tion. We reach the former by deep introspection, which 
 leads us to grasp our inner states as living things, con- 
 stantly becoming, as states not amenable to measure. . . . 
 But the moments at which we thus grasp ourselves are 
 
 1 The Constitution of Virginia dates from June 1776. The American 
 constitutions were known in Europe by two French translations, in 
 1778 and 1789. Kant had published the Foundations of the Metaphysic 
 of Custom in 1785 and the Critique of Practical Reason in 1788. One 
 might say that the utiUtarian system of the ancients has certain 
 analogies with economics, that of the theologians with law, and that 
 of Kant with the political theory of growing democracy (cf. Jellinck, 
 La Diclaration des droits de I'homme et du citoyen, trad, franc, pp. 18-25 ; 
 pp. 49-50 ; p. 89). 
 
 '/ 
 
30 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 \ rare, and that is just why we are rarely free. The greater 
 part of our time we live outside ourselves, hardly: per- 
 ceiving anything of oufselves but our own ghost, a colour- 
 less shadow. . . . Henfce we live for the external world 
 rather than for ourselves ; we speak rather than think ; 
 we are acted rather than act ourselves. To act freely 
 
 \/ is to recover possession of oneself, aiid to get back into" 
 pure duration." ^ 
 
 In order to acquire a real understanding of this psy- 
 chology we must " carry ourselves back in thought to 
 those moments of our life, when we made some serious 
 decision, moments unique of their kind, which wiU never 
 be repeated — any more than the past phases in the 
 history of a nation wiU ever come back again." ^ It is 
 very evident that we enjoy this liberty pre-eminently 
 when we are making an effort to create a new individuality 
 in ourselves, thus endeavouring to break the bonds of 
 habit which enclose us. It might at first be supposed 
 that it would be sufficient to say that, at such moments, 
 we are dominated by an overwhelming emotion ; but 
 / everybody now recognises tha t moveme ntJs_thf^ f^psgnrs 
 
 -,/ (Q£_em.otional life^ and it is, then, in terms of movement 
 \that we must speak of creative consciousness. 
 
 It seems to me that this psychology of the deeper life 
 must be represented in the following way. We must 
 -''abandon the idea that the soul can be compared to some- 
 thing moving, which, obeying a more or less mechanical 
 law, is impelled in the direction of certain given motive 
 forces. To say that we are acting, implies that we are 
 creating an imaginary world placed ahead of the present 
 world and composed of movements which depend entirely 
 on us. In this way our freedom becomes perfectly 
 
 1 Bergson, Time and Free Will, Eng. trans., pp. 231-232. In this 
 philosophy a distinction is made between duration which flows, in 
 which our personality manifests itself, and mathematical time, which 
 science uses to measure and space out accomplished facts. 
 
 2 Bergson, op. cit., Eng. trans., pp. 238-239. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 31 
 
 intelligible. Starting from a study of these artificial 
 constructions which embrace everything that interests 
 us, several philosophers, inspired by Bergsonian doctrines, 
 have been led to formulate a rather startling theory. 
 Edouard Le Roy, for example, says : " Our real body is 
 the entire universe in as far as it is experienced by us. 
 And what common sense more strictly calls our body is / / 
 only the region of least unconsciousness and greatest ' 
 liberty in this greater body, the part which we most 
 directly control and by means of which we are able to 
 act on the rest." ^ But we must not, as this subtle 
 philosopher constantly does, confuse a passing state of 
 our wUling activity with the stable affirmations of science.^ 
 
 These artificial worlds generally disappear from our 
 minds without leaving any trace in our memory ; but 
 when the masses are deeply moved it then becomes 
 possible to trace the outlines of the kind of representation 
 which constitutes a social myth. 
 
 ^is belief in " glory " which Renan praised so much 
 quickly fades away into rhapsodies when it is not sup- 
 ported by myths); these myths have varied greatly in 
 different epochs : the citizen of the Greek republics, the 
 Roman legionary, the soldier of the wars of Liberty, and 
 the artist of the Renaissance did not picture their con- 
 ception of glory by the help of the same set of images^ 
 Renan complained that " the faith in glory " is com- 
 promised by the limited, historical outlook more or less 
 prevalent at the present day. " Very few," he said, ; 
 " act with a view to immortal fame. . . . Every one wants , 
 to enjoy his own glory ; they eat it iruthe green blade, 
 and do not gather the sheaves after ^Path." ' In my 
 opinion, this limited historical outlook is, on the contrary, 
 
 1 E. Le Roy, Dogme et critique, p. 239. 
 
 2 It is easy to see here how the sophism creeps in ; the universe 
 experienced by us may be either the real world in which we live or the 
 world invented by us for action. 
 
 3 Renan, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 329. 
 
32 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 not a cause but a consequence ; it results from the weaken- 
 ing of the heroic myths which had such great popularity 
 at the beginning of the nineteenth century ; the belief in 
 " glory " perished and a limited historic outlook became 
 predominant at the time when these myths vanished.^ 
 
 As Jong as there are„no. my ths^ accepte d by the masses, 
 ;one may go on talking of revolts indeSnitely, wi thout 
 ever provoking any revolutionary movement ; this is 
 what gives such importance to the general strike and 
 renders it so odious to socialists who are afraid of a 
 revolution ; they do all they can to shake the confidence 
 felt by the workers in the preparations they are making 
 for the revolution ; and in order to succeed in this they 
 cast ridicule on the idea. _of the general^ strike — the- only 
 idea that could have any value as a motive force. One 
 of the chief means employed by them is to represent it 
 as a Utopia ; this is easy enough, because there are very 
 few myths which are perfectly free from any Utopian 
 element. 
 
 The revolutionary myths which exist at the present 
 time are almost free from any such mixture ; by means 
 of them it is possible to understand the activity, the 
 feelings and the ideas of the masses preparing themselves 
 \to enter on a decisive struggle ; the myths are not descrip-~^ 
 i^^ ions of things, b ut ex pressions of a dete rmination to act. 
 AJLJt opia^ is, on t he contr ary, an i nte llectual^ p ro^iic^ ; 
 
 1 " Assent," said Newman, " however strong, and accorded to images 
 however vivid, is not therefore necessarily practical. Strictly speaking, 
 it is not imagination that causes action ; but hope and fear, likes and 
 dislikes, appetite, passion, affection, the stirrings of selfishness and 
 self-love. What imagination does for us is to find a means of stimulating 
 those motive powers ; and it does so by providing a supply of objects 
 strong enough to stimulate them " (o^. ci<. p. 82). It may be seen from 
 this that the illustrious thinker adopts an attitude which strongly 
 resembles that of the theory of myths. It is impossible to read Newman 
 without being struck by the analogies between his thought and that of 
 Bergson : people who like to make the history of ideas depend on 
 ethnical traditions will observe that Newman was descended from 
 IsraeUtes. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 33 
 
 it is the work of theorists who, after observing and dis- 
 cussing the known facts, seek to establish a model to 
 which they can compare existing society in order to 
 estimate the amount of good and evil it contains.^ It 
 is a combination of imaginary institutions having sufficient 
 analogies to real institutions for the jurist to be able to 
 reason about them ; it is a construction which can be 
 taken to pieces, and certain parts of it have been shaped 
 in such a way that they can (with a few alterations by 
 way of adjustment) be fitted into approaching legislation. 
 (Whilst contemporary myths lead men to prepare them- 
 selves for a combat which wiU destroy the existing state 
 of things, the effect of Utopias has always been to direct 
 men's minds towards reforms which can be brought 
 about by patching up the existing system^ it is not 
 surprising, then, that so many makers of Utopias were 
 able to develop into able statesmen when they had 
 acquired a greater experience of political life. A-jpytl T 
 
 cannot,^bejgfute4.,sin£aJk^^ idflntit^a l Vgl't h 
 
 the convic tions of a group, being the _ e xpres sion o f these^ 
 convict ions m the iangtrage of 'movementT° ^nd it is, in 
 consequence, unanaTysable ~iii^[^]^gg''~^Tch .could b e 
 pla ced on the plane oFEistorical descrip tions. A Utopia, 
 on the contraryr*can be discussed like^ any^BieT social 
 constitution ; the spontaneous movements it presupposes 
 can be compared with the movements actually observed 
 in the course of history, and we can in this way evaluate 
 its verisimilitude; it is possible to refute Utopias by j 
 showing that the economic system on which they have^y 
 been made to rest is incompatible with the necessary 
 conditions of modem production. 
 
 Liberal political economy is one of the best examples 
 of a Utopia that could be given. A state of society 
 
 I It was evidently a method of this kind that was adopted by those 
 Greek philosophers who wished to be able to argue about ethics without 
 being obliged to accept the customs which historical necessity had 
 imposed at Athens. 
 
 D 
 
 h"' 
 
y 
 
 34. REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 was imagined which could contain only the types pro- 
 duced by commerce, and which would exist under the 
 law of the fullest competition ; it is recognised to-day 
 that this kind of ideal society would be as difficult to 
 realise as that of Plato ; but several great statesmen of 
 modern times have owed their fame to the efforts they 
 made to introduce something of this ideal of commercial 
 liberty into industrial legislation. 
 
 We have here a Utopia free from any mixture of myth ; 
 the history of French democracy, however, presents a very 
 remarkable combination of Utopias and myths. The 
 theories that inspired the authors of our first constitutions 
 are regarded to-day as extremely chimerical ; indeed, 
 people are often loth to concede them the value which 
 they have been so long recognised to possess — that of 
 an ideal on which legislators, magistrates, and admini- 
 strators should constantly fix their eyes, in order to secure 
 for men a little more justice. With these Utopias were 
 mixed up the myths which represented the struggle 
 against the ancient regime ; so long as the myths survived, 
 all the refutations of liberal Utopias could produce ho 
 result ; the myth safeguarded the Utopia with which it 
 was mixed. 
 
 For a long time Socialism was scarcely anything but 
 a Utopia ; the Marxists were right in claiming for 
 their master the honour of bringing about a change, 
 in this state of things ; Socialism has now become the 
 preparation of the masses employed in great industries 
 for the suppression of the State and property ; and it 
 is no longer necessary, therefore, to discuss how men must 
 organise themselves in order to enjoy future happiness ; 
 everything is reduced to the revolutionary apprentice- 
 ship of the proletariat. Unfortunately Marx was not 
 acquainted with facts which have now become familiar 
 to us ; we know better than he did what strikes are, 
 because we have been able to observe economic conflicts 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 33 
 
 of considerable extent and duration ; the myth of the 
 " general strike " has become popular, and is now firmly 
 established in the minds of the workers ; we possess 
 ideas about violence that it would have been difficult 
 for him to have formed ; we can then complete his 
 doctrine, instead of making commentaries on his text, 
 as his unfortunate disciples have done for so long. 
 
 In this way Utopias tend to disappear completely 
 from Socialism ; Socialism has no longer any need to 
 concern itself with the organisation of industry since 
 capitalism does that. I think, moreover, that I have 
 shown that the general strike corresponds to a kind of 
 feeling which is so closely related to those which are 
 necessary to promote production in any very progressive 
 state of industry, that a revolutionary apprenticeship 
 may at the same time be considered as an apprentice- 
 ship which will enable the workmen to occupy a high 
 rank among the best workmen of his own trade. 
 
 People who are living in this world of " myths." are 
 se_cure from all refiitation : this has JgijaaB* Ja-aS§grt 
 t hat Socialism is a kind of reli gion. For a long time 
 people nave ibeen struck FyTKeiact that religious con- 
 victions are unaffected by criticism, and from that they 
 have concluded that everything which claims to be 
 /ijeyond science must be a religion. It has been observed 
 ^/ also that Christianity tends at the present day to be less 
 ' a system of dogmas than a Christian life, i.e. a moral 
 reform penetrating to the roots of one's being ; conse- 
 quently, a new analogy has been discovered between 
 religion and the revolutionary Socialism which aims at 
 the apprenticeship, preparation, and even reconstruc- 
 tion of the individual, — a gigantic task. But Bergson 
 has taught us that it is not only religion which occupies 
 the profounder region of our mental life ; revolutionary 
 myths have their place there equally with religion. The 
 arguments which Yves Guyot urges against Socialism on 
 
36 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 the ground that it is a religion, seem to me, then, to be 
 founded on an imperfect acquaintance with the new 
 psychology. 
 
 Renan was very surprised to discover that Socialists 
 are beyond discouragement. " After each abortive experi- ' 
 ment they recommence their work : the solution is not 
 yet found, but it wiU be. The idea that no solution 
 exists never occurs to them, and in this lies their strength." ^ 
 The explanation given by Renan is superficial ; it regards 
 Socialism as a Utopia, that is, as a thing which can be 
 compared to observed realities ; if this were true, it would 
 be scarcely possible to understand how confidence can 
 survive so many failures. But by the side of the Utopias 
 there have always been myths capable of urging on the 
 workers to revolt. For a long time these myths were 
 founded on the legends of the Revolution, and they pre- 
 served all their value as long as these legends remained 
 unshaken. To-day the confidence of the Socialists is 
 greater than ever since the myth of the general strike 
 aominates all the truly working-class movement. No 
 failure proves anything against Socialism since the latter 
 has become a work of preparation (for revolution) ; if 
 they are checked, it merely proves that the apprentice- 
 ship has been insufficient ; they must set to work again 
 with more courage, persistence, and confidence than before ; 
 their experience of labour has taught workmen that it 
 is by means of patient apprenticeship that a man may 
 become a true comrade, and it is also the only way of 
 becoming a true revolutionary. ^ 
 
 ' Renan, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 497. 
 
 2 It is extremely important to notice the analogy between the 
 revolutionary state of mind and that which corresponds to the morale 
 ai the producers. I have indicated some remarkable resemblances 
 at the end of these reflections, but there are many more analogies to 
 be pointed out. 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 37 
 
 The works of my friends have been treated with great 
 contempt by the Socialists who mix in politics, but at 
 the same time with much sjnnpathy by people who do 
 not concern themselves with parliamentary affairs. We 
 cannot be suspected of seeking to carry on a kind of 
 intellectual industry, and we protest every time people 
 profess to confuse us with the intellectuals, who do, as a 
 matter of fact, make the exploitation of thought their 
 profession. The old stagers of democracy cannot under- 
 stand why people should take so much trouble unless 
 they secretly aim at the leadership of the working 
 classes. However, we could not act in any other 
 way. 
 
 The man who has constructed a Utopia designed 
 to make mankind happy is inclined to look upon the 
 invention as his own personal property ; he believes 
 that no one is in a better position than he is to apply his 
 system. He thinks it very unreasonable that his writings "^ 
 do not procure him some post in the government. But 
 we, on the contrary, have invented nothing at all, and \ 
 even assert that nothing can be invented ; we have j' 
 limited ourselves to defining the historical bearing of ! 
 the notion of a general strike. We_hayejtried to show ■ 
 that a new culture might spring from the struggled the '-. ^ 
 revolutiona^~ffades"uiir6ns against the employers and ,| 
 the State ; our greatest claim to originality consists in ', 
 our having maintained that the proletariat can emanci- 
 pate itself without being compelled to seek the guidance 
 \ of that section of the middle classes which concerns itself 
 '^professionally with matters of the intellect. We have 
 thus been led to regard as essential in contemporary 
 phenomena what was before regarded as accessory, 
 and what is indeed really educative for a revolutionary 
 
/ 
 
 38 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 proletariat that is serving its apprenticeship in struggle. 
 It_ would be impossible for us to exercise any direct 
 influence on such a work of formation. 
 
 We may play a useful part if we limit ourselves to 
 attacking middle-class thought in such a way as to put 
 the proletariat on its guard against an invasion of ideas 
 and customs from the hostile class. 
 
 Men who have received an elementary education are 
 generally imbued with a certain reverence for print as 
 such, and they readily attribute genius to the people who 
 attract the attention of the literary world to any great 
 extent ; they imagine that they must have a great deal 
 to learn from authors whose names are so often mentioned 
 with praise in the newspapers ; they listen with singular 
 respect to the commentaries that these literary prize- 
 winners present to them. It is not easy to fight against 
 these prejudices, but it is a very useful work ; we regard 
 this task as being absolutely of the first importance, and 
 we can carry it to a profitable conclusion without ever 
 attempting to direct the working-class movement. The 
 proletariat must be preserved from the experience of the 
 Germaiis who conquered the Roman Empire ; the latter 
 ,,, ,.. , were ashamed of being barbarians, and put themselves 
 \ ' *' I to school with the rhetoricians of the Latin decadence; 
 they had no reason to congratulate themselves for having 
 wished to be civilised. 
 
 In the course of my career I have touched on many 
 subjects which might be considered to be outside the 
 proper range of a Socialist writer. I have endeavoured 
 to show that the science whose marvellous results the 
 middle class constantly boasts of is not as infallible as 
 those who live by its exploitation would have us believe ; 
 and that a study of the phenomena of the Socialist world 
 would often fvunish philosophers with an enlightenment 
 which they do not find in the works of the learned. I do 
 not beheve, then, that I am labouring in vain, for in this 
 
 ^l^- 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 39 
 
 way I help to ruin the prestige of middle-class culture, a 
 prestige which up to now has been opposed to the 
 complete development of the principle of the " class 
 war." 
 
 In the last chapter of my book, I have said that art 
 i s an anticipation of the kin d of work that ought to be 
 c arried oh in a Mg Mypro3uctivestate of society. It seems 
 that this observation haS'Beeri vS^TnucK^ misunderstood 
 by some of my critics, who have been under the impression 
 that I wished to propose as the socialist solution — an 
 aesthetic education of the proletariat under the tutelage 
 of modem artists. This would have been a singular 
 paradox on my part, for the art that we possess to-day 
 is a residue left to us by an aristocratic society, a residue 
 which has, moreover, been greatly corrupted by the middle 
 class. According to the most enlightened minds, it is 
 greatly to be desired that contemporary art could renew 
 itself by a more intimate contact with craftsmen ; academic 
 art has used up the greatest geniuses without succeeding 
 in producing anything which equals what has been given 
 us by generations of craftsmen^ I had in view something 
 altogether different from such an imitation when I spoke 
 of an anticipation. I wished to show how one found in 
 art (practised by its best representatives, and, above all, 
 in its best periods) analogies which make it easier for us 
 to understand what the qualities of the workers of the 
 future would be. Moreover, so little did I think of asking 
 the Ecole des Beaux- Arts to provide a teaching suitable 
 to the proletariat, that I based the morale of the producers 
 not on an aesthetic education transmitted by the middle 
 class, but on the feelings developed by the struggles of 
 the workers against their masters. 
 
 These observations lead us to recognise the enormous "^ 
 difference which exists between the new school and the 
 Einarchism which flourished twenty years ago in Paris. 
 The middle class itself had much less admiration for its 
 
40 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 [ literary men and its artists than the anarchists of that 
 I , time felt for them ; their enthusiasm for the celebrities 
 of a day often surpassed that felt by disciples for the 
 greatest masters of the past. We need not then be 
 astonished that by a kind of compensation the novelists 
 and the poets thus adulated have shown a sympathy 
 for the anarchists which has often astonished people who 
 do not know what a force vanity is in the artistic 
 world. 
 
 Intellectually, then, this kind of anarchism was entirely 
 middle class, and the Guesdistes attacked it for this reason. 
 They said that their adversaries, while proclaiming them- 
 selves the irreconcilable enemies of the past, were them- 
 / J selves the servile pupils of this cursed past; they observed, 
 / moreover, that the most eloquent dissertations on revolt 
 could produce nothing, and that literature cannot change 
 the course of history. The anarchists replied by showing 
 that their adversaries had entered on a road which could 
 not lead to the revolution they annotmced; by taking 
 part in political debates, Socialists, they said, will become 
 merely reformers of a more or less radical type, and will 
 . |_Jose the sense of their revolutionary formulas. Experience H 
 
 has quickly shown that the anarchists were right in this 
 r"~ view, and that in entering into middle-class institutions, 
 V ; revolutionaries have been trajisformed by adopting the 
 . ~ spirit of these institutions. All the deputies agree 
 "h that there is very little difference between a middle- 
 
 class representative and a representative of the pro- \ 
 letariat. 
 
 Many anarchists, tired at last of continually reading 
 the same grandiloquent maledictions BufTed^at the 
 capitalist _ system, set themselves to find a way which 
 would lead them to acts which were really revolutionary. 
 They became members of syndicates whiehr thanks Jo 
 violent strikes, realised, to a certain extent, the social war 
 they had so often heard spoken of. Historians will one 
 
LETTER TO DANIEL HALEVY 41 
 
 day see in this entry of the anarchists into the syndicates ^ 
 one of the greatest events that has been produced 
 in our time, and then the name of my poor friend 
 Femand Pelloutier will be as well known as it deserves 
 to be.i 
 
 The anarchist writers who remained faithful to their 
 former revolutionary Uterature do not seem to have looked 
 with much favour upon the passage of their friends into 
 the syndicates ; their attitude proves that the anarchists 
 who became syndicalists showed real originality, and 
 had hot merely applied theories which had been fabricated 
 in philosophical coteries. 
 
 Above all, they tau^t the woAers that they need ' ^^ , 
 not be ashamed of ^ts^Jjpplence; Till that time it had 
 been usual in the SociaUst world to attenuate or to excuse u^ 
 the violence of the strikers ; the new members of the 
 syndicates regarded these acts of violence as normal 
 manifestations of the struggle, and as a result of this, 
 the tendencies at work in the syndicates, pushing them 
 towards trades imionism, were abandoned. It was their 
 revolutionary temperament which led them to this con- 
 ception of violence, for it would be a gross error to suppose 
 that these former anarchists carried over into the workers' 
 associations any of their ideas about propaganda by 
 deed. 
 
 Revolutionary ^syndicalism is not then, as many-) 
 believe, the first confused form of the working-class move- ; 
 ment, which is bound, in the end, to free itself from this - y/ 
 youthful error -^ it has been, on the contrary, the produce 
 of an improvement brought about by men who had just 
 arrested a threatened deviation towards middle -class 
 ideas. It might be compared to the Reformation, which . 
 wished to prevent Christianity submitting to the influence 
 
 1 I believe that L6on de Seilhac was the first to render justice to 
 the high qualities of Fernand Pelloutier [Les Congres ouvriers en France, 
 p. 272). 
 
42 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 /(of the humanists ; Uke the Reformation, revolutionary 
 
 // ) syndicalism may prove abortive, if_itJ.oses, as did the 
 
 // -•, latter, the sense of its own originality ; it is this which 
 
 "•' "* : gives such gireat^ interest to inquiries on proletarian 
 
 (_ violence. 
 
 July i^th, 1907. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST 
 PUBLICATION 1 
 
 The reflections that I submit to the readers of the Mouve- 
 ment Socialiste on the subject of violence have been 
 inspired by some simple observations about very evident 
 facts, which play an increasingly marked role in the 
 history of contemporary classes. 
 
 For a long time I had been struck by the fact that 
 the fwrmal^develq^ment of strikes is acconapanied by an 
 important series of acts of violence ; ^ but certain learned 
 sociologists seek to disguise a phenomenon that every one 
 who cares to use his eyes must have noticed. Revolu- 
 tionary syndicalism keeps alive in the minds of the masses 
 the desire to strike, and only prospers when important 
 strikes, accompanied by violence, take place. Socialism 
 tends to appear more and more as a theory, of revolutionary 
 sjmdicalism — or rather as a philosophy of modem history, 
 in as far as it is under the influence of this S3mdicalism. 
 It follows from these incontestable data, that if we desire 
 to discuss Socialism with any benefit, we musF15it~6f all 
 investigate the functions of violence in actual social 
 conditions.* 
 
 1 These Reflections were first published in the Mouvement Socialiste 
 (first six months, 1906). 
 
 2 Cf. " Les Graves " in the Science sociale, October-November 1900. 
 ' In the Insegnamenti sociali delta economia contemporanea (written 
 
 in 1903, but not published till 1906) I had already, but in a very in- 
 adequate manner, pointed out what seemed to me to be the function 
 of violence, in maintaining the division between the proletariat and the 
 middle classes (pp. 53-55). 
 
 43 
 
44- REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 I do not believe that this question has yet been 
 approached with the care it admits of ; I hope that these 
 reflections will lead a few thinkers to examine the problems 
 of proletarian violence more closely. I cannot too strongly 
 recommend this investigation to the new school which, 
 inspired by the principles of Marx rather than by the 
 formulas taught by the official proprietors of Marxism, 
 is about to give to SociaUst doctrines a sense of reality 
 and a gravity which it certainly has lacked for several 
 years. Since the new school caUs itself Marxist, syndicalist, 
 revolutionary, it should have nothing so much at heart 
 as the investigation of the exact historical significance 
 of the spontaneous movements which are being produced 
 in the working classes, movements which may possibly 
 ensure that the future direction of social development 
 will conform to Marx's ideas. 
 y • Socialism is a philosophy of the history of contemporary 
 institutions, and Marx has always argued as a philosopher 
 of history when he was not led away by personal polemics 
 to write about matters outside the proper scope of his own 
 system. 
 
 The Socialist imagines, then, that he has been trans- 
 ported into a very distant future, so that he can consider 
 actual events as elements of a long and completed develop- 
 ment, and he can attribute to them the colour that they 
 might take for a future philosopher. Such a procediue 
 certainly presupposes a considerable use of hypothesis ; 
 but without certain h37potheses about the future there 
 can be no social philosophy, no reflection on evolution, 
 and no important action in the present even. The object 
 of this study is a more thorough investigation of customs, 
 and not a discussion of the merits or faults of certain 
 important people. I want to find out how the feelings 
 by which the masses are moved form themselves into 
 groups ; all the discussions of the moralists about the 
 motives for the actions of prominent men, and all psycho- 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST PUBLICATION 4.5 
 
 logical analyses of character are, then, quite secondary 
 in importance, and even altogether negligible. 
 
 It seems, however, that it is more difficult to reason 
 in this way, when we are concerned with acts of violence, 
 than with any other set of circumstances. That is due to 
 our habit of looking on conspiracy as the typical example 
 of violence, or as the anticipation of a revolution ; we are-\ 
 thus led to ask ourselves whether certain criminal acts 
 could not be considered heroic, or at least meritorious, if 
 we were to take into account the happy consequences 
 for their fellow-citizens anticipated by the perpetrators, 
 as the result of their crimes. Certain individual criminal 
 attempts have rendered such great services to democracy 
 that the latter has often consecrated as great men those 
 who, at the peril of their lives, have tried to rid it of its 
 enemies ; it has done this the more readily since these 
 great men were no longer living when the hour for 
 dividing the spoils of victory arrived, and we know 
 that the dead obtain admiration more easily than the 
 living. 
 
 Each time an outrage occurs, the doctors of the ethico- 
 social sciences, who swarm in journalism, indulge in 
 reflections on the question. Can the criminal act be 
 excused, or sometimes even justified, from the point of 
 view of the highest justice ? Then there is an irruption 
 into the democratic press of that casuistry for which the 
 Jesuits have so many times been reproached. 
 
 I think it may be useful here to mention a note on the 
 assassination of the Grand Duke Sergius which appeared 
 in Humanite of February 18, 1905 ; the author was not 
 one of those vulgar members of the Bloc whose intelligence 
 is hardly superior to that of a negrito, he was one of the 
 leading lights of the State imiversities : Lucien Herr is one 
 of those who ought to know what they are talking about. 
 The title Just Reprisals warns us that the question is to 
 be treated from a high ethical standpoint ; it is the 
 
<>• . )^-' 
 
 ^■ 
 
 46 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 judgment of the world. ^ which is about to be pronounced. 
 The author scrupulously endeavours to assign the responsi- 
 bility, calculates the equivalence which ought to exist 
 between a crime and its expiation, goes back to the 
 original misdeeds which have engendered this series of 
 acts of violence in Russia ; all this is a philosophy of 
 history strictly in accordance with the pure principles of 
 the Corsican vendetta. Carried away by the lyricism of 
 his subject, Lucien Herr concludes in the style of a prophet : 
 \" .>A'^ /^The battle will go on in this way, in suffering and in blood, 
 abominable and odious, till tha t predestined da y, which 
 cannot be far off, when the throne itself, the homicidal 
 throne, the throne which heaps up so many crimes, will 
 fall down into the ditch that has to-day been dug for it." 
 This prophecy has not yet been realised, but the true 
 character of eJI great prophecies is never to be realised ; 
 tjie homicidal throne is much more secure than the cash- 
 box of Humanite. But, after all, what can we learn from 
 all this ? 
 
 It is not the business of the historian to award prizes 
 for virtue, to propose the erection of statues, or to establish 
 any catechism whatever ; his business is to understand 
 what is least individual in the course of events ; the , 
 questions which interest the chroniclers and excite 
 novelists are those which he most willingly leaves on one 
 side. And so I am not at all concerned to justify the 
 perpetrators of violence, but to inq uire into th e function / 
 oim^fweof the working classes m contem porarv Socialism , 
 seems to me that the problem of violence has been 
 very badly formulated by many Socialists ; as a proof 
 of this, I instance an article published in the Socialiste 
 on October 21, 1905, by Rapgoport. The author, who has 
 written a book on the philosophy of history, ^ ought, it 
 
 1 This expression is not too strong, seeing that the author's studies 
 have been mainly confined to Hegel. 
 
 ' Ch. Rappoport, La Philosophie de I'histoire comme science de 
 revolution. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST PUBLICATION 4.7 
 
 seems to me, to have discussed the question by exjanining 
 the remoter consequences of. these events ; but, onTfie con- 
 trary, he considered thefti under their most immediate, most 
 paltry, and, consequently, least historical aspect. Accord- 
 ing to him, S3mdicalism tends Jiecessarily to opportunism, 
 and cis this law does not seem to be verified in France, he 
 adds : " If in some Latin countries it assumes revolutionary 
 attitudes, that is mere appearance. It shouts louder, 
 but that is always for the purpose of demanding reforms 
 inside the framework of existing society. It is a mehorism 
 by blows, but it is always mehorism." ^^ "~ 
 
 Thus there would be two kinds of meliorism : the one 
 patronised by the Musee Social, the Direction du Travail, 
 and Jaures, which would work with the aid of maxims, 
 half-hes, and suppHcation to eternal justice ;_ the other 
 proceeds by blowfr — the latter being the only one that is 
 within the scope of uneducated people who have not yet 
 been enlightened by a knowledge of advanced social 
 economics. These worthy people, democrats devoted 
 to the cause of the Rights of man and the Duties of the 
 informer, sociologist members of the Bloc, think that 
 violence will disappear jvsdien. popular education 'Becomes 
 more advanced ; they recommend, then, a great increase 
 in the numbers of courses and lectures ; they hope to 
 overturn revolutionary syndicalism by the breath of the 
 professors. It is very strange that a revolutionary like 
 Rappoport should agree with these worthy progressives^ 
 and their acol3d;es in their estimate of the meaning of 
 sjmdicalism ; this can only be explained by admitting that 
 even for the best-informed Sociahsts the problems of 
 violence still remain very obscure. — \ - 
 
 Toe xamine the effects of violence it is necessary to 1 
 
 sta rt froriT its distant consequenceSL and not, from it s 
 
 i-ff^Rdiatft r'i^sii.lts.. We should not ask whether it is 
 
 more- or less directly advantageous for contemporary 
 
 1 See note p. 13. Trans. 
 
 / 
 
48 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 workmen than adroit diplomacy would be, but we should 
 inquire what will result from the introduction of violence 
 into the relations of the proletariat with society. We 
 are not comparing two kinds of reformism, but we are 
 endeavouring to find out what contemporary violence is 
 in relation to the future social revolution. 
 
 Many will reproach me for not having given any 
 information which might be useful for tactical purposes ; 
 no f ormtilas, no recipes. What then was the use of writing 
 at all ? Clear-headed people will say that these studies 
 are addressed to men who live outside the realities of 
 everyday life and outside the true movement — ^that is, 
 outside editors' offices, parliamentary lobbies, and the 
 ante -chambers of the SociaKst financiers. Those who 
 have become scientists merely by coming into contact 
 with Belgian sociology will accuse me of having a meta- 
 physical rather than a scientific mind.^ These are 
 opinions which will scarcely touch me, since I have never 
 paid any attention to the views of people who think vulgar 
 stupidity the height of wisdom, and who admire above 
 all men who speak and write without thinking. 
 . Marx also was accused by the great lords of positivism 
 of having, in Capital, treated economics metaphysically ; 
 they were astonished " that he had confined himself to 
 a mere critical analysis of actual facts, instead of formulat- 
 ing receipts." ^ This reproach does not seem to have 
 moved him very much ; moreover, in his preface to his 
 book, he had warned the reader that he would not 
 determine the social position of any particular country, 
 and that he would confine himself to an investigation 
 of the laws of capitalist production, " the tendencies 
 working with iron necessity towards inevitable results." * 
 
 1 This expectation has been realised ; for in a speech in the Chambre 
 des Deputes on May ii, 1907, Jaures called me " the metaphysician of 
 Syndicalism," doubtless ironically. 
 
 2 Capital, Eng. trans., p. xxvi. » Loc. cit. p. xvii. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST PUBLICATION 4g 
 
 One does not need a great knowledge of history to 
 perceive that the mystery of historical development is 
 only intelligible to men who are far removed from super- 
 ficial disturbances ; the chroniclers and the actors of the 
 drama do not see at aU, what, later on, will be regarded 
 as fundamental ; so that one might formulate this 
 apparently paradoxical rule, "It is necessary to be out- 
 side in order to see the inside." When we apply these / '^ 
 principles to contemporary events we run the risk of being 
 taken for metaphysicians, but that is of no importance, 
 for this time we are not at Brussels savez-vous, sais-tu, 
 pour unefois. ^ If we are dissatisfied with the tmsystematic 
 views formed by common sense, we must follow a method 
 altogether opposed to that of the sociologists, who found 
 their reputation amongst stupid people by means of insipid 
 and confused chatter; we must firmly resolve to ignore 
 immediate applications, and think only of elaborating 
 generalisations and concepts ; it is necessary to set aside 
 all the favourite preoccupations of the politicians. I hope 
 that in the end it will be recognised that I have never 
 broken this rule. 
 
 Though they may lack other quahties, these reflections 
 possess one merit which cannot be questioned ; it is quite 
 i evident that they are inspired by a passionate love of • 
 \ truth. Love of truth has become a rare enough quality ; 
 the members of the Bloc despise it profoundly ; official 
 Socialists regard it as having anarchical tendencies ; 
 politicians and their hangers-on cannot sufficiently insult 
 the wretched people who prefer truth to the delights of 
 
 > Some Belgian comrades have been ofiended by these innocent 
 jokes, which nevertheless I retain here ; Belgian Socialism is best 
 known in France through Vandevelde, one of the most usgless creatures 
 that ever existed, who not being able to console himself for having been 
 born in a country too small to give scope to his genius, came to Paris 
 and gave lectures on all kinds of subjects, and who can be reproached, 
 among other things, for having made an enormous profit on a very 
 small intellectual capital. I have already said what I think of him in 
 the Introduction d I'iconomie moderne, pp. 42-49. 
 
 E 
 
JO REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 power. But there are still some honest people left in ; 
 France, and it is for them alone that I have always 
 written. 
 
 The greater my experience the more I have recognised 
 that in the study of historical questions a passion for 
 truth is worth more than the most learned methodologies ; 
 it enables one to break through conventional wrappings, 
 to penetrate to the foundations of things, and to grasp 
 reahty. There has never been a great historian who has 
 not been altogether carried along by this passion; and 
 looking at this matter closely, one sees that it is this passion 
 which has given rise to so many happy intuitions. 
 
 I do not claim that I have, in this book, said every- 
 thing that there is to say about violence, and still less to 
 have produced a systematic theory of violence. I have 
 merely reunited and revised a series of articles which 
 appeared in an Italian review, 11 Divenire sociale} a 
 review which maintains, on the other side of the Alps, 
 the good fight against the exploiters of popular credulity. 
 The articles were written without any fixed plan ; I have 
 not tried to rewrite them, because I did not know how to 
 set about giving a didactic appearance to such an exposi- 
 tion ; it even seemed to me better to preserve their untidy 
 arrangement, since in that form they will perhaps more 
 easily awake thought. We should always be careful 
 in opening up a little-known subject, not to trace its 
 boundaries too rigorously, for in this way the door is 
 closed to the many new facts which arise from unforeseen 
 circumstances. Time after time the theorists of Socialism 
 have been embarrassed by contemporary history. They 
 had constructed magnificent formulas, clear-cut and 
 
 1 The last four chapters have been much more developed than they 
 were in the Italian text. I have thus been able to give more space to 
 philosophic considerations The Italian articles have been collected 
 in a brochure under the title Lo Sciopero genercUe e la violenza with a 
 preface by Enrico Leone. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST PUBLICATION 51 
 
 symmetrical, but they could not make them fit the 
 facts. Rather than abandon their theories, they pre- 
 ferred to declare that the most important facts were mere 
 anomalies, which science must ignore if it is to obtain 
 a real understanding of the whole. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE 
 
 I, War of the poorer groitps against the rich groups — Opposition 
 of democracy to the division into classes — Methods of buying 
 social peace — The corporative mind. 
 
 II. Illusions relating to the disappearance of violence — The mechan- 
 ism of conciliation and the encouragement which it gives to 
 strikers — Influence of fear on social legislation and its con- 
 sequences. 
 
 I 
 
 j Everybody complains that discussions about Socialism 
 are generally exceedingly obscure. This obscurity is 
 due, for the most part, to the fact that contemporary 
 Socialists use a terminology which no longer corresponds 
 to their ideas. The best known among the people who 
 call themselves revisionists do not wish to appear to be 
 abandoning certain phrases, which have served for a very 
 long time as a label to characterise Socialist literature. 
 When Bernstein, perceiving the enqrmous contradiction 
 between the language of social democracy and the true 
 nature of its activity, urged his German comrades to have 
 the courage to appear what they were in reality,^ and to 
 revise a doctrine that had become mendacious, there was 
 a universal outburst of indignation at his audacity ; and 
 
 1 Bernstein complains of the pettifoggery and cant which reigns 
 among the social democrats (Socialisme tMorique et socialdimocratie 
 pratique, French translation, p. 277). He addresses these words from 
 Schiller to social democracy : " Let it dare to appear what it is " 
 (p. 238). 
 
 52 
 
CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE 33 
 
 the reformists themselves were not the least eager of the 
 defenders of the ancient formula. I remember hearing 
 well-known French Socialists say that they found it easier 
 to accept the tactics of Millerand than the arguments of 
 Bernstein. 
 
 This idolatry of words plays a large part in the history 
 of all ideologies ; (the preservation of a Marxist vocabulary 
 by people who have become completely estranged from 
 the thought of Marx constitutes a great misfortune for 
 Socialism. The expression " class war," for example, is 
 employed in the most improper manner ; and until a 
 precise meaning can be given to this term, we must give 
 up all hope of a reasonable exposition of Socialisn£) 
 
 ^- To most people the class war is th e principle of 
 Socialist tactics. That means that the Socialist party 
 founds its electoral successes on the clashing of interests 
 which exist in an acute state between certain groups, and 
 that, if need be, it would undertake to make this hostility 
 still more acute ; their candidates ask the poorest and 
 most numerous class to look upon themselves as forming 
 a corporation, and they offer to become the advocates 
 of this corporation ; they promise to use their influence as 
 representatives to improve the lot of the disinherited. 
 Thus we are not very far from what happened in the Greek 
 states ; Parliamentary Socialists are very much akin to the 
 demagogues who clamoured constantly for the abolition of 
 debts, and the division of landed property, who put all 
 public charges upon the rich, and invented plots in order 
 to get large forttines confiscated. " In the democracies in 
 which the crowd is above the law," says Aristotle, " the 
 demagogues, by their continual attacks upon the rich, 
 always divide the city into two camps . . . the oligarchs 
 should abandon all swearing of oaths like those they 
 swear to-day ; for there are cities in which they have 
 taken this oath — I will be the constant enemy of the 
 
54 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 people, and I will do them all the evil that lies in my 
 power." ^ Here, certainly, is a war between two classes 
 as clearly defined as it can be ; but it seems. to me absurd 
 to assert that it was in this way that Marx understood 
 the class war, which, accoTding' to him, was the essence 
 of Socialism. 
 
 I believe that the authors of the French law of August 
 II, 1848, had their heads full of these classical reminis- 
 cences when they decreed punishment against all those 
 who, by speeches and newspaper articles, sought "to 
 trouble the public peace by stirring up hatred and con- 
 tempt amongst the citizens." The terrible insurrection 
 of the month of June was just over, and it was firmly 
 believed that the victory of the Parisian workmen would 
 have brought on, if not an attempt to put communism 
 into practice, at least a series of formidable requisitions 
 on the rich in favour of the poor ; it was hoped that an 
 end would be put to civil wars by increasing the difficulty / 
 of propagating doctrines of haired, which might raise the 
 proletariat against the middle class. 
 
 Nowadays Parliamentary Socialists no longer enter- 
 tain the idea of insurrection ; if they still occasionally 
 speak of it, it is merely to give themselves airs of import- ^ 
 ance ; they teach that the ballot-box has replaced the 
 gun ; but the means of acquiring power may have changed 
 without there being any change of mental attitude. 
 Electoral Uterature seems inspired by the purest demagogic 
 doctrines ; Socialism makes its appeal to the discontented 
 without troubling about the place they occupy in the 
 world of production ; in a society as complex as ours, 
 and as subject to economic upheavals, there is an enormous 
 number of discontented people in all classes — ^that is why 
 Sociahsts are often found in places where one would least 
 expect to meet them. Parhamentary Socialism, speaks 
 as many languages as it has types of clients. It makes 
 
 ■■ Aristotle, Politics, v. ^§§ 10, 11. 
 
CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE jj 
 
 its appeal to workmen, to small employers of labour, to 
 peasants ; and in spite of Engels, it aims at reaching the 
 farmers ; i it is at times patriotic ; at other times it 
 declares against the Army. It is stopped by no con- 
 tradiction, experience having shown that it is possible, 
 in the course of an electoral campaign, to group together 
 forces which, according to Marxian conceptions, should 
 normally be antagonistic. Besides, cannot a Member of 
 Parliament be of service to electors of every economic 
 situation ? 
 
 In the end the term " proletariat " became sjmony- 
 mous with oppressed ; and there are oppressed in all 
 classes : ^ German Sociahsts have taken a great interest 
 -' f! -/ in the adventures of the Princess of Coburg.^ One of 
 our most distinguished reformers, Henri Turot, for a 
 long time one of the editors of the Petite Republique * and 
 municipal councillor of Paris, has written a book on the 
 " proletariat of love," by which title he designates the 
 lowestclass of prostitutes. If one of these days the suffrage 
 is granted to women, he will doubtless be called upon 
 
 1 Engels, La Question agraire et le sociaiisme. Critique du ■programme 
 du parti ouvrier fratifais, translated in the Mouvement socialiste, October 
 15, 1900, p. 453. It has often been pointed out that certain Socialist 
 candidates had separate bills for the town and the country. 
 
 * Hampered by the monopoly of the licensed stockbrokers {agents 
 de change), the other brokers (couUssiers) at the Bourse thus form a 
 financial proletariat, and among them more than one Socialist admirer 
 of Jaurfes may be found. \Trans. Note. — The couUssiers are only 
 allowed to deal in certain markets — ^the Kafi&r, Argentine, etc. They 
 are constantly conducting press campaigns against the privileged 
 brokers. Many of them are naturalised German Jews, and the licensed 
 brokers utilise this fact in defending their own position.] 
 
 ' The Socialist deputy Sudekum, the best-dressed man in Berlin, 
 played a large part in the abduction of the Princess of Coburg ; let us 
 hope that he had no financial interest in this affaire. At that time 
 he represented Jaurds's newspaper at Berlin. 
 
 * H. Turot was for some considerable time one of the editors of the 
 nationalist paper V Eclair, and of the Petite RipuUique at the same 
 time. When Judet took over the management of L'Eclair he dismissed 
 his Socialist contributor. 
 
S6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 to draw up a statement of the claims of this special 
 proletariat. 
 
 B. Contemporary democracy in France finds itself 
 somewhat bewildered by the tactics of the class_ war. 
 This explains why Parliamentary Socialism does not 
 mingle with the main body of the parties of the extreme 
 left. 
 
 In order to understand this situation, we must remember 
 the important part played by revolutionary war in our 
 history ; an enormous number of our poiitical~I3^s 
 originated from war ; war presupposes the union of 
 national forces against the enemy, and our French 
 historians have always severely criticised those insurrec- 
 tions which hampered the defence of the country. It 
 seems that our democracy is harder on its rebels than 
 monarchies are ; the Vendeens are still denounced daily 
 as infamous traitors. All the articles published by 
 Clemenceau to combat the ideas of Herve are inspired 
 by the purest revolutionary tradition, and he says so 
 himself clearly : "I stand by and shall always stand by 
 the old-fashioned patriotism of our fathers of the Revolu- 
 tion," and he scoffs at people who would " suppress 
 international wars in order to hand us over in peace to 
 the amenities of civil war" {Aurore, May 12, 1905). 
 
 For some considerable time the Republicans denied 
 that there was any struggle between the classes in France ; 
 they had so great a horror of revolt that they would not 
 recognise the facts. Judging all things from the abstract 
 point of view of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, 
 they said that the legislation of 1789 had been created 
 in order to abolish all distinction of class in law; for 
 that reason they were opposed to proposals for social 
 legislation, which, nearly always, reintroduced the idea 
 of class, and distinguished certain groups of citizens as 
 being imfitted for the use of liberty. " The revolution 
 
CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE s7 
 
 was supposed to have suppressed class distinction," 
 wrote Joseph Reinach sadly in the Matin of April 19, 
 1895 ; " but they spring up again at every step. . . . 
 It is necessary to point out these aggressive returns 
 of the past, but they must not be allowed to pass un- 
 challenged ; they must be resisted." 1 
 
 Electoral dealing led many Republicans to recognise 
 that the Socialists obtain great successes by utilising the 
 passions of jealousy, of deception, or of hate, which exist 
 in the world ; thenceforward they became aware of the 
 class war, and many have borrowed the jargon of the 
 Parhamentary Sociahsts : in this way the party that is 
 called Radical Socialist came into being. Clemenceau 
 asserts even that he knows moderates who became Socialists 
 in twenty-four hours. " In France," he says, " the 
 Socialists that I know^ are excellent Radicals who, thinking 
 that social reforms do not advance quickly enough to 
 please them, conceive that it would be good tactics to 
 claim the greater in order to get the less. How many 
 names and how many secret avowals I could quote to 
 support what I say ! But that would be useless, for 
 nothing could be less mysterious" {Aurore, August 14, 
 
 1905). 
 
 Leon Bourgeois — ^who was not willing to adapt himself 
 completely to the new methods, and who, for that reason 
 perhaps, left the Chamber of Deputies for the Senate — 
 said, at the congress of his party in July 1905 : " The 
 class war is a fact, but a cruel fact. I do not believe that 
 it is by prolonging this war that the solution of the problem 
 will be attained ; I believe that the solution rather lies in its 
 suppression ; men must be brought to look upon themselves 
 as partners in the same work." It would therefore seem 
 to be a question of creating social peace by legislation, thus 
 
 1 J. Reiaach, Ddmagogties et socialisies, p. 198. 
 
 2 C16menceau knows the Socialists in Parliament exceedingly well, 
 and from long experience. 
 
58 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 demonstrating to the poor that the Government has no 
 greater care than that of improving their lot, and by 
 imposing the necessary sacrifices on people who possess 
 a fortime judged to be too great for the harmony of the 
 classes. 
 
 Capitalist, society, is so rich, and the future appears 
 to it in such optimistic colours, that it endures the most 
 frightful burdens without complaining overmuch : in 
 America politicians waste large taxes shamelessly; in 
 Europe, the expenditure on miUtary preparation increases 
 every year ; i social peace might very well be. bought 
 by a few supplementary sacrifices.^" Experience shows 
 that the middle classes allow themselves to be plundered 
 quite easily, provided that a httle pressure is brought to 
 bear, and thatlhey^are intimidated by the fear of revolu- 
 tion ; that party will possess the future which can most 
 skilfully manipulate the spectre of revolution ; the radical 
 party is beginning to understand this ; but, however 
 clever its clowns may be, it will have some difficulty in 
 finding any who can dazzle the big Jew bankers as well 
 as Jaures and his friends do. 
 
 C. The S5mdicalist organisation gives a third value 
 to the class war. In each branch of industry employers 
 and workmen form antagonistic groups, which have 
 continual discussions, which negotiate and make agree- 
 ments. Socialism brings along its terminology of class 
 
 ^ At The Hague Conference the German delegate declared that his 
 country bore the expense of armed peace with ease ; L6on Bourgeois 
 held that France bore " quite as Ughtly the personal and financial 
 obUgations which the national defence imposed on its citizens." Ch. 
 Guieysse, who quotes this speech, thinks that the Tsar had asked for 
 the limitation of military expenditure because Russia was not rich 
 enough yet to maintain herself at the level of the great capitaUst 
 countries (La France et la paix armie, p. 45). 
 
 2 That is why Briand told, on June 9, 1907, his constituents at 
 Saint-Etienne that the Republic had made a sacred pledge to the 
 workers about old-age pensions. 
 
CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE jp 
 
 war, and thus complicates conflicts which might have 
 temained of a purely private order ; corporative exclusive- 
 ness, which resembles the local or the racial spirit, is 
 thereby consoUdated, and those who represent it Uke to 
 imagine that they are accomplishing a higher duty and 
 are doing excellent work for Socialism. 
 
 It is well known that litigants who are strangers in a 
 town are generally very badly treated by the judges of 
 commercial courts sitting there, who try to give judg- 
 ment in favour of their feUow-townsmen. Railway 
 companies pay fantastic prices for pieces of ground, the 
 value of which is fixed by juries recruited from among 
 the neighbouring landowners. I have seen Italian sailors 
 overwhelmed with fines, for pretended infractions of 
 the law, by the fishing arbitrators with whom they had 
 come to compete on the strength of ancient treaties. 
 Many workmen are in the same way inchned to assert 
 that in all their contests with the employers, the worker 
 has morality and justice on his side ; I have heard the 
 secretary of a syndicate (so fanatically a reformer as 
 distinct from a revolutionary that he denied the oratorical 
 talent of Guesde) declare that nobody had class feeling so 
 strongly developed as he had, — because he argue^ in the 
 way I have just indicated, — and he concluded that the 
 revolutionaries did not possess the monopoly of the just 
 Conception of the class war. 
 
 It is quite imderstandable that many people have 
 considered this corporative spirit as no better than the 
 parish spirit, and also that they should have attempted 
 to destroy it by employing methods very analogous to 
 those which have so much weakened the jealousies which 
 formerly existed in France between the various provinces. 
 A more general culture and the intermixing with people 
 of another region rapidly destroy provincialism : would 
 it not be possible to destroy the corporative feeling by 
 frequently bringing the important men in the sjmdicates 
 
6o REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 into connection with the employers, and by furnishing 
 them with opportimities of taking part in discussions of 
 a general order in mixed commissions ? Experience has 
 shown that this is feasible. 
 
 II 
 
 The efforts which have been made to remove the 
 causes of hostility which exist in modem society have 
 undoubtedly had some effect, although the peacemakers 
 may be much deceived about the extent of their work. 
 By showing a few of the officials of the syndicates that 
 the middle classes are not such terrible men as they had 
 beUeved, by loading them with politeness in commissions 
 set up in ministerial offices or at the Musee social, and by 
 giving them the impression that there is a natural and 
 Republican equity, above class prejudices and hatreds, it 
 has been found possible to change the attitude of a few 
 former revolutionaries.^ These conversions of a few of 
 their old chiefs have caused great confusion in the mind 
 of the working classes ; the former enthusiasm of more 
 than one Socialist has given place to discouragement ; 
 many working men have wondered whether the trades 
 union organisation was not becoming a kind of politics, 
 a means of getting on. 
 
 But simultaneously with this evolution, which filled 
 the heart of the peacemakers with joy, there was ajre- 
 crudescence of the revolutionary spirit in a large section 
 of the proletariat. Since the Repubhcan Government and 
 the philanthropists have taken it into their heads to 
 exterminate Socialism by developing social legislation, 
 
 1 In the matter of social " clowneries " there are very few new 
 things under the sun. Aristotle had already laid down the rules of 
 social peace : he says that demagogues " should in their harangues 
 appear to be concerned only with the interest of the rich, just as in 
 oligarchies the government should only seem to have in view the 
 interests of the people " (loc. cit.). That is a text which should be 
 inscribed on the door of the ofSces of the Direction du Travail. 
 
CLASS IVAR AND VIOLENCE 6i 
 
 and by moderating the resistance of the employers in 
 strikes, it has been observed that, more them once, the ' 
 conflicts have become more acute than formerly.^ This 
 is often explained away by saying that it was an accident, 
 the result simply of the survival of old usages ; people 
 like to lull themselves with the hope that everything wiU 
 go perfectly well on the day when manufacturers have 
 a better understanding of the usages of social peace.^ 
 I believe, on the contrary, that we are in the presence 
 of a phenomenon which flows quite naturally from the 
 conditions in which this pretended pacification is carried 
 out. 
 
 I observe, first of all, that both the theories and action 
 of the peacemakers are" founded on the notion of ^^^ 
 and that duty is something entirely indefinite — while Taw 
 seeks rigid definition. This difference is due to the fact 
 that the latter finds a real basis in the economics of pro- 
 duction, while the former is founded on sentiments of 
 resignation, goodness, and of sacrifices ; and who can judge 
 whether_the man wbo submits to^duty has-been sufficiently 
 resigned, sufficiently good, sufficiently .self-sacrificing ? 
 The Christian is convinced that he will never succeed in 
 doing all that the gospel enjoins on him ; when he is 
 free from economic ties (in a monastery) he invents all 
 sorts of pious obligations, so that he may bring his life 
 nearer to that of Christ, who loved men to such an extent 
 that he accepted an ignominious fate that they might be 
 redeemed. 
 
 In ihe^economic world everybody limits his duty by , 
 his unwUlingn^s to give up certain profits. While the 
 employer will be always convinced that he has done the 
 
 1 Cf. G. Sorel, Insegnamenti sociali, p. 343. 
 
 » In his speech of May 11, 1907, Jaurts said that nowhere had there 
 been such violence as there was in England during the period when 
 both the employers and Government refused to recognise the trade 
 unions. " They have given way ; there is now vigorous and strong 
 action, but which is at the same time legal, firm, and wise." 
 
63 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 whole of his duty, the worker will be of a contrary opinion, 
 and no argument could possibly settle the matter : the first 
 will believe that he has been heroic, and the second will 
 treat this pretended heroism as shameful exploitation. 
 
 Our great pontiffs of duty refuse to look upon a con- 
 ,/ tract to work as being of the nature of a sale ; nothing 
 is so simple as a sale ; nobody troubles himself to find 
 out whether the grocer or his customer is right when they 
 do not agree on the price of cheese ; the customer goes 
 where he can buy more cheaply, and the grocer is obliged 
 to change his prices when his customers leave him. But 
 when a strike takes place it is quite another thing. All 
 the well-intentioned people, all the " progressives " and 
 the friends of the Republic, begin to discuss which of the 
 two parties is in the right : to he in the right is to have 
 accomplished one's whole social duty. Le Play has given 
 much advice on the means of organising labour with a 
 view to the strict fulfilment of duty ; but he could not 
 fix the extent of the mutual obligations ; he left it to 
 the tact of each, to the just estimation of the duties 
 attaching to one's place in the social hierarchy, to the 
 master's intelligent appreciation of the real needs of the 
 workmen.^ 
 
 The employers generally agree to discuss disputes on 
 these lines ; to the claims of the workers they reply that 
 they have already reached the limit of possible conces- 
 sions — while the philanthropists wonder whether the 
 selUng price will not permit of a slight rise in wages. 
 Such a discussion presupposes that it is possible to 
 ascertain the exact extent of a man's social duty, and 
 what sacrifices an employer must continue to make in 
 order to carry out the duties of his social position. As there is 
 
 1 Le Play, Organisation du travail, chap. ii. § 21. According to this 
 writer, more attention should be paid to moral forces than to the 
 systems that are invented in order to regulate wages in a more or less 
 automatic manner. 
 
CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE 63 
 
 no process of reasoning which can resolve such a problem, 
 wiseacres suggest recourse to arbitration ; Rabelais 
 would have suggested recourse to the chance of the dice. 
 When the strike is important, deputies loudly demand 
 an inquiry, with the object of discovering whether the 
 industrial leaders are properly fulfilling their duties as 
 good masters. 
 
 Certain results are obtained in this way — ^which never- 
 theless seem absurd — ^because on the one hand the large 
 employers of labour have been brought up with religious, 
 philanthropic, and civic ideas ; ^ and on the other hand 
 because they cannot show themselves too stubborn, when 
 certain demands are made by people occup5dng a high 
 position in the country. Conciliators stake their vanity on 
 succeeding, and they would be extremely hurt if industrial 
 leaders prevented them from making social peace. The 
 workmen are in a much more favourable position, because 
 the prestige of the peacemakers is very much less with 
 them than with the capitalists ; the latter give way, 
 therefore, much more easily than the workers, in order 
 to allow these well-intentioned folk the glory of ending 
 the conflict. It is noticeable that these proceedings very 
 rarely succeed when the matter is in the hands of workmen 
 who have become rich : Uterary, moral, or sociological 
 considerations have very little effect upon people bom 
 outside the ranks of the middle classes. ~ 
 
 People who are called upon to intervene in disputes in 
 this way are misled by what they have seen of certain 
 secretaries of ss^ndicates, whom they find much less 
 irreconcilable than they expected, and who seem to them 
 to be ripe for a recognition of the idea of social peace. 
 In the course of conciliation meetings more than one 
 revolutionary has shown that he aspires to become a 
 member of the middle class, and there are many intelligent 
 
 1 About the forces which tend to maintain sentiments of moderation, 
 cf. Insegnamenii sociali, part iii. chap. v. 
 
 ■^v 
 
 "-1 
 
64 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 people who imagine that socialistic and revolutionary 
 conceptions are only accidents that might be avoided 
 by establishing better relations between the classes. 
 They beUeve that the working-class world looks at the 
 economic question entirely from the standpoint of duty, 
 and they imagine that harmony would be established if 
 a better social education were given to the citizens. 
 
 Let us see what influences are behind the other move- 
 ment that tends to make conflicts more acute. 
 
 Workmen quickly perceive that the labour of con- 
 cihation or of arbitration rests on no economico-judicial 
 basis, and their tactics have been conducted — ^instinctively 
 perhaps — ^in accordance with this datum. Since the 
 feeUngs, and, above all, the vanity of the peacemakers 
 are in question, a strong appeal must be made to their 
 imaginations, arid they must be given the idea that they 
 have to accomplish a titanic task : demands are piled up, 
 therefore, figures fixed in a rather haphazard way, and 
 there are no scruples about exaggerating them; often 
 the success of the strike depends on the cleverness with 
 which a syndicalist (who thoroughly understands the 
 spirit of social diplomacy) has been able to introduce 
 claims, in themselves very minor, but capable of giving 
 the impression that the employers are not fulfilling 
 their social duty. It often happens that writers who 
 concern themselves with these questions are astonished 
 that several days pass before the strikers have settled 
 what exactly they have to demand, and that in the end 
 demands are put forward which had not been mentioned 
 in the course of the preceding negotiations. This is 
 easily understood when we consider the bizarre conditions 
 under which the discussion between the interested parties 
 is carried on. ^ 
 
 I am surprised that there are no strike professionals • 
 who would undertake to draw up lists of the workers' 
 claims ; they would obtain all the more success in con- 
 
CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE 65 
 
 ciliation councils as they would not let themselves be 
 dazzled by fine words so easily as the workers' delegates.^ 
 
 When the strike is finished the workmen do not forget J 
 that the employers at first declared that no concession'-' 
 was possible ; they are led thus to the belief that the 
 employers are either ignorant or liars. This result is 
 not conducive to the development of social peace ! 
 
 So long as the workers submitted without protest to 
 the exactions of the employers, they believed that the 
 will of their masters was completely dominated by 
 economic necessities ; they perceived, after the strike, , . 
 that this necessity, is not of a very rigid kind, and that if 
 energetic pressure from below is brought to bear on the 
 masters, the latter will find some means of liberating 
 themselves from the pretended fetters of economic 
 necessity ; thus within practical limits capitahsm appears 
 to the workers to be unfettered,, and they reason as if it were 
 entirely so. What in theic-^yes restrains this Hberty is 
 not the necessities of competition but the ignorance of 
 the employers. Thus is introduced the notion of the 
 inexhaustibility oj production, which is one of the postu- 
 lates of the theory of class war in the Sociahsm of Marx.^ 
 
 Why then speak of social duty ? Duty has some - 
 meaning in a society in which all the parts are intimately 
 connected and responsible to one another ; but if capital- 
 ism is inexhaustible, joint responsibihty is no longer 
 founded on economic realities, and the workers think 
 they would be dupes if they did not demand all they can 
 obtain ; they look upon the employer as an adversary 
 with whom one comes to terms after a war. Social duty 
 no more exists than does international duty. 
 
 1 The French law of December 27, 1892, seems to have foreseen this 
 possibility ; it lays down that delegates on concihation boards should 
 be chosen among the interested parties ; it thus keeps out these pro- 
 fessionals whose presence would render the prestige of the authorities 
 and of philanthropists precarious. 
 
 2 G. Sorel, Insegnamenti sociali, p. 390. 
 
 F 
 
66 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 These ideas are somewhat confused, I admit, in many 
 minds ; but they exist in a much more stable manner 
 than the partisans of social peace imagine ; the latter are 
 deluded by appearances, and never penetrate to the 
 hidden roots of the existing tendencies of SociaUsm. 
 
 Before passing to other considerations, it must be 
 noticed that our Latin countries present one great obstacle 
 to the formation of social peace ; the classes are more 
 sharply separated by external characteristics than they 
 are in Saxon countries ; these separations very much 
 embarrass Syndicalist leaders when they abandon their 
 former manners and take up a position in the official or 
 philanthropic circles.^ These circles have welcomed 
 them with great pleasure, since it has been perceived that 
 the gradual transformation of trades union officials into 
 members of the middle classes might produce excellent 
 results ; but their comrades distrust them. In France 
 this distrust has become much more definite since a great 
 number of anarchist,g. have entered the Syndicalist move- 
 ment ; because the anarchist has a horror of everything 
 which recalls the proceedings of politicians — a class of 
 people devoured by the desire to climb into superior 
 classes, and having already the capitalist mind while yet 
 poor.2 
 
 Social politics have introduced new elements which 
 must now be taken into account. First of all, it must be 
 
 1 Everybody who has seen trades union leaders close at hand is 
 struck with the extreme difference which exists between France and 
 England from this point of view ; the English trades union leaders 
 rapidly become gentlemen, without anybody blaming them for it 
 (P. de Rousiers, Le Trade-unionisme en Angletem, p. 309 and p. 322). 
 While correcting this proof, I read an article by Jacques Bardaux, 
 pointing out that a carpenter and a miner had been made knights by 
 
 ^ Edward VII. (D&bats, December 16, 1907). 
 
 \ 2 Some years ago Arsfene Dumont invented the term social capillarity 
 
 to express the slow chmbing of the classes. If Syndicalism submitted to 
 the influence of the pacifists, it would be a powerful agent of social 
 
 / capillarity. 
 
CLASS IVAR AND VIOLENCE 67 
 
 noticed that the workers count to-day in the world by 
 the same right as the different productive groups which 
 demand to be protected ; they must be treated with 
 soUcitude just as the vine-growers or the sugar manu- 
 facturers.^ There is nothing settled about Protectionism ; 
 the custom duties are fixed so as to satisfy the desires of 
 very influential people who wish to increase their incomes ; 
 social poUtics proceed in the same manner. The Pro- 
 tectionist Government professes to have knowledge which 
 permits it to judge what should be granted to each group 
 so as to defend the producers without injuring the con- 
 sumers ; similarly, in social politics it declares that it 
 will take into consideration the interests of the employers 
 and those of the workers. 
 
 Few people, outside the faculties of law, are so simple as 
 to believe that the State can carry out such a programme : 
 in actual fact, the Parliamentarians decide on a compro- 
 mise that partially satisfies the interests of those who are 
 most influential in elections without provoking too lively 
 protests from those who are sacrificed.' There is no other 
 rule than the true or presumed interest of the electors ; 
 every day the customs commission recasts its tariffs, and 
 it declares that it will not stop recasting them imtil it 
 succeeds in securing prices which it considers remunera- 
 tive to the people for whom it has undertaken the part 
 of providence : it keeps a watchful eye on the operations 
 of importers ; every lowering of price attracts its attention 
 and provokes inquiries with the object of discovering 
 whether it would not be possible to raise values again 
 artificially. Social pohtics are carried on in exactly the 
 
 1 It has often been pointed out that the workers' organisation in 
 England is a simple union of interests, for the purposes of immediate 
 material advantages. Some writers are very pleased with this situation 
 because, quite rightly, they see in it an obstacle to SociaUstic propa- 
 ganda. To embarrass the Socialists, even at the price of economic 
 progress and of the safety of the culture of the future, that is the great 
 aim of certain great idealists dear to the philanthropic middle classes. 
 
68 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 same way ; on June 27, 1905, the rapporteur ^ of a law on 
 the length of the hours of work in the mines said, in the 
 Chamber of Deputies : " Should the application of the 
 law give rise to disappointment among the workmen, 
 we have undertaken to lay a new bill before the house." 
 This worthy man spoke exactly like the rapporteur of a 
 tariff law. 
 
 There are plenty of workmen who understand per- 
 fectly well that all the trash of Parliamentary literature 
 only serves to disguise the real motives by which the 
 I; Government is influenced. The Protectionists succeed 
 by subsidising a few important party leaders or by 
 financing newspapers which support the politics of these 
 party leaders ; the workers have no money, but they have 
 at their disposal a much more efficacious means of action ; 
 they can inspire fear, and for several years past they 
 have availed themselves of this resource. 
 
 At the time of the discussion of the law regulating 
 labour in mines, the question of the threats addressed to 
 the Government cropped up several times : on February 5, 
 1902, the president of the commission told the Chamber 
 that those in power had " lent an attentive ear to clamour- 
 ings from without ; that they had been inspired by a 
 sentiment of benevolent generosity in allowing them- 
 selves to be moved {despite the tone in which they were 
 couched), by the claims of the working classes and the 
 long cry of suffering of the workers in the mines." A 
 little later he added : "We have accomphshed a work 
 of social justice, ... a work of benevolence also, in 
 going to those who toil and suffer, hke friends solely 
 desirous of working in peace and under honourable 
 conditions, and we must not by a brutal and too ego- 
 tistic refusal to imbend, allow them to give way to 
 impulses which, while not actual revolts, would yet have 
 as many victims." All these confused phrases served 
 1 See Translator's Note, p. 162. 
 
CLASS IVAR AND VIOLENCE 69 
 
 to hide the terrible fear which clutched this grotesque 
 deputy.i In the sitting of November 6, 1904, at the 
 Senate, the minister declared that the Government was 
 incapable of giving way to threats, but that it was 
 necessary to open not only ears and mind, but also the 
 heart " to respectful claims " (!) ; a good deal of water had 
 passed under the bridges since the day when the Govern- 
 ment had promised to pass the law under the threat of a 
 general strike. ^ 
 
 I could choose other examples to show that the most V 
 decisive factor in social politics is the cowardice of the - 
 GQyernment. This was shown in the plainest possible 
 way in the recent discussions on the suppression of ' 
 registry ofl&ces, and on the law which sent to the civil 
 courts appeals against the decisions of the arbitrators in 
 industrial disputes. Nearly all the Syndicalist leaders 
 know how to make excellent use of this situation, liTid 
 they teach the workers that it is not at all a question of 
 demanding favours, but that they must profit by middle- ' 
 class cowardice to impose the will of the proletariat. 
 These tactics are supported by so many facts that they 
 were boimd to take root in the working-class world. 
 
 One of the things which appear to me to have most 
 astonished the workers during the last few years has been 
 the timidity of the forces of law and order in the presence 
 of a riot ; magistrates who have the right to demand the 
 services of soldiers dare not use their power to the utmost, 
 and officers allow themselves to be abused and struck 
 with a patience hitherto unknown in them. It is 
 
 1 This imbecile has become Minister of Commerce. All his speeches 
 on this question are full of balderdash ; he has been a lunacy doctor, 
 and has perhaps been influenced by the logic and the language of his 
 clients. 
 
 * The Minister declared that he was creating " real democracy," 
 and that it was demagogy " to give way to external pressure, to haughty 
 summonses, which, for the most part, are only higher bids and baits 
 addressed to the credulity of people whose life is laborious." 
 
70 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 becoming more and more evident every day that work- 
 ing-class violence possesses an extraordinary efficacity 
 in strikes: prefects, fearing that they may be obliged 
 to use force against insurrectionary violence, bring pres- 
 sure to bear on employers in order to compel them to 
 give way ; the safety of factories is now looked upon as 
 a favour which the prefect may dispense as he pleases ; 
 consequently he arranges the use of his police so as to 
 intimidate the two parties, and skilfully brings them to 
 an agreement. 
 
 Trades union leaders have not been long in grasping 
 the full bearing of this situation, and it must be admitted 
 that they have used the weapon that has been put iato 
 their hands with great skill. They endeavour to iatimid- 
 ate the prefects by popular demonstrations which might 
 lead to serious conflicts with the police, and they com- 
 mend violence as the most efficacious means of obtaining 
 concessions. At the end of a certain time the obsessed 
 and frightened administration nearly always intervenes 
 with the masters and forces an agreement upon them, 
 which becomes an encouragement to the propagandists 
 of violence. 
 
 Whether we approve or condemn what, is caRedJhe 
 revolutionary and direct method, it is evident that it is not 
 on the point of disappearing ; in a country as warlike 
 as France there are profound reasons which would assure 
 a considerable popiilarity for this method, even if its 
 enormous efficacy had not been demonstrated by so many 
 examples. This is the one great social fact of the present 
 hour, and we must seek to understand its bearing. 
 
 I cannot refrain from noting down here a reflection 
 made by Clemenceau with regard to our relations with 
 Germany, which apphes equally well to social conflicts 
 when they take a violent aspect (which seems likely to 
 become more and more general in proportion as a'cowardly 
 
^ 
 
 CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE 71 
 
 middle class continues. to_ pursue the chimera of social 
 peace) : "^ There is no better means," he said (than the 
 policy of perpetual concessions), " of making the opposite 
 party ask for more and more. Every man or every pow er 
 whose action consists solely in surrender can only finish 
 by s elf - annihilation. Everything that lives resists ; 
 t hat whi ch does not resist allows itself to be cut up 
 piecemeal " (Aurore, Augusr"i5,""i905)'.'~~°~'"~" — ~-~— - 
 A social policy founded on middle -class cowardice, 
 which consists in always surrendering before the threat 
 of violence, cannot fail to engender the idea that the 
 middle class is condemned to death, and that its disappear- 
 ance is only a matter of time. Thus every conflict w hich 
 gives rise to violence becomes a vanguard fight, suid 
 nobody~caniofesee'wEatlvin"afSe1iTOir§^^ ; 
 
 although the great battle jiever comes to a head, .ygt 
 each time they come to blows the strikers hope that it 
 is the beginning of the great Napoleonic battle (that which 
 will definitely crush the vanquished) ; in this^ way _the 
 practice of strikes engenders thejiotion of . a catastroghip 
 revolution. 
 
 ^K keen observer of the contemporary proletarian 
 movement has expressed the same ideas : " They, hke 
 their ancestors (the Frenchrevolutionaries) , are for struggle, 
 for conquest ; they desire to accomplish great works by 
 force. Only, the war of conquest interests them no 
 longer. Instead of thinking of battles, they now think -^ 
 of strikes ; instead of setting up as their ideal a battle 
 agalhst the armies of Europe, they now set up the general 
 strike in which the capitaUst regime will be annihilated. ^ 
 The theorists of social peace shut their eyes to these 
 embarrassing facts ; they are doubtless ashamed to 
 admit their cowardice, just as the Government is ashamed 
 to admit that its social politics are carried out imder the 
 threat of disturbances. It is curious that people who 
 
 1 Ch. Gnieysse, op. cit. p. 125. 
 
72 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 boast of having read Le Play have not observed that his 
 conception of the conditions of social peace was quite 
 different from that of hisimbedlesuccessors. He supposed 
 the existence of a middle class of serious moral habits, 
 imbued with the feelings of its own dignity, and having 
 the energy necessary to govern the country without re- 
 course to the old traditional bureaucracy. To those men, 
 who held riches and power in their hands, Tie "professed 
 to teach their social duty towards their subjects. His 
 systeni supposed an imdisputed authority ; it is well 
 known that he deplored the licence of the press under 
 Napoleon III. as scandalous and dangerous ; his reflec- 
 tions on this subject seem somewhat ludicrous to those 
 who compare the newspaper of that time with those of 
 to-day.i Nobody in his time would have believed that 
 a great country would accept peace at any price ; his 
 point of view in this matter did not differ greatly from 
 that of Clemenceau. He would never have admitted 
 that any one could be cowardly and hypocritical enough 
 to decorate with the name of social duty the cowardice 
 of a middle class incapable of defending itself. 
 
 Middle-class cowardice very much resembles the 
 cowardice of the English Liberal party, which constantly 
 proclaims its absolute confidence in arbitration between 
 nations : arbitration nearly always gives disastrous results 
 for England.^ But these worthy progressives prefer to 
 
 ^ Speaking of the elections of 1869, he said that there had been 
 " violences of language which France had not till then heard, even in 
 the worst days of the Revolution " (Organisation du Travail, 3rd ed. 
 p. 340). Evidently, the revolution of 1848 was meant. In 1873 he 
 declared that the Emperor could not congratulate himself on having 
 abrogated the system of restraint on the press, before having reformed 
 the morals of the country [Riforme sociale en France, 5th ed. tome iii. 
 
 P- 356). 
 
 2 Sumner Maine observed a long while ago that it was England's 
 fate to have advocates who aroused very little sympathy {Le Droit 
 international, French translation, p. 279). Many EngUshmen beUeve 
 that by humiliating their country they will rouse more sympathy 
 towards themselves ; but this supposition is not borne out by the facts. 
 
CLASS WAR AND VIOLENCE 73 
 
 pay, or even to compromise the future of their country, 
 rather than face the horrors of war. The Enghsh Liberal 
 party has the word justice always on its lips, absolutely 
 like our middle class ; we might very well wonder whether 
 all the high morality of our great contemporary thinkers 
 is not founded on a degradation of the sentiment of 
 honour. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 VIOLENCE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE 
 MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 I. Parliamentarians, who have to inspire fear — ParneU's methods 
 — Casuistry ; fundamental identity of the Parliamentary 
 Socialist groups. 
 
 II. Degeneration of the middle class brought about by peace — 
 Marx's conceptions of necessity — Part played by violence in 
 the restoration of former social relationships. 
 
 III. Relation between revolution and economic prosperity — The 
 French Revolution — The Christian conquest — Invasion of 
 the Barbarians — Dangers which threaten the world. 
 
 It is very difficult to understand proletarian violence as 
 long as we think in terms of the ideas disseminated by 
 middle-class philosophers ; according to their philosophy, 
 violence Jsarehc of barbaris^^ is bound to dis- 
 
 \ \ appear under the influence of the progress ofeiiS^ifi rirp^ 
 \ ' ' It is therefore quite natural that Jaures, who has been 
 brought up on middle-class ideology, should have a pro- 
 fotmd contempt for people who favour proletarian 
 violence ; he is astonished to see educated Socialists 
 hand in hand with the S)mdicalists ; he wonders by what 
 miracle men who have proved themselves thinkers 
 can accumulate sophistries in order to give a semblance 
 of reason to the dreams of stupid people who are incapable 
 
 74 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 75 
 
 of thought. 1 This question worries the friends of Jaures 
 considerably, and they are only too ready to treat the 
 representatives of the new school as demagogues, and 
 accuse them of seeking the applause of the impulsive 
 masses. 
 
 Parliamentary Socialists cannot understand the ends 
 pursued by the new school ; they imagine that ultimately 
 all Socialism can be reduced to the pursuit of the means 
 of getting into power. Is it possible that they think the 
 followers of the new school wish to make a higher bid for 
 the confidence of simple electors and cheat the Socialists 
 of the seats provided for them ? Again, the apologia of 
 violence might have the very imfortunate result of dis- 
 gusting the workers with electoral politics, and this would 
 tend to destroy the chances of the Socialist candidates 
 by multiplying the abstentions from voting ! Do you 
 wish to revive civil war ? they ask. To our great states- 
 men that seems mad. 
 
 Civil war has become very difficult since the discovery 
 of the new firearms, and since the cutting of rectilinear 
 streets in the capital towns.^ The recent troubles in 
 Russia seem even to have shown that Governments can 
 count much more than was supposed on the energy of 
 their officers. Nearly all French politicians had prophesied 
 the imminent fall of Czarism at the time of the Manchurian 
 defeats, but the Russian army in the presence of rioting 
 did not manifest the weakness shown by the French army 
 during our revolutions ; nearly everywhere repression 
 was rapid, efficacious, and even pitiless. The discussions 
 
 * This is apparently the way in which the proletarian movement 
 is spoken of in the fashionable circles of refined Socialism. 
 
 2 Cf. the reflections of Engels in the preface to the new edition of 
 articles by Marx which he published in 1895 under the title. Struggles 
 of the Classes in France from 1848 to i8so. This preface is wanting in 
 the French translation. In the German edition a passage has been 
 left out, the social democratic leaders considering certain phrases of 
 Engels not politic enough. 
 
76 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 which took place at the congress of social democrats at 
 Jena show that the Parliamentary Socialists no Jonger 
 rely upon an armed struggle to obtain possession ©rthe 
 State. 
 
 Does this mean that they are utterly opposed to 
 
 - violence ? It would not be in their interest for the 
 people to be quite calm ; a certain amount of agitation 
 suits them, but this agitation must be contained within 
 
 ■ weU-defined limits, and controlled by politicians. When 
 he considers it useful for his own interests, Jaures makes 
 advances to the Confederation Gen^rale du TravaU ; ^ 
 sometimes he instructs his peaceable clerks to fill his paper 
 with revolutionary phrases ; he is past master in the art 
 of utilising popular anger. A cunningly conducted 
 agitation is extremely useful to Parhamentary Socialists, 
 who boast before the Government and the rich middle 
 class of their ability to moderate revolution ; they can 
 thus arrange the success of the financial affairs in which 
 they are interested, obtain minor favours for many 
 influential electors, and get social laws voted in order to 
 appear important in the eyes of the blockheads who 
 imagine that these Socialists are great reformers of the 
 law. In order that all this may come off there must 
 always be a certain amount of movement, and the middle 
 class must always be kept in a state of fear. 
 
 It is conceivable that a regular system of diplomacy 
 might be established between the Socialist party and the 
 State each time an economic conflict arose between 
 workers and employers ; the two powers would settle the 
 particular difference. In Germany the Government 
 enters into negotiations with the Church each time the 
 clericals stand in the way of the administration. SociaHsts 
 have even been urged to imitate Parnell, who so often 
 
 " According to the necessities of the moment he is for or against 
 the general strike. According to some he voted for the general strike 
 at the International Congress of 1900 ," according to others he abstained. 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 77 
 
 found a means of imposing his will on England. This 
 resemblance is all the greater in that Pamell's authority 
 did not rest only on the number of votes at his disposal, 
 but mainly upon the terror which every Englishman felt 
 at the bare announcement of agrarian troubles in Ireland. 
 A Jew acts of. violence .controlled by a ParUamentary 
 group were exceedingly useful to the Pamellian policy, 
 just as they are useful to the policy of Jaures. In both 
 cases a Parliamentary group sells peace of mini to the 
 Conservatives, who dare not use the force they command. 
 
 This kind of diplomacy^ is _diifi£ult to conduct, and 
 the Irish after the death of Parnell do not seem to have 
 succeeded in carrying it on with the same success as in 
 his time. In France it presents particular difficulty, 
 because in no other country perhaps are the workers 
 more difficult to manage : it is easy enough to arouse 
 popular anger, but it is not easy to stifle it. As long as 
 there are no very rich and strongly centralised trade 
 unions whose leaders are in continuous relationship with 
 political men,^ so long wiU it be impossible to say exactly 
 to what lengths violence will go. Jaures would very 
 much like to see such associations of workers in existence, 
 for his prestige will disappear at once when the general 
 public perceives that he is not in a position to moderate 
 revolution. 
 
 Everything becomes a question of valuation, accurate 
 estimation, and opportunism ; much skill, tact, and calm 
 audacity are necessary to carry on such a diplomacy, i.e. 
 to make the workers believe that you are carrying the 
 flag of revolution, the middle class that you are arresting 
 the danger which threatens them, and the country that 
 
 1 Gambetta complained because the French clergy was " acephal- 
 ous " ; he would have liked a select body to have been formed in its 
 midst, with which the Government could discuss matters (Garilhe, 
 Le dergi sicuUer franfais au XIX' sUcle, pp. 88-89). Syndicahsm has 
 no head with which it would be possible to carry on diplomatic relations 
 usefully. 
 
78 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 you represent an irresistible current of opinion. The 
 great mass of the electors understands nothing of what 
 passes in politics, and has no intelligent knowledge of 
 economic history ; they take sides with the party which 
 seems to possess power, and you can obtain ever5rthing 
 you wish from them when you can prove to them that 
 you are strong enough to make the Government capitulate. 
 But you must not go too far, because the middle class 
 might wake up and the country might be given over 
 to a resolutely conservative statesman. A proletarian 
 violence which escapes all valuation, aU measurement, 
 and all opportunism, may jeopardise everjrthing and ruin 
 socialistic diplomacy. 
 
 This diplomacy is played both on a large and smaU 
 scale ; with the Government, with the heads of the groups 
 in Parliament, and with influential electors. Politicians 
 seek to draw the greatest possible advantage from the 
 discordant forces existing in the political field. 
 
 Parliamentary Socialists feel a certain embarrassment 
 from the fact that at its origin Socialism took its stand 
 on absolute principles and appealed for a long time to 
 the same sentiments of revolt as the most advanced 
 Republican Party. These two circiunstances prevent 
 them from following a party policy like that which 
 Charles Bonnier often recommended : this writer, who 
 has long been the principal theorist of the Guesdist party, 
 would like the Sociahsts to f oUow closely the example of 
 Pamell, who used to negotiate with the EngUsh parties 
 without allowing himself to become the vassal of any one 
 of them ; in the same way it might be possible to come 
 to an agreement with the Conservatives, if the latter 
 pledged themselves to grant better conditions to the 
 proletariat than the Radicals (5oa«&ie, August 27,1905). 
 This policy seemed scandalous to many people. Bonnier 
 was obHged to dilute his thesis. He then contented 
 himself with asking that the party should act in the best 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES yg 
 
 interests of the proletariat (September 17, 1905) ; 'but 
 how is it possible to know where these interests lie when 
 the principle of the class war is no longer taken as your 
 unique and absolute rule ? \ 
 
 Parliamentary Socialists beUeve that they possess 
 special faculties which enable them to take into account, 
 not only the material and immediate advantages reaped 
 by the working classes, but also the moral reasons which 
 compel Socialism to form part of the great Republican 
 family. Their congresses spend their energies in putting 
 together formulas designed to regulate Socialist diplomacy, 
 in settling what alliances are permitted and what for- 
 bidden, in reconciling the abstract principle of the class 
 war (which they are anxious to retain verbally) with the 
 reahty of the agreements with politicians. Such an 
 undertaking is madness, and therefore leads to equivoca- 
 tions, when it does not force deputies into attitudes of 
 deplorable hypocrisy. Each year problems have to be 
 rediscussed, because aU diplomacy requires a flexibility 
 which is incompatible with the existence of perfectly 
 clear statutes. 
 
 The casuistry which Pascal scoffed at so much was 
 not more subtle and more absurd than that which is to 
 be found in polemics between what are called the Socialist 
 schools. Escobar would have some difficulty in finding 
 his bearings amid the distinctions of Jaures ; the moral 
 theology of responsible Socialists is not one of the least of 
 the buffooneries of our time. 
 
 All moral theology can be split up into two tendencies : 
 there are casuists who say that we must be content with 
 opinions having a shght probability, others that we should 
 always adopt those that are strictest and most certain. 
 This distinction was bound to be met with among our 
 Parhamentary SociaHsts. Jaures prefers the soft and 
 concihatory method, provided that means are found to 
 make it agree, somehow or other, with first principles. 
 
So REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 and that it has behind it a few respectable authorities ; 
 he is a probabilist in the strongest sense of the term — or 
 even a latitudinarian (laxist).^ Vaillant recommends 
 the strong and beUigerent method, which alone, in his 
 opinion, is in accordance with the class war, arid which 
 has in its favoiu: the unanimous sanction of all the old 
 authorities ; he is a tutiorist and a kind of Jansenist. 
 
 Jaures no doubt believes that he is acting for the 
 greatest good of Sociahsm, just as the more easy going 
 type of casuists believed themselves the best and most 
 useful defenders of the Church ; they did, as a matter of 
 fact, prevent weak Christians from falling into irreligion, 
 and led them to practise the sacraments — exactly as 
 Jaures prevents the rich intellectuals who have come to 
 Socialism by way of Dreyfusism from drawing back in 
 horror before the class war, and induces them to take up 
 the shares of the party journals. In his eyes, VaiUant 
 is a dreamer who does not see the reality of the world, 
 who intoxicates himself with the chimeras of an insurrec- 
 tion which has now become impossible, and who does 
 not rmderstand the great advantages which may be got 
 from universal suffrage by a boastful politician. 
 
 Between these two methods there is only a difference 
 of degree, and not one of kind as is believed by those 
 Parliamentary Socialists who call themselves revolutionary. 
 On this point Jaures has a great intellectual superiority 
 over his adversaries, for he has never cast any doubt upon 
 the ftmdamental identity of the two methods. 
 
 Both of these methods suppose an entirely dislocated 
 middle- class society — rich classes who have lost .all 
 sentiment of their class interest, men ready to follow 
 blindly the lead of people who have taken up the business 
 
 1 [The writers on moral theology who maintain that our actions 
 should be guided only by absolutely sure maxims were called tutiorists ; 
 opposed to them were the laxists. In the Provinciates Pascal 
 defends the tutiorist position, the Jesuits he attacks are laxists. — Trans. 
 Note.'] 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 8i 
 
 of directing public opinion. The Dreyfus affair showed ' 
 that the enlightened middle class was in a strange mental 
 state ; people who had long and loudly served the Con- 
 servative party co-operated with anarchists, took part 
 in violent attacks on the army, or even definitely enrolled 
 themselves in the Socialist party ; on the other hand, 
 newspapers, which make it their business to defend 
 traditional institutions, dragged the magistrates of the 
 Court of Cassation in the mire. This strange episode 
 in our contemporary history brought to light the state of 
 dislocation of the classes. 
 
 Jaur^s, who was very much mixed up in all the ups 
 and downs of Dreyf usism, had rapidly judged the mentality 
 of the upper middle class, into which he had not yet 
 penetrated. He saw that this upper middle class was 
 terribly ignorant, gapingly stupid, politically absolutely 
 impotent ; he recognised that with people who understand 
 nothing of the principles of capitalist economics it is 
 easy to contrive a policy of compromise on the basis of 
 an extremely broad Sociahsm ; he calculated the pro- 
 portions in which it is necessary to mix together flattery 
 of the superior intelligence of the imbeciles whose seduc- ^ 
 tion was aimed at, appeals to the disinterested sentimentsV 
 of speculators who pride themselves on having invented 
 the ideal, and threats of revolution in order to obtain the 
 leadership of people void of ideas. Experience has shown 
 that he had a very remarkable intuition of the forces 
 which exist at this present moment in the middle-class 
 world. yailla|]i,_on the contrary, is very little acquainted 
 with this world ^ he beheves that the only weapon that , 
 can be employed to move the middle class is fear; "r 
 doubtless fear is an excellent weapon, but it might provoke 
 obstinate resistance if you went beyond a certain Umit. 
 Vaillant does not possess those remarkable qualities of 
 suppleness of mind, and perhaps even of peasant duphcity, 
 which shine in Jaures, and which have often caused 
 
82 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 people to say that he would have made a wonderful cattle- 
 dealer. 
 
 The more closely the history of these last years is 
 examined, the more the discussions concerning the two 
 methods will be recognised as puerile : the partisans of 
 the two methods are equally opposed to proletarian 
 violence, because it escapes from the control of the people 
 engaged in ParUamentary politics. Revolutionary SjTidi- 
 calism cannot be controlled by the so-called revolutionary 
 Socialists of Parliament. 
 
 II 
 
 The two methods favoured by official Socialism pre- 
 suppose this same historical datum. The ideology of a 
 timorous humanitarian middle class professing to have 
 freed its thought from the conditions of its existence is 
 grafted on the degeneration of the capitalist system ; 
 and the race of bold captains who made the greatness of 
 modern industry disappears to make way for an ultra- 
 civilised aristocracy which asks to be allowed to hve in 
 peace. This degeneration fills our Parliamentary Socialists 
 with joy. Their role would vanish if they were con- 
 fronted with a middle class which was energetically 
 engaged on the paths of capitalistic progress, a class that 
 would look upon timidity with shame, and which would 
 find satisfaction in looking after its class interests. In 
 the presence of a middle class which, has become .almost 
 as stupid as thenobility of ihe .eighteenth. century, their 
 power is enormous. If the stultifying of the upper middle 
 class progresses in a regular manner at the pace it has 
 taken for the last few years, our official Socialists may 
 reasonably hope to reach the goal of their dreams and 
 sleep in sumptuous mansions. 
 
 Two accidents alone, it seems, would be able Jo stop 
 this movement J a great foreign war, which might renew 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 83 
 
 lost energies, and which jn^aay, case woiiM doubtless 
 bring into power men with the will to govern ; ^ .oULgr&at 
 extension of proletarian violence, which would make the 
 revolutionary reality evident to the middle class, and 
 would disgust them with the humanitarian platitudes with 
 which Jaures lulls them to sleep. It is in view of these two 
 great dangers that the latter displays all his resources as 
 a popular orator. European peace must be maintained 
 at all costs ; some hmit must be put to proletarian 
 violence. 
 
 Jaures is persuaded that France will he perfectly happy 
 on the day on which the editors of his paper, and its share- 
 holders, can draw freely on the coffers of the public 
 Treasury ; it is an illustration of the celebrated proverb : 
 " Quand Auguste avait bu, la Pologne etait ivre." A 
 socialist government of this kind would without doubt ruin 
 any country, if it was administered with the same care for 
 financial order as I'Humanite has been administered ; 
 but what does the future of the coimtry matter, provided 
 that the new regime gives a good time to a few professors, 
 who imagine that they have invented Socialism, and to a 
 few Dre5^usard financiers ? 
 
 Before the working class also could accept this dictator- 
 ship of incapacity, it must itself become as stupid as the 
 middle class, and must lose all revolutionary energy, at 
 the same time that its masters wiU have lost all capitalistic 
 energy. Such a future is not impossible ; and a great 
 deal of hard work is being done to stupefy the worker for 
 this purpose. The Direction du Travail and the Musee • 
 Social are doing their best to carry on this marvellous 
 work of ideahstic education, which is decorated with the 
 most pompous names, and which is represented as a means 
 of civihsing the proletariat. Our professional idealists 
 are verymuch disturbed bythe Syndicalists, and experience 
 
 1 Cf. G. Sorel, Insegnamenti sociali, p. 388. The hypothesis of a 
 great European war seems very far fetched at the moment. 
 
84 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 shows that a strike is sometimes sufficient to ruin all 
 the work of education which these manufacturers of social 
 peace have patiently built by years of labour. 
 
 In order to understand thoroughly the consequences 
 of the very singular regime in the midst of which we are 
 living, we must hark back to Marx's conceptions of the 
 passage from capitaUsm to SociaUsm. These conceptions 
 are well known, yet we must continually return to them, 
 because they are often forgotten, or at least undervalued 
 by official Sociahst writers ; it is necessary to insist on 
 them strongly each time that we have to argue about the 
 anti-Marxist transformation which contemporary Social- 
 ism is undergoing. 
 
 According to Marx, capitalism, by reason of the innate 
 laws of its own nature, is hurrying along a path which 
 will lead the world of to-day, with the inevitability of the 
 evolution of organic Hfe, to the doors of the world of to- 
 morrow. This movement comprises a long period of 
 capitalistic construction, and it ends by a rapid destruction, 
 which is the work of the proletariat. CapitaUsm creates 
 , the_heritage^which Socialism wiU receive, the men who 
 will suppress the present regime, and the means of bringing 
 about this destruction, at the same time that it preserves 
 the results obtained in production.^ Capitalism begets 
 new ways of working ; it throws the working class into 
 revolutionary organisations by the pressure it exercises 
 on wages ; it restricts its own pohtical basis by competi- 
 tion, which is constantly eliminating industrial leaders. 
 Thus, after having solved the great problem of the 
 organisation of labour, to effect which Utopians have 
 brought forward so many naive or stupid hypotheses, 
 capitalism -provokeaJhe.. birth of the cause which will 
 
 1 This notion of revolutionary preservation is very important; I 
 have pointed out something analogous in the passage from Judaism 
 to Christianity {Le SystSme historique de Renan, pp. 72-73. 171-172, 
 467). 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 83 
 
 overthrow it, and thus renders useless everything that 
 Utopians have written to induce enhghtened people to 
 make reforms ; and it gradually ruins the traditional 
 order, against which the critics of the idealists had proved 
 themselves to be so deplorably incompetent. It might 
 therefore be said that capitalism plays a part analogous * 
 to that attributed by Hartmann to The Unconscious in 
 nature, since it prepares the coming of social reforms 
 which it did not intend to produce. Without any co- 
 ordinated plan, without any directive ideas, without any 
 ideal of a future world, it is the cause of an inevitable 
 evolution ; it draws from the present aU that the present 
 can give towards historical development ; it performs 
 in an almost mechanical manner aU that is necessary, in 
 order that a new era may appear, and that this new era 
 may break every link with the idealism of the present 
 times, while preserving the acquisitions of the capitalistic 
 economic system.^ 
 
 Socialists should therefore abandon the attempt 
 (initiated by the Utopians) to find a means of inducing the , 
 enlightened middle class to prepare the transition to a more "J^rC 
 perfect system of legislation ; their sole function is that of 
 explaining to the proletariat the greatness of the revolu- 
 tionary part they are called upon to'play. By ceaseless 
 criticism the proletariat must be brought to perfect their 
 organisations ; they must be shown how the embryonic 
 forms which appear in their unions ^ may be developed, so 
 that, finally, they may buUd up institutions without any 
 parallel in the history of the middle class ; that they may 
 form ideas which depend solely on their position as pro- 
 ducers in large industries, ajid which owe nothing to middle- 
 class thought ; and that they may acquire habits of 
 
 1 Cf. what I have said on the transformation which Marx wrought 
 in SociaUsm, Insegnamenti sociali, pp. 179-186. 
 
 ^ [The French is socUtis de resistance. What is meant is the syndi- 
 cate, considered principally as a means of combining workmen against 
 the employers. — Trans. Note.'] 
 
86 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 liberty with which the middle class nowadays are no 
 longer acquainted. 
 
 This doctrine will evidently be inapphcable if the 
 middle class and. the proletariat do not oppose eachother 
 implacably, with all the forces at their disposal ; the more 
 ardently capitalist the middle class is, the more the 
 proletariat is full of a warhke spirit and confident of its 
 revolutionary strength, the more certain will be the 
 success of the proletarian movement. 
 
 The middle class with which Marx was familiar in 
 
 England was still, as regards the immense majority, 
 
 animated by their conquering, insatiable, and pitiless 
 
 spirit, which had characterised at the beginning of modem 
 
 times the creators of new industries and the adventurers 
 
 launched on the discovery of unknown lands. When 
 
 we are studying the modem industrial system we should 
 
 always bear in mind this similarity between the capitalist 
 
 jtype and the warrior type ; it was for very good reasons 
 
 Ithat the men who directed gigantic enterprises were 
 
 named captains of industry. This type is still found to- 
 
 I day in all its piiHty in tliiTjnited States : there are found 
 
 the indomitable energy, the audacity based on a just 
 
 appreciation of its strength, the cold calculation of 
 
 interests, which are the qualities of great generals and 
 
 great capitalists.^ According to Paul de Rousiers, every 
 
 American feels himself capable of " trying his luck " on 
 
 the battlefield of business,^ so that the general spirit of 
 
 the country is in complete harmony with that of the 
 
 multi-millionaires ; our men of letters are exceedingly 
 
 surprised to see these latter condemning themselves to 
 
 lead to the end of their days a galley-slave existence, 
 
 * I will come back to this resemblance in Chapter VII. iii. 
 
 2 P. de Rousiers, La Vie amiricaine, I'iducation et la socUU, p. 19. 
 " Fathers give very little advice to their children, and let them learn 
 for themselves, as they say over there " (p. 14). " Not only does (the 
 American) wish to be independent, but he wishes to be powerful " 
 (La Vie amMcaine : ranches, fermes et usines, p. 6) . 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 87 
 
 without ever thinking of leading a nobleman's life for 
 themselves, as the Rothschilds do. 
 
 In a society so enfevered by the passion for the success 
 which can be obtained in competition, all the actors walk 
 straight before them like veritable automata, without 
 taking any notice of the great ideas of the sociologists ; 
 they are subject to very simple forces, and not one of 
 them dreams of escaping from the circumstances of his 
 condition. Then only is the development of capitaUsm 
 carried on with that inevitableness which struck Marx 
 so much, and which seemed to him comparable to that 
 of a natural law. If, on the contrary, the middle class, 
 led astray by the chatUr of the preachers of ethics and 
 sociology, return to an ici&al of conservative mediocrity, 
 seek to correct the abuses of economics, and wish to break 
 with the barbarism of their predecessors, then one part 
 of the forces which were to further the development of 
 capitalism is employed in hindering it, an arbitrary and 
 irrational element is introduced, and the future of the 
 world becomes completely indeterminate. ^ 
 
 This indetermination grows still greater if the pro- 
 letariat are converted to the ideas of social peace at the 
 same time as their masters, or even if they simply 
 consider~everything from the corporative point of view ; 
 whUe SociaHsm gives to every economic contest a general / 
 and revolutionary colour. — ' 
 
 Conservatives are not deceived when they see in the 
 compromises which lead to collective contracts, and in 
 corporative particularism,^ the means of avoiding the 
 Marxian revolution ; ^ but they escape one danger only to 
 
 1 [This refers to the conduct of former syndicates which limited 
 their ambitions to the interests of their own handicraft without con- 
 cerning themselves with the general interests of the working classes. — 
 Trans. Note.'] 
 
 ' There is constant talk nowadays of organising labour, i.e. of utilising 
 the corporative spirit by giving it over to the management of well- 
 intentioned, very serious and responsible people, and liberating the 
 
88 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 fall into another, and they run the risk of being devoured 
 by ParUamentary Socialism.^ Jaur^s is as enthusiastic, as 
 the clericals about measures which turn away the working 
 classes from the idea of the Marxian revolution ; I believe 
 he understands better than they do what the result of 
 social peace will be ; he founds his own hopes on the simul- 
 taneous ruin of the capitalistic and the revolutionary spirit. 
 
 It is often urged, in objection to the people who defend 
 the Marxian conception, that it is impossible for them to 
 stop the movement of degeneration which is dragging 
 both the middle class and the proletariat far from the 
 paths assigned to them by Marx's theory. They can 
 doubtless influence the working classes, and it is hardly 
 to be denied that strike violences do keep the revolutionary 
 spirit aUve ; but how can they hope to give back to the 
 middle class an ardour which is spent ? 
 
 It is here that the role of violence in history appears 
 to us as singularly great, for it can, in an indirect manner, 
 so operate on the middle class as to awaken them to a 
 sense of their own class sentiment. Attention has often 
 been drawn to the danger of certain acts of violence which 
 compromised admirable social works, disgusted employers 
 who were disposed to arrange the happiness of their work- 
 men, and developed egoisrii where the most noble senti- 
 ments formerly reigned. 
 
 "' To repay with black ingratitude the benevolence of those 
 who would protect the workers,^ to meet with insults the 
 homihes of the defenders of human fraternity, and to 
 
 workers from the yoke of sophists. The responsible people are de Mun, 
 Charles Benoist (the amusing specialist in constitutional law), Arthur 
 Fontaine, and the band of democratic abMs, . . . and lastly Gabriel 
 Hanotaux ! 
 
 1 VUredo Pareto laughs at the simple middle class who are happy, 
 because they are no longer threatened by intractable Marxians, and 
 who have fallen into the snare of the conciliatory Marxians (SysUmes 
 socialisies, tome ii. p. 453)- 
 
 2 Cf. G. Sorel, Insegnamenti sociali, p. 53. 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES 8g 
 
 reply by blows to the advances of the propagators of 
 social peace — all that is assuredly not in conformity with 
 the rules of the fashionable Socialism of M. and Mme. 
 Georges Renard/ but it is a very practical way of indicat- 
 ing to the middle class that they must mind their own 
 business and only that. 
 
 I beheve also that it may be useful to thrash the 
 orators of democracy and the representatives of the 
 Government, for in this way you insure that none shall 
 retain any illusions about the character of acts of violence. 
 i But these acts can have historical value only if they are 
 \ the clear and brutal expression of the class war : the middle 
 classes must not be allowed to imagine that, aided 
 by cleverness, social science, or high-flown sentiments, 
 they might find a better welcome at the hands of the 
 proletariat. 
 
 The day on which employers perceive that they have 
 nothing to gain by works which promote social peace, or 
 by democracy, they will understand that they have been 
 ill-advised by the people who persuaded them to abandon 
 their trade of creators of productive forces for the noble 
 profession of educators of the proletariat. Then there 
 is some chance that they may get back a part of their 
 energy, and that moderate or conservative economics may 
 appear as absurd to them as they appeared to Marx. In 
 any case, the separation of classes being more clearly 
 accentuated, the proletarian movement wUl have some 
 chance of developing with greater regularity than to-day. 
 
 The two antagonistic classes therefore influence each 
 other in a partly indirect but decisive manner. Capital- 
 ism drives the proletariat into revolt, because in daily 
 
 1 Mme. G. Renard has published in the Suisse of July 26, 1900, an 
 article full of lofty psychological considerations about the workers' 
 fSte given by Millerand (Leon de Seilhac, Le Monde socialiste, pp. 307- 
 309). Her husband has solved the grave question as to who will drink 
 Clos-Vougeot in the society of the future (G. Renard, Le RSgime socialiste, 
 P- 175)- 
 
go REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 life the employers use their force in a direction opposed 
 to the desire of their workers ; but the future of the prole- 
 tariat is not entirely dependent on this revolt ; the work- 
 ing classes are organised under the influence of other 
 causes, and Socialism, inculcating in them the revolu- 
 tionary idea, prepares them to suppress the hostile class. 
 Capitalist force is at the base of all this process, and its 
 action is automatic and inevitable.^ Marx supposed that 
 the middle class had no need to be incited to employ 
 force, but we are to-day faced with a new and very un- 
 foreseen fact — a middle class which seeks to weaken its 
 own strength. Must we believe that the Marxian con- 
 ception is dead ? By no means, for proletarian violence 
 comes upon the scene just at the moment when the 
 conception of social peace is being held up as a 
 means of moderating disputes ; proletarian violence 
 ■sJ= confines employers to th eir role, of producers, and tends 
 to restore the separation of the classes, just when they 
 seemed on the"pomt of intermingling in the democratic 
 marsh. 
 : ""^ Proletarian violence not only makes the future revolu- 
 sJ , tion certain," but it seems also'T6Tie^^!e^^^^^i§J^ 
 which" the Europeaii .nati4Diia--;;at^j)resent stupef^^ by_^ 
 humanitarianism — can recover their former enererv. This_ 
 Sndof violence compels capitalism to restrict its attentigns 
 Solely To its materiaFroTe and tends to restore to it the 
 warlike qualities which it formerly possessed. A growing 
 
 1 In an article written in September 1851 (the first of the series 
 published under the title : Revolution and Counter-revolution), Marx 
 established the following parallelism between the development of the 
 middle class and of the proletariat : To a numerous, rich, concentrated, 
 and powerful middle class corresponds a numerous, strong, concen- 
 trated and intelligent proletariat. Thus he seems to have thought 
 that the intelligence of the proletariat depends on the historical con- 
 ditions which secured power in society to the middle classes. He says, 
 again, that the true characters of the class war only exist in countries 
 where the middle class has recast the Government in conformity with 
 its needs. 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES ' gi 
 
 and solidly organised working class can compel the 
 capitalist class to remain firm in the industrial war ; if a 
 united and revolutionary proletariat confronts a rich" 
 middle class, eager for conquest, capitalist society will 
 have reached its historical perfection. 
 
 Thus proletarian violence has become an essential 
 factor of Marxism. Let us add once more that, if 
 properly conducted, it will suppress the ParUamentary 
 Socialists, who will no longer be able to pose as the leaders 
 of the working classes and the guardians of order. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Marxian theory of revolution supposes that 
 capitalism, while it is still in full swing, will be struck 
 to the heart, when — having attained complete industrial 
 efficiency — it has finally achieved its historical mission, 
 and whilst the economic system is stUl a progressive one. 
 Ma,rx does not seem to have asked himself what would 
 happen if the economic system were on the down grade ; 
 he never dreamt of the possibility of a revolution which 
 would take a return to the past, or even social conserva- 
 tion, as its ideal. 
 
 We see nowadays that such a revolution might easil; 
 come to pass : the friends of Jaures, the clericals, and 
 the democrats all take the Middle Ages as their ideal for 
 the futiire ; they would like competition to be tempered, 
 riches limited, production subordinated to needs. These 
 are dreams which Marx looked upon as reactionary,^ and 
 consequently negligible, because it seemed to him that 
 
 1 " Those who, like Sismondi, would return to the just proportion 
 of production, while preserving the existing bases of society, are re- 
 actionary, since, to be consistent, they should also desire to re-establish 
 all the other conditions of past times. ... In existing society, in the 
 industry based on individual exchanges, the anarchy of production, 
 which is the source of so much poverty is at the same time the source of 
 all progress " (Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Eng. trans., p. 41). 
 
92 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 capitalism was embarked on an irresistible progress; but 
 nowadays we see considerable forces grouped together 
 in the endeavour to reform the capitalist economic system 
 by bringing it, with the aid of laws, nearer to the medieval 
 ideal. Parliamentary SociaHsm would like to combine 
 with the moralists, the Church, and the democracy, with 
 the common aim of impeding the capitalist movement ; 
 and, in view of middle-class cowardice, that would not 
 perhaps be impossible. 
 
 Marx compared the passage from one historical era to 
 another to a civil inheritance ; the new age inherits 
 prior acquisitions. If the revolution took place during 
 a period of economic decadence, would not the inheritance 
 be very much compromised, and in that case could there 
 be any hope of the speedy reappearance of progress in 
 the economic system ? The ideologists hardly trouble 
 themselves at all with this question ; they affirm that 
 the decadence will stop on the day that the public Treasury 
 is at their disposal ; they are dazzled by the immense 
 reserve of riches which would be delivered up to their 
 pillage ; what banquets there would be, what won^en, 
 and what opportunities for self-display ! We, on the 
 other hand, who have no such prospect before our eyes, 
 have to ask whether history can furnish us with any 
 guidance on this subject, which will enable us to guess 
 what would be the result of a revolution accomplished 
 in times of decadence. 
 
 The researches of Tocqueville enable us to study the 
 French Revolution from this point of view. He very 
 much astonished his contemporaries when, a half-century 
 ago, he showed them that the Revolution had been much 
 more conservative than had been supposed till then. 
 He pointed out that most of the characteristic institutions 
 of modern France date from the Old Regime (centralisa- 
 tion, the issue of regulations on every possible pretext. 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES gj 
 
 administrative tutelage of the communes, exemption of 
 civil servants from the jurisdiction of the courts) ; he 
 found only one important innovation — the coexistence, 
 which was established in the year VIII., of isolated civil 
 servants and deliberative councils. The principles of 
 the Old Regime reappeared in 1800, and the old customs 
 were received back into favour.^ Turgot seemed to him 
 to be an excellent type of the Napoleonic administrator, 
 who had " the ideal of a civil servant, in a democratic 
 society subject to an absolute government." ^ He was 
 of the opinion that the partition of the land, which it is 
 customary to place to the credit of the Revolution, had 
 begun long before, and had not gone on at an exceptionally 
 rapid pace under its influence.* 
 
 It is certain that Napoleon did not have to make any 
 extraordinary effort to put the country once more on a 
 monarchical footing. He found France quite ready, and 
 had only a few corrections of detail to make in order to 
 ; profit by the experience acquired since 1789. The 
 administrative and fiscal laws had been drawn up during 
 the Revolution by people who had appUed the methods 
 of the Old Regime ; they remain in force to-day, still 
 almost intact. The men he employed had served their 
 apprenticeship imder the Old Regime and under the 
 Revolution ; they all resemble one another ; in their 
 governmental practices they are aU men of the preceding 
 period ; they all work with an equal ardour for the great- 
 ness of His Majesty.* The real merit of Napoleon lay 
 in his not trusting too much to his own genius, in not 
 giving himself up to the dreams which had so often 
 deluded men of the eighteenth century, and had led them 
 
 ' Tocqueville, L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution {Sdition des ceuvres 
 computes), livre ii. chapitres i., iii., iv. pp. 89, 91, 94, 288. 
 
 » Tocqueville, MSlanges, pp. 155-156- 
 
 ' Tocqueville, L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, pp. 35-37. 
 
 * L. MadeUn. also comes to this conclusion in an article in the Dibats 
 of July 6, 1907, on the prefects of Napoleon I. 
 
94 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 to desire to regenerate everything from top to bottom — 
 in short, in his full recognition of the principle of historical 
 heredity. It follows from all this that the Napoleonic 
 regime may be looked upon as an experiment, showing 
 clearly the enormous part played by conservation thrdiigh- 
 out the greatest revolutions. 
 
 Indeed, I think that the principle of conservation 
 might even be extended to things military, and the armies 
 of the Revolution and the Empire may be shown to be 
 an extension of former institutions. In any case, it is 
 • very curious that Napoleon should have made no essential 
 innovations in military equipment, and that it should 
 have been the fire-arms of the Old Regime which so 
 greatly contributed to securing the victories of the revolu- 
 tionary troops. It was only under the Restoration that 
 the artillery was improved. 
 
 The ease with which the Revolution and the Empire 
 succeeded in radically transforming the country while 
 stni retaining such a large number of the acquisitions of 
 the past, is bound up with a fact to which our historians 
 have not always called attention, and which Taine does 
 not seem to have noticed : industrial production was 
 making great progress, and this progress was such that, 
 ,a/ towards 1780, everybody believed in the dogma of the 
 --^ indefinite progress of ma nkind.^ This dogma, which was 
 to exercise so great an mfluence on modern thought, 
 would be a bizarre and inexplicable paradox if it were not 
 considered as bound up with economic progress and with 
 the feeling of absolute confidence which this economic 
 progress engendered. The wars of the Revolution and 
 of the Empire only stimulated this feeling still further, 
 not only because they were glorious, but also because 
 they caused a great deal of money to enter the coimtry, 
 
 ' Tocqueville, h'Anoien Rigime et la Revolution, pp. 254-262, and 
 Melanges, p. 62. Cf. chapter IV. iv. of my study oq Les Illusions du 
 Progris. 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES gs 
 
 and thus contributed to the development of pro- 
 duction.i 
 
 The triumph of the Revolution astonished neariy all 
 its contemporaries, and it seems that the most intelligent, 
 the most deliberate, and the best informed as regards 
 political matters, were the most surprised ; this was 
 because reasons drawn from theory could not explain 
 this paradoxical success. It seems to me that even to- 
 day the question is scarcely less obscure to historians than 
 j it was to our ancestors. The primary cause of this 
 '] triumph must be sought in the economic progress of the 
 time ; it is because the Old Regime was struck by rapid 
 blows, while production was making great strides, that 
 the contemporary world was born with comparatively 
 little labour, and could so rapidly be assured of a vigorous 
 life. 
 
 We possess, on the other hand, a dreadful historical 
 experience of a great transformation taking place a:t a 
 time of econoinic jdecadence ; I mean the victory of 
 Christianity and the fall of the Roman Empire which 
 closely followed it. 
 
 All the old Christian authors agree in informing us 
 that the new rehgion brought no serious improvement 
 in the situation of the world ; corruption, oppression, 
 and disasters continued to crush the people as in the past. 
 This was a great disillusion for the fathers of the Church ; 
 at the time of the persecutions the Christians had beUeved 
 that God would overwhelm Rome with favours on the 
 day that the Empire ceased to persecute the faithful ; 
 now the Empire was Christian, and the bishops had 
 become personages of the first rank, yet everything 
 continued to go on as badly as in the past. What 
 was still more disheartening, the immorality, so often 
 
 1 Kautsky has dwelt very strongly on the role played by the treasures 
 which the French armies took possession of (La Lutte des classes en 
 France en lySg, French trans., pp. 104-106). 
 
L: 
 
 p<5 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 denounced as the result of idolatry, had spread to the 
 adorers of Christ. Far from imposing a far-reaching 
 reform on the profane world, the Church itself had become 
 corrupted by imitating the profane world ; it began to 
 resemble an imperial administration, and the factions 
 which tore it asunder were much more moved by an 
 appetite for power than by reUgious reasons. 
 
 It has often been asked whether Christianity was not 
 the cause, or at least one of the principal causes, of the 
 fall of Rome. Gaston Boissier combats this opinion by 
 endeavouring to show that the decadent movement 
 observed after Constantine is the continuation of a move- 
 ment which had existed for some time, and that it is not 
 possible to see whether Christianity accelerated or retarded 
 the death of the ancient world.^ That amounts to sajdng 
 that the extent of the conservation was enormous ; we 
 can, by analogy, imagine what would follow from a 
 revolution which brought our official Sociahsts of to-day 
 into power. Institutions remaining almost what they are 
 to-day, all the middle-class ideology would be preserved ; 
 the middle-class state would dominate with its ancient 
 abuses ; if economic decadence had begun, it would be 
 accentuated. 
 
 Shortly after the Christian conquest, the barbarian in- 
 vasions began. More than one Christian wondered whether 
 an order in conformity with the principles of the new 
 religion was not at length to appear ; this hope was all 
 the more reasonable as the barbarians had been converted 
 on coming into the Empire, and because they were not*" 
 accustomed to the corruption of Roman life. From 
 the economic point of view, a regeneration might be hoped 
 for, since the world was perishing beneath the weight of 
 urban exploitation ; the new masters, who had coarse 
 rural manners, would not live as great lords, but as heads 
 of large demesnes ; perhaps, therefore, the earth would 
 
 1 Gaston Boissier, La Fin du paganisms, livre iv. chap. iii. 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES gr 
 
 be better cultivated. The illusions of Christian authors 
 contemporary with the invasions may be compared to 
 those of the numerous Utopians who hope to see the 
 modem world regenerated by the virtues which they 
 attribute to the man of average condition ; the re- 
 placing of the very rich classes by new social strata 
 should bring about moraUty, happiness, and universal 
 prosperity. 
 ; The barbarians did not establish any progressive state 
 of society ; there were not many of them, and almost 
 everywhere they simply took the place of the old lords, 
 led the same hfe as they did, and were devoured by urban 
 civilisation. In France, ' ±he Merovingian royalty has 
 been made the subject of particularly thorough investiga- 
 tion ; Fustel de Coulanges has used all his erudition in 
 throwing hght on the conservative character which it 
 assumed ; its conservatism appeared to him to be so 
 strong that he was even able to say that there had been 
 no real revolution, and he represented the whole of the 
 history of the late Middle Ages as a movement which had 
 carried on the movement of the Roman Empire with a 
 little acceleration.^ " The Merovingian Government," 
 he said, " is more than three parts the continuation 
 of that which the Roman Empire had given to 
 Gaul." 2 
 
 \ The economic decadence was accentuated under these 
 ! barbarian kings ; no renascence could take place until 
 very long afterwards, when the world had gone through 
 a long series of trials. At least four centuries of barbarism 
 had to be gone through before a progressive movement 
 showed itself ; society was compelled to descend to a 
 state not far removed from its origins, and Vico was to 
 find in this phenomenon an illustration of his doctrine of 
 
 1 Fustel de Coulanges, Origines du rigime fiodal, pp. 566-567. I do 
 not deny that there is a good deal of exaggeration in the thesis of 
 Fustel de Coulanges, but the conservation was undeniable. 
 
 2 Fustel de Coulanges, La Monarchie franque, p. 650. 
 
gS REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 ricorsi.'^ Thus a revolution which took place in a time 
 of economic decadence had forced the world to pass again 
 through a period of almost primitive civilisation, and had 
 stopped all progress for several centuries. 
 
 These dreadful events have been many times invoked 
 by the adversaries of SociaUsm ; I do not deny the validity 
 of the argument, but two details must be added which 
 may perhaps appear of small importance to professional 
 sociologists. Such events presuppose (i) an economic 
 decadence ; (2) an organisation which assures a very 
 perfect conservation of the current system of ideas. The 
 civilised Sociahsm of our professors has many times been 
 presented as a safeguard of civihsation : I believe that 
 it would produce the same effect as was produced by the 
 classical education given by the Church to the barbarian 
 kings. The proletariat would be corrupted and stultified 
 as the Merovingians were, and economic decadence would 
 only be more certain under the action of these pretended 
 civilising agents. 
 
 The dangers which threaten the futm-e of the world 
 may be avoided, if the proletariat hold on with obstinacy 
 to revolutionary ideas, so as to reaUse as much as possible 
 Marx's conception. Everjrthing may be saved, if the 
 proletariat, by their use of violence, manage to re-estabUsh 
 the division into classes, and so restore to the middle 
 class something of its former energy ; that is the great 
 aim towards which the whole thought of men — ^who are 
 not hypnotised by the event of the day, but who think 
 
 1 [Vico's doctrine of " reflux " (ncorsi). Civilisation comes to an end 
 in the " barbarism of reflection " which is worse than the primitive 
 barbarism of sensation. . . The mind, after traversing its course 
 of progress, after rising from sensation ... to the rational, from 
 violence to equity, is bound, in conformity with its eternal nature, 
 to retraverse the course, to relapse into violence and sensation, and 
 thence to renew its upward movement, " to commence a reflux." See 
 chap. xi. of The Philosophy of Giambaitista Vico, by Benedetto Croce. 
 Eng. trans. — Trans. Note.] 
 
DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES gg 
 
 of the conditions of to-morrow — must be directed. 
 P roletarian violence, carri ed on as a pure and simple 
 manifestation of the sentimenTof the class war, appears 
 
 .'«~ 
 
 e- 
 
 thus as a very fine and' very heroic thing ; it is at the ji 
 servi ce of the immemorial interests of civilisation ; it is ^ 
 not perhaps~the mosT' appropriate method of obtauiing 
 immedi^^ material advantages, but it may sa^ve the world 
 from barbarism. 
 
 We have a very effective reply to those who accuse 
 Syndicalists of being obtuse and ignorant people. We 
 may ask them to consider the economic decadence for 
 which they are working. Let us salute the revolutionaries 
 as the Greeks saluted the Spartan heroes who defended 
 Thermopylae and helped to preserve the civihsation of 
 the ancient world. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE 
 
 I. Old ideas relative to the Revolution — Change resulting from 
 the year 0/1870 and from the Parliamentary rigime. 
 
 II. Drumont's observations on middle-class ferocity — The judicial 
 Third Estate and the history of the Law Courts — Capitalism 
 against the cult of the State. 
 
 III. Attitude of the Dreyfusards — Jaures's judgments on the 
 
 Revolution : his adoration of success and his hatred for the 
 vanquished. 
 
 IV. Antimilitarism as a proof of an abandonment of middle-class 
 
 traditions. 
 
 The ideas cuH-ent among the outside public on the subject 
 of proletarian violence are not founded on observation 
 of contemporary facts, and on a rational interpretation 
 of the present Syndicalist movement ; they are derived 
 from a comparison of the present with the past — an in- 
 finitely simpler mental process ; they are shaped by 4he 
 memories which the . word revolution evokes almost 
 automatically. It is supposed that the Syndicalists, 
 merely because they call themselves revolutionaries, 
 wish to reproduce the history of the revolutionaries of 
 '93. The Blanquists, who look upon themselves as the 
 legitimate owners of the Terrorist tradition, consider 
 that for this very reason they are caUed upon to direct 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE zoz 
 
 the proletarian movement ; ^ they display much more 
 condescension to the Syndicahsts than the other Parha- 
 mentary Sociahsts ; they are inclmed to assert that the 
 workers' organisations will come to imderstand in the 
 end that they cannot do better than to put themselves 
 under their tuition. It seems to me that Jaures himself, 
 when writing the Histoire socialiste of '93, thought more ' 
 than once of the teachings which this past, a thousand 
 times dead, might yield to him for the conduct of the 
 present. 
 
 Proper attention has not always been given to the 
 great changes which have taken place since 1870 in the 
 way people judge the revolution ; yet these changes 
 must be considered if we wish to understand contemporary 
 ideas relative to violence. 
 
 Jor a very long time the Revolution appeared to be 
 essentially a succession of glorious wars, which a people - jT 
 famished for liberty and carried away by the noblest ^ 
 passions had maintained against a coalition of all the 
 powers of oppression and error. Riots and coups d'etat, 
 the struggles between parties often destitute of any 
 scruple and the banishment of the vanquished, the 
 Parliamentary debates and the adventures of illustrious 
 men, in a word, all the events of its political history were 
 in the eyes of our fathers only very secondary accessories 
 to the wars of liberty. 
 
 For about twenty-five years the form of government 
 in France had been at issue ; after campaigns before 
 which the memories of Csesar and Alexander paled the 
 
 1 The reader may usefully refer to a very interesting chapter of 
 Bernstein's book, Socialisme thiorique et socialdimocratie pratique, 
 pp. 47-63. Bernstein, who knows nothing of the aims of our present- 
 day syndicalism, has not, in my opinion, drawn from Marxism all that 
 it contains. His book, moreover, was written at a time when it was 
 impossible still to understand the revolutionary movement, in view of 
 which these reflections are written. 
 
103 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 charter of 1814 had definitely incorporated in the national 
 tradition, the Parliamentary system, Napoleonic legisla- 
 tion, and the Chm-ch estabMshed by the Concordat ; 
 war had given an irrevocable judgment whose preambles, 
 as Proudhon said, had been dated from Valmy, from 
 Jemmapes, and from fifty other battlefields, and whose 
 conclusions ^ had been received at Saint-Ouen by Louis 
 XVIII.2 Protected by the prestige of the wars of Uberty, 
 the new institutions had become inviolable, arid the 
 ideology which was built up to explain them became a 
 faith which seemed for a long time to have for the French 
 the value which the revelation of Jesus has for the 
 Catholics. 
 
 From time to time eloquent writers have thought 
 that they could set up a current of reaction against 
 these doctrines, and the Church had hopes that it might 
 get the better of what it called the error of liberalism. A 
 long period of admiration for medieval art and of con- 
 tempt for the period of Voltaire seemed to threaten the 
 new ideology with ruin ; but all these attempts to return 
 to the past left no trace except in literary history. There 
 were times when those in power governed in the least 
 liberal manner, but the principles of the modem regime 
 were never seriously threatened. This fact could not be 
 explained by the power of reason and by some law of 
 progress ; its cause lies simply in the epic of the wars 
 
 ' [The word " conclusions " is employed in two senses in civil pro- 
 ceedings. Each counsel presents his claims and arguments to the court 
 in writing in a document which is called " conclusion." On the other 
 hand, at the end of the case the minisire public states what, in his 
 opinion, is the decision the court ought to make for the best administra- 
 tion of Justice ; these are the " conclusions " of the ministre public. 
 The judgment always declares that the minisire public has been heard 
 in his " conclusion." Proudhon uses the word in the second sense. 
 On the return of the Bourbons, Louis XVIII. issued a proclamation in 
 which he stated the principles on which it seemed to him the govern- 
 ment of the country must henceforth rest. — Trans. Note.] 
 
 2 Proudhon, La Guerre et la paix, livre v, chap. iii. 
 
1 PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE 103 
 
 which had filled the French soul with an enthusiasm 
 analogous to that provoked by religions. 
 
 This military epic gave an epical colour to all the events 
 of internal politics ; party struggles were thus raised to 
 the level of an Ihad ; politicians became giants, and the 
 revolution, which Joseph de Maistre had denounced as 
 satanical, was made divine. The bloody scenes of the 
 Terror were episodes without great significance by the 
 side of the enormous hecatombs of war, and means were 
 f oimd to envelop them in a dramatic mythology ; riots 
 were elevated to the same rank as illustrious battles ; 
 and calmer historians vainly endeavoured to bring the 
 Revolution and the Empire down to the plane of common 
 history. The prodigious triumphs of the revolutionary 
 and imperial arms rendered all.,criticism impossible. 
 
 The war of 1870 changed all that. At the moment * 
 of the fall of the Second Empire the immense majority 
 in France still firmly believed the legends which had been 
 spread about regarding the armies of volunteers, the 
 miraculous role of the representatives of the people, and 
 the improvised generals ; experience produced a cruel 
 disillusion. Tocqueville had written : " The Convention ■" 
 created the policy of the impossible, the theory of furious 
 madness, the cult of blind audacity." ^ The disasters 
 of 1870 brought the country bkck to practical, prudent, 
 and dros^ conditions ; the first result of these disasters 
 was ti^ developmeiit of the conception most opposed to 
 that spoken of by Tocqueville ; this was the idea of .^ti^ 
 opportunism, which has now been introduced even into 
 Sociahsm. 
 
 Another consequence was the change that took place 
 in all revolutionary values, and notably the modification in 
 the opinions which were held on the subject of violence. 
 
 After 1871 everybody in France thought only of the 
 
 ' Tocqueville, Melanges, p. 189. 
 
104 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 search for the most suitable means of setting the country 
 r on its feet again. Taine endeavoured to apply the methods 
 of the most scientific psychology to this question, and he 
 looked upon the history of the Revolution as a social 
 experiment. He hoped to be able to make quite clear 
 the danger presented in his opinion by the Jacobin spirit, 
 and thus to induce his contemporaries to change the 
 course of French politics by abandoning' ideas which had 
 seemed incorporated in the national tradition, and which 
 were all the more solidly rooted in people's minds because 
 . nobody had ever discussed their origin. Taine failed in 
 his enterprise, as L^ JJay and Renan failedris all those 
 will fail who try to found an intellectual and moral reform 
 on investigations, on scientific syntheses, and on demon- 
 ic strations. 
 
 It cannot be said, however, that Taine's immense 
 labour was accomplished to no purpose ; the history of 
 the Revolution was thoroughly overhauled ; the military 
 epic no longer dominates people's judgments about 
 political events. The life of men, the inner workings of 
 factions, the material needs which determine the tendencies 
 of the great masses have now come into the foreground. 
 In the speech which he made on September 24, 1905, at 
 the inauguration of the monument to Taine at Vouziers, 
 the deputy Hubert, while giving aU homage to the great 
 and many-sided talent of his illustrious compatriot, 
 expressed a regret that the epic side of the Revolution 
 had been disregarded by him in a systematic manner. 
 These are superfluous regrets ; the epic vision can hence- 
 forth no longer govern that political history ; an idea of 
 the grotesque effects to which this constant desire to 
 return to the old methods may lead can be obtained by 
 reading Jaures's Histoire socialiste. In vain does Jaurds 
 revive aU the most melodramatic images of the old 
 rhetoric ; the only effect he manages to produce is one of 
 absurdity. 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE 105 
 
 The prestige of the great revolutionary days has been 
 directly hit by the comparison with contemporary civil 
 struggles ; there was nothing during the Revolution ■• 
 which could bear comparison with the battles which 
 ensanguined Paris in 1848 and in 1871 ; July 14 and 
 August ID seem to us now mere scuffles which would not 
 have made an energetic Government tremble. _ / 
 
 There is yet another reason, still hardly recognised ' • 
 by professional writers on revolutionary history, which 
 has contributed a great deal towards taking aU the 
 romance out of these events. There can be no national 
 epic about things which the people cannot picture to 
 themselves as reproducible in a near future ; popular 
 poetry implies the future much more than the past ; it 
 is for this reason that the adventures of the Gaids, of 
 Charlemagne, of the Crusades, of Joan of Arc cannot form 
 the subject of a narrative capable of moving any but 
 literary people.^ Since the people have become convinced 
 that contemporary Governments cannot be overthrown 
 by riots like those of July 14 and August 10, they have 
 ceased to look upon the events of these days as epical. 
 Pariiamerltary Socialists, who would like to utilise the 
 memory of the Revolution to excite the ardour of the 
 people, and who ask them at the same time to put all 
 their confidence in Parliamentarism, are very inconsistent, 
 for they are themselves helping to ruin the epic, whose 1 
 prestige they wish to maintain in their speeches. 
 
 But then what remains of the Revolution when we 
 have taken away the epic of the wars against the coalition, 
 and of that of the victories of the populace ? What 
 
 1 It is very remarkable that in the seventeenth century Boileau 
 had ahready pronounced against the supernatural Christian epic ; this 
 was because his contemporaries, however religious they might have 
 been, did not expect that angels would come to help Vauban to capture 
 fortresses ; they did not doubt what was related in the Bible, but they 
 did not see matter in it for epics, because these marvels were not 
 destined to be reproduced. 
 
io6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 remains is not very savoury : police operations, pro- 
 scriptions, and sittings of servile courts of law. The 
 employment of the force of the State against the van- 
 quished shocks us all the more because so many of the 
 coryphees of the Revolution were soon to be distinguished 
 among the servants of Napoleon, and to employ the 
 same police zeal on behalf of the Emperor as they did 
 on behalf of the Terror. In a country which had been 
 convulsed by so many changes of Government, and which 
 consequently had known so many recantations, political 
 justice had something particularly odious about it, 
 because the criminal of to-day might become the judge 
 of to-morrow : General Malet could say before the 
 council of war which condemned him in 1812 that had 
 he succeeded he would have had for his accomplices the 
 whole of France and his judges themselves.^ 
 , It is useless to carry these reflections any further ; 
 the slightest observation wUl suffice to show that piroj^^ 
 letarian violence recalls a mass of PjlJaM TPgniprie^ .o f 
 those past J^a^s : instinctively, - people start thinking 
 of the^committees of revolutionary inspection, of the 
 brutahties of suspicious agents, coarsened and frightened 
 by fear, of the tragedies of the guillotine. You under- 
 stand, therefore, why ParUamentary Socialists make si^h 
 great efforts to persuade the pubhc that they have the 
 souls of sensitive shepherds, that their hearts are over- 
 flowing with good feeling, and that they have only one 
 passion — hatred of violence. They would readily give 
 themselves out to be the protectors of the middle class 
 
 I Ernest Hamel, Histoire de la conspiration du giniral Malet, p. 241. 
 According to some newspapers, Jaurfes, in his evidence before the Court 
 of Assizes of the Seine on June 5, 1907, in the Bousquet-Levy trial, 
 said that the police ofiicers would show more consideration for the 
 accused, Bousquet, when he had become a legislator. [Bousquet was 
 the secretary of the bakers' syndicate, with whom the police dea,lt 
 rather harshly. As he was a good orator Jaur^s looked upon him as 
 a future deputy. — Trans. Note.] 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE 107 
 
 against proletarian violence ; and in order to heighten 
 their prestige as humanitarians they never fail to shun 
 all contact with anarchists ; sometimes, even, they shun 
 this contact with an abruptness which is not without 
 a certain mixture of cowardice and hypocrisy. 
 
 When Millerand was the unquestioned chief of the 
 SociaUst party in Parliament, he advised his party to 
 he afraid to frighten ; and, as a matter of fact, SociaUst 
 deputies would obtain very few votes if they did not 
 manage to convince the general public that they are very 
 reasonable people, great enemies of the old practices of 
 bloody men, and solely occupied in meditating on the 
 philosophy of future law. In a long speech given on 
 October 8, 1905, at Limoges, Jaures strove to reassure 
 the middle class much more than had been done hitherto ; 
 he informed them that victorious SociaUsm would show 
 princely generosity, and that he was studying the different 
 ways in which the former holders of property might be 
 indemnified. A few years ago Millerand promised in- 
 demnities to the poor (Petite RepubUque, March 25, 1898) ; 
 now everybody wiU be put on the same footing, and 
 Jaures assures us that Vandervelde has written things 
 on this subject full of profundity. I am quite willing to 
 take his word for it ! 
 
 The social revolution is conceived by Jaures as a kind 
 of bankruptcy ; substantial annuities wiU be given to the 
 middle class of to-day : then from generation to genera- 
 tion these axinuities'' will decrease. These plans must 
 often seem very alluring to financiers accustomed to 
 draw great advantages from bankruptcies ; I have no 
 doubt that the shareholders of L'Humanite think these 
 ideas marvellous ; th§y will be made liquidators of the 
 bankruptcy, and will pocket large fees, which will com- 
 pensate them for the losses which this newspaper has 
 caused them. 
 
 In the eyes of the contemporary middle class every- 
 
io8 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 thing is admirable which dispels the idea of violence. 
 Our middle class desire to die in peace — after them the 
 deluge. - - . -—- ■ 
 
 II 
 
 Let us now examine the violence o f '93 a little more 
 closely, and endeavour to see whether it can be identified 
 with that of contemporary Syndicalism. 
 
 Fifteen years ago Drumont, speaking of Socialism 
 and of its future, wrote these sentences, which then 
 appeared exceedingly paradoxical to many people : 
 " The historian, who is always somewhat of a prophet, 
 might say to the Conservatives, ' Salute the working-men 
 leaders of the Commune, you will never see their like again ! 
 . . . Those who are to come will be malicious, wicked, 
 and vindictive in a different way from the men of 1871. 
 Henceforward, a new feeling takes possession of the 
 French proletariat : hatred.' " ^ These were not the airy 
 words of a man of letters : Drumont learned what he 
 knew of the Commune and the Socialist world from 
 Malon, of whom he gave a very appreciative portrait in 
 his book. 
 
 This sinister prediction was founded on the idea that 
 the working man was getting farther and farther away 
 from the national tradition, and nearer to the middle 
 class, which is much more accessible than he is to bad 
 feehng. " It was the middle-class element," said Drumont, 
 " which was most ferocious in the Coinmuhe, the'vicious 
 and bohemian middle class of the Latiii Quarter ; the 
 popular element, amid this dreadful crisis, remained 
 human, that is French. . . . Among the intemationahsts 
 who formed part of the Commune four only pronoimced 
 themselves in favour of violent measures." ^ As will be 
 seen, Drumont has got no farther than that naive phUo- 
 
 1 Drumont, La Fin d'un monde, pp. 137-138. 
 ' Drumont, op. cit. p. 128. 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE log 
 
 sophy of the eighteenth century, and of the Utopians 
 prior to 1848, according to which men will foUow the 
 inJTinctions of the moral law aU the better for not having 
 been spoiled by civihsation ; in descending from the 
 superior classes to the poorer classes a greater number of 
 good qualities are found ; good is only natural to in- 
 dividuals who have remained close to a state of nature. 
 
 This theory about the nature of the classes led Drumont 
 to a rather curious historical speculation : none of our 
 revolutions was so bloody as the first, because it was 
 conducted by the middle class — " in proportion as the 
 people became more intimately mixed up with revolutions, 
 they became less ferocious " — " the^proletariat, when, 
 for the first time, it had acquired an effective share of 
 authority, was infinitely less sanguinary than the middle 
 class." ^ We cannot remain content with the easy 
 explanations which satisfied Drumont ; but it is certain 
 that something has changed since '93. We have to ask 
 ourselves whether the ferocity of the old revolutionaries 
 was not due to reasons depending on the past history of 
 the middle class, so that in confusing the abuses of the 
 revolutionary middle-class force of '93 with the violence 
 of our revolutionary SjmdicaUsts a grave error would be 
 committed : the word revolutionary would, in this case, 
 have two perfectly distinct meanings. 
 
 Thg^ Third Estate which filled the assemblies in the 
 revolutionary epoch, what may be called the official 
 Third Estate,, was not a body of agriculturists and leaders 
 of industry ; power was never then in the hands of manu- 
 facturers, but in ..the-hands^of the. law yers jbasochiens).^ 
 Taine was very much struck by the fact that out of 577 
 deputies of the Third Estate in the Constituent Assembly, 
 
 1 Drumont, op. cit. p. 136. 
 
 2 Basoche was a name given somewhat ironically to all the people 
 employed in the law courts — principally solicitors and ushers. 
 
110 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 there were 373 " unknown barristers and lawyers of a 
 minor order, notaries, King's attorneys, court-roll com- 
 missioners, judges and recorders of the presidial bench, 
 bailiffs and lieutenants of the bailiwick, simple practi- 
 tioners shut up since their youth within the narrow circle 
 of a mediocre jurisdiction or the routine of continual 
 scribbling, without any other escape than philosophical 
 wanderings through imaginary spaces under the guidance 
 of Rousseau or of Rajmal." ^ We have some difficulty 
 nowadays in understanding the importance which lawyers 
 possessed in ancient France ; but a multitude of juris- 
 dictions existed ; property owners were extremely 
 punctihous in going to law about questions which appear 
 to us nowadays as of very minor importance, but which 
 seemed of enormous importance to them on account of 
 the dovetailing of feudal law with the law of property ; 
 fimctionaries of a judicial order were found everywhere, 
 and they enjoyed the greatest prestige with the people. 
 This class brought to the Revolution a great deal of 
 administrative capacity ; it was owing to them that the 
 country was able to pass easily through the crisis which 
 shook it for ten years, and that Napoleon was able to 
 reconstruct regular administrative services so rapidly ; 
 but this class also brought a mass of prejudices which 
 . caused those of its representatives who occupied high 
 positions to commit grave errors. It is impossible to 
 understand the character of Robespierre, for example, 
 if we compare him to the politicfaflBisf to-day ; we must 
 always see in him the serious lawyer, taken up with his 
 duties, anxious not to tarnish the professional honour of 
 an orator of -the bar ; moreover, he had Uterary leanings 
 and was a disciple of Rousseau. He had scruples about 
 legality which astonish the historians of to-day ; when 
 he was obliged to come to supreme resolutions and to 
 defend himself before the Convention, he showed a sim- 
 
 1 Taine, La Revolution, tome i. p. 155. 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE iii 
 
 plicity which bordered on stupidity. The famous law 
 of the 22nd Prairial, with which he has been so often 
 reproached and which gave so rapid a pace to the revolu- 
 tionary courts, is the masterpiece of his t5^e of mind ; 
 the whole of the Old Regime is found in it, expressed in 
 clear-cut formulas. 
 
 One^of . the itmdamental ideas of the Old Regime had 
 been the employment of the penal -prec edure to r^jjn any 
 power which was an obstacle to the monarcKyT" TTse&ins 
 tfaatlnal l^nmitive soc ieties the penal law, at its inceptfon, 
 was a protection granted t o the chief and to a few privileged 
 p ersons wh om he honoured witE speciaTlavour f~fF"is 
 QnlyjnuchTa^'tKSrtKeT^^ ^af egiiafd; 
 
 indiscriminately, the persons and gooSs of all tKe inhabit- 
 antsofa coimtry. The Middle "!Sges"Being a^etuiTr to 
 the customs oT'very ancient times, it was natural that 
 they should reproduce exceedingly archaic ideas about 
 justice, and that the courts of justice should come to 
 be considered as instrumeiifs of royal greatness. An 
 historicar accident happened to favour the extraordinary 
 development pf this theory of criminal administration. 
 The Inquisition furnished a model for courts which, set 
 in motion on very shght pretexts, prosecuted people 
 who embarrassed authority, with great persistence, and 
 made it impossible for them to harm the latter. The 
 monarchy borrowed from the Inquisition many of its 
 procedures, and nearly always followed the same principles. 
 
 The king constantly demanded of his courts of justice 
 that they should work for the enlargement of his terri- 
 tories ; it seems strange to us nowadays that Louis XIV. 
 shoTild have had annexations proclaimed by commissions 
 of magistrates ; but he was following the old tradition ; 
 many of his predecessors had used ParUament to confiscate 
 feudal manors for very arbitrary motives. ..Justice, 
 which seems to us nowadays created to secure the pros- 
 perity of production, and to permit its free and constantly 
 
113 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 widening development, seemed created,4n former d^ys 
 to secure the greatness ot the monarchy : itsj^^^^^^l 
 aim was noi jmsiice^jbui the welfaze^.of the State. 
 "TE was very difficult to establish strict discipline in 
 the services set up by royalty for war and administration. 
 Enquiries had continually to be made in order to punish 
 imfaithful or disobedient employees ; kings employed, 
 for this purpose, men taken from their courts of law ; 
 thus they came to confuse acts of disciplinary surveillance 
 with the repression of crimes. Lawyers must transform 
 everything according to their habits of mind ; in this 
 way negligence,^ill=will,-oj:,carelessne§s. became revolt 
 against.authority, crime, or treason. 
 
 The Revolution piously gathered up this tradition, 
 gave an importance to imaginary crimes 'wEicE" was all 
 the greater because its politicaTcottrts-of law carried on 
 their operations in the midst of a populace maddened 
 by the seriousness of the peril ; it seemed quite natural 
 to explain the defeats of generals by criminal inten- 
 tions, and to guillotine people who had not been able 
 to realise hopes fostered by a public opinion, that had 
 returned to the superstitions of childhood. Our penal 
 code contains not a few paradoxical articles dating from 
 this time ; nowadays it is not easy to understand how a 
 citizen can be seriously accused of plotting or of keeping 
 up a correspondence with foreign powers or their agents 
 in order to induce them to begin hostilities, or to enter 
 into war with France, or to furnish them with the means 
 therefor. Such a crime supposes that the State can be 
 imperilled by the act of one person ; this appears scarcely 
 credible to us.^ 
 
 Actions against enemies of the king were always con- 
 ducted in an exceptional manner ; the procedure was 
 
 ' Yet this was the article which was applied to Dreyfus, without 
 anybody, moreover, having attempted to prove that France had been 
 in danger. 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE 113 
 
 simplified as much as possible ; flimsy proofs which would 
 not have sufficed for ordinary crimes were accepted; 
 the endeavour was to make a terrible and profoundly 
 intunidating example. All this is to be found in Robes- 
 pienreT legislation:" ' The law of the 22nd Pr airial lays 
 
 ^gli^r^^^'^^y enemy" oTtfie I^eyolution escape ; and the 
 '^S^.PlPlopIs required are worthy of the'purest' tradition 
 o f the Ofd Refflm e and'^of the^faguisition. "" " The proof 
 necessary to condemn the enemies of the people is any 
 kind of document, material, moral, verbal or written, 
 which can naturally obtain the assent of any just and 
 reasonable mind. Juries in giving their verdict should 
 be guided solely by what love of their country indicates 
 to their conscience ; their aim is t^e triumph of the republic 
 aji^the ruin ofifs0^mig§J' We have in this celebrated 
 Terrorist law the strongest expression of the theory of 
 the predominance of the State.^ 
 
 The, philosophy of the eighteenth century happened 
 to render these methods still more formidable. It pro- 
 fessed, in fact, to formulate a return to n atural law ; 
 humanity had b een till then corrup ted by the fault of a 
 small number of people whose interest it had been to 
 decei^^?r7~"but the true""means of 'refurnirig~ro'the 
 pnnciples of primitive goodness, of truth, and of justice 
 had at last been discovered ; all opposition to so excellent 
 a reform, one so easy to apply and so certain of success, 
 was the most criminal act imaginable ; tlje innovators 
 were resolved ta show themselves inexorable in destroying 
 the evil iufluence which bad citizens might exercise for 
 the purpose of hindering the regeneration of humanity. 
 Indulgence was a culpable weakness, for it amounted to 
 nothing less than the sacrifice of the happiness of multi- 
 tudes to the caprices of incorrigible people, who gave 
 
 ' The details themselves of this law can only be explained by com- 
 paring them with the rules of the old penal law. 
 
 I 
 
114 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 proof of an incomprehensible obstinacy, who refusec^to 
 recognise evidence, and only lived on lies. 
 
 From the Inquisition to the poUtical justice/of the 
 monarchy, and from this to the revolutionary courts of 
 justice, there was a constant, progress towards, greater 
 severity in laws, the extension of the use of force„and the 
 amplification of authority. For a considerable time the 
 Chmrch had felt doubts about the value of the exceptional 
 methods practised by its inquisitors.^ The monarchy, 
 especially when it had reached its full maturity, was 
 troubled with very few scruples about the matter ; but 
 the Revolution displayed the scandal of its superstitious 
 cult of the State quite openly, in the full light of day. 
 
 A reason of an economical order gave to the State at 
 that time a strength which the Church had never possessied. 
 At the beginning of modem times. Governments, by their 
 maritime expeditions and the encouragement they gave 
 to industry, had played a very great part in production ; 
 but in the eighteenth century this part had become 
 exceptionally important in the minds of theorists. People 
 at that time had their heads full of great projects ; they 
 cojiceived kingdoms as vast companies undertaking to 
 cdkmisa^nd cultivate new lands, and they made efforts 
 to ensure the good working of these companies. Thus 
 the State was the god of the reformers. " They desire," 
 wrote Tocqueville, " to borrow the authority of the 
 central power and to use it to break up and to remake 
 everything according to a new plan which they have 
 themselves conceived ; the central power alone appears 
 to them capable of accomplishing such a task. The power 
 of the State must be limitless, as its rights, ^ they say ; 
 
 1 Modern authors, by taking literally certain instructions of the 
 papacy, have been able to maintain that the Inquisition had been 
 relatively indulgent, having regard to the customs of the time. 
 
 " TocquevUle is probably alluding here to the maxims of Blackstone 
 on the unlimited power of the EngUsh Parliament. The economists 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE iij 
 
 all that is necessary is to persuade the State to make a 
 suitable use of this power." i The physiocrats seemed 
 ready to sacrifice individuals to the common weal ; they 
 had no great love of Hberty, and thought the idea of an 
 equipoise of powers absurd ; they hoped to convert the 
 %:*!.' tlieir system is defined by focqueville as " a 
 democratic despotism " ; the Government would have 
 been in theory the representative of everybody, controlled 
 by- an enlightened, pubhc opinion ; practically it was an 
 absolute master.^ One of the things which most astonished 
 Tocqueville in the course of his studies of the Old Regime 
 is the admiration felt by the physiocrats for China, which 
 appeared to them as the type of good government, because 
 in that country there were only valets and clerks carefully 
 catalogued and chosen by competition .^ 
 
 Since the Revolution there has been such an upheaval 
 of ideas that we have considerable difficulty in under- 
 standing correctly the conceptions of our fathers.* The 
 capitaUst economic system has thrown full light on the 
 extraordinary power of the individual unaided by the 
 State ; the confidence which the men of the eighteenth 
 century had in the industrial capacities of the State seems 
 puerile to everybody who has studied production else- 
 where than in the insipid books of the sociologists, which 
 still preserve very carefully the cult for the blunders of 
 the past ; the law of nature has become an inexhaustible 
 subject of banter for people who have the slightest 
 
 of the eighteenth century thought that the State had the right to do 
 everything, since it was the expression of " reason," and no single force 
 could oppose the action of this " reason." 
 
 1 Tocqueville, L'Ancien Rigime et la Rivolution, p. lOO. 
 
 ^ Tocqueville, op. cit. pp. 235-240. 
 
 ' Tocqueville, op. cit. p. 241. 
 
 * In the history of judicial ideas in France, full consideration must 
 be given to the dividing up of landed property, which, by multiplying 
 the independent heads of productive units, contributed more to the 
 spread of judicial ideas among the masses than was ever done among 
 the literate classes by the finest treatises on philosophy. 
 
ii6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 knowledge of history ; the employment of the courts of 
 law as a means of coercing a political adversary arouses 
 universal indignation, and people with ordinary common 
 sense hold that it ruins all judicial conceptions. 
 
 Sumner Maine points out that the relationships of 
 governments and citizens have been completely over- 
 hauled since the end of the eighteenth century ; formerly 
 the State was always supposed to be good and wise, 
 consequently any attempt to hinder its working was 
 looked upon as a grave offence ; the Liberal system 
 supposes, on the contrary, that the citizen, left free" chooses 
 the better part, and that he exercises the first of his rights 
 in criticising the Government, which has passed from the 
 position of master to that of servant.^ Maine does not 
 say what is the cause of this transformation ; the cause 
 seems to me to be above all of an economic order. ^ In 
 the new state of things political crime is an act of sitjiple 
 revolt which cannot carry with it disgrace of any kind, 
 which is combated for reasons of prudence, but which 
 no longer merits the name of crime, for its author in no 
 way resembles a criminal. 
 
 We are not perhaps better, more human, more sensitive 
 to the misfortunes of others than were the men of '93 ; 
 and I should even be rather disposed to assert that the 
 country is probably less moral than it was at that time ; 
 but we are no longer dominated to the same extent that 
 our fathers were by this superstition of the^_God::Slate, to 
 which they sacrificed so many victims. The ferocity of 
 the members of the National Convention is easily ex- 
 plained by the influence of the conceptions which the 
 Third Estate derived from the detestable practices of the 
 Old Regime. 
 
 1 Sumner Maine, Essais sur le gouvernement populaire, French 
 trans., p. 20. 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE iiy 
 
 III 
 
 It would be strange if the old ideas were quite dead ; 
 the Dreyfus case showed us that the immense majority 
 of the officers and priests still conceived justice in the 
 manner of the Old Regime and looked upon condemnations 
 for "State reasons" as quite natural.^ That should not 
 surprise us, for these two types of people, never having 
 had any direct relationship with production, can under- 
 stand nothing about law. The revolt of the enlightened 
 public against the practices of the Minister of War was so 
 great that for a moment it might have been believed 
 that " reasons of State " would no longer be admitted 
 as a pretext for condemnation (outside the two tj^pes 
 mentioned above), except by the readers of the Fetit 
 Journal, whose mentality would thus be characterised 
 and shown to be much the same as that which existed a 
 century ago. We know now, alas ! by cruel experience, 
 that the State had its high priests and its fervent wor- 
 shippers even among the Dreyfusards. 
 
 The Dreyfus case was scarcely over when the Govern- 
 ment of " Republican defence " began another political 
 prosecution, in the name of state policy, and accumulated 
 almost as many lies as the Etat-Major (army council) 
 had accumulated in the Dreyfus trial. No serious person 
 nowadays can doubt that the great plot forwhichDeroulede, 
 Buffet, and Lur-Saluces were condemned was an invention 
 of the police ; the siege of what has been called the Fort 
 Chabrol was arranged in order to make Parisians believe 
 that they had been on the eve of a civil war. The victims 
 of this judicial crime were granted an amnesty, but the 
 
 1 The extraordinary and illegal severity which was brought to bear 
 in the appUcation of the penalty is explained by the fact that the aim 
 of the trial was to terrify certain spies who, by their situation, were 
 out of reach ; whether Dreyfus was guilty or innocent troubled his 
 accusers little ; the essential thing was to protect the State from 
 treachery and to reassure the French people, who were maddened by 
 the fear of war. 
 
ii8 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 amnesty should not Jiave sufficed : if the Dreyfusards 
 had been sincere they should have demanded a recogni- 
 tion by the Senate of the scandalous error which the lies 
 of the police had caused it to commit ; on the contrary, 
 they seem to have seen nothing that violated the principles 
 of eternal justice, in their continued support of a condemna- 
 tion founded on the most evident fraud. 
 
 Jaures and many other eminent Dreyfusards commended 
 General Andre and Combes for having organised a regular 
 system of secret accusations. Kautsky warmly re- 
 proached him for his conduct ; the German writer 
 demanded that Socialists should not continue to repre- 
 sent " the wretched practices of the middle-class Republic 
 as great democratic actions, and that they should remain 
 " faithful to the principle which declares that the in- 
 former is the worst kind of rascal " [Debats, November 13, 
 1904). The saddest thing about this affair was that 
 Jaures asserted that Colonel Hartmann, who protested 
 against the system of fiches (secret reports), had himself 
 employed similar methods ; ^ the latter wrote to him : 
 " I pity you for this — that you have come to defend to-day, 
 and by such means, the guilty acts which, with us, you 
 condemned a few years ago ; I pity you, that you should 
 believe yourself obliged to make the Republican form of 
 Government responsible for the vile proceedings of the 
 police spies who dishonour it " {Debats, November 5, 1904). 
 Experience has always shown us hitherto that revolu^ 
 tionaries ^lead . "reasons , of ^§tat^',jfi.,jftQ0»aaJJ^2^J 
 into^ powerj that. they thga,,gjH3Lploy -poli£gj3afi±iiQda...acui 
 
 1 In L'HumaniU of November 17, 1904, there is a letter from Paul 
 Guieysse and from Vazeilles, declaring that nothing of this kind can 
 be imputed to Colonel Hartmann. Jaures follows this letter with a 
 strange commentary ; he considers that the informers acted in perfect 
 good faith, and he regrets that the colonel should have furnished 
 " imprudently, further matter for the systematic campaign of the 
 reactionary newspapers." Jaures has no suspicion that this com- 
 mentary made his own case much worse, and that it was not unworthy 
 of a disciple of Escobar. 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE iig 
 
 look upon justice as a weapon wHich thev may^use 
 untairly againsQneir enemies. Patliamentarv Socialists ' 
 do not escape the universal rule ; they preserve the old 
 ^^t of the State ; they are therefore prepared to commit 
 Witixe misdeedTof the Old Regime and of the Revolution. 
 
 A fine collection of platitudinous political maxims 
 might be composed by going through Jaures's Histoire 
 socialiste. I have never had the patience to read the • 
 1824 pages devoted to the story of the Revolution between 
 August 10, 1792, and the fall of Robespierre ; I have 
 simply turned over the leaves of this tedious book, and 
 seen that it contained a mixture of a philosophy worthy 
 of M. Pantalon and a policy fitting a purveyor to the 
 guillotine. For a long time I had reckoned that Jaures 
 would be capable of every ferocity against the van- 
 quished ; I saw that I had not been mistaken ; but I 
 should not have thought that he was capable of so much 
 platitude : in his eyes the vanquished are always in the 
 wrong, and victory fascinates our great defender of eternal 
 justice so much that he is ready to consent to every 
 proscription demanded of him : " Revolutions," he says, 
 " claim from a man the most frightful sacrifices, not only 
 of his rest, not only of his life, but of human tenderness 
 and pity." 1/ Why write so much, then, about the in- 
 humanity of the executioners of Dreyfus ? They also 
 sacrificed " human tenderness " to what appeared to 
 them to be the safety of the country) 
 
 A few years ago the Republicans were extremely 
 indignant with the Vicomte de Vogiie, who, when receiving 
 Hanotaux into the French Academy, called the coup 
 d'etat of 1851 " a somewhat harsh police exploit." ^ 
 
 ' J. JaurSs, La Convention, p. 1732. 
 
 2 This was on March 24, 1898, at a particularly critical moment 
 of the Dreyfus case, when the Nationalists were asking that agitators 
 and enemies of the army should be swept away. J. Reinach says that 
 De Vogu6 openly invited the army to begin again the work of 1850 
 {Histoire de V affaire Dreyfus, tome iii. p. 545). 
 
120 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 Jaur^s, taught by revolutionary history, now reasons 
 in exactly the same manner as the jovial vicomte ; ^ he 
 praises, for example, " the policy of vigour and of wisdom " 
 which consisted in forcing the Convention to expel the 
 Girondins " with a certain appearance of legality." ^ 
 
 The massacres of September 1792 embarrass him 
 somewhat ; legality is not very apparent here, but he 
 has big words and bad reasons for every ugly cause ; 
 Danton's conduct was not very worthy of admiration at 
 the time of these melancholy happenings, but Jaures 
 must excuse him, since Danton was triumphant during 
 this period. " He did not think it was his duty as a 
 revolutionary and patriotic minister to enter upon a 
 struggle with these misguided popular forces. How can 
 we refine the metal of the beUs when they are sounding 
 the alarm of imperilled liberty ? " ^ It seems to me that 
 Cavaignac might have explained his conduct in the Dreyfus 
 case in the same way. To the people who accused him 
 of being hand in hand with the Anti-Semites, he might 
 have answered that his duty as a patriotic minister did 
 not compel him to enter upon a struggle with the mis- 
 guided populace, and that on the days when the safety 
 of national defence is at stake we cannot refine the 
 metal of the bells which are sounding the alarm of the 
 country in danger. 
 
 When he comes to the period when CamUle Desmoulins 
 sought to stir up a movement of opinion strong enough 
 to stop the Terror, Jaures speaks energetically against 
 this attempt. He acknowledges, however, a few pages 
 farther on, that the guillotine system could not last for 
 ever ; but Desmoulins, having succumbed, is wrong in 
 the eyes of our humble worshipper of success. Jaures 
 
 1 De Vogiie has the habit in his polemics of thanking his adversaries 
 for having given him much amusement ; that is why I take the liberty 
 of caUing him jovial, although his writings are rather soporific. 
 
 * J. Jaures, op. cit. p. 1434. 
 
 ' J. Jaures, op. cit. p. 77. 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE 121 
 
 accuses the author of the Vieux Cordelier of forgetting 
 the conspiracies, the treasons, the corruptions, and all 
 the dreams with which the Terrorists fed their infatuated 
 imaginations ; he is even ironical enough to speak of 
 " free France ! " and he brings forth this sentence, worthy 
 of a Jacobin pupil of Joseph Prudhomme : " The knife 
 of Desmoxilins was chiselled with an incomparable art ; 
 but he planted it in the heart of the Revolution." 1 
 When Robespierre no longer commands the majority in 
 the Convention he is, as a matter of course, put to death 
 by the other Terrorists, in virtue of the legitimate working 
 of the Parliamentary institutions of that time ; but to 
 appeal to mere public opinion against the Government 
 leaders, that was the " crime " of Desmoulins. His 
 crime was also that committed by Jaurfe at the time he 
 defended Dreyfus against the great leaders of the army 
 and the Government ; how many times has not Jaur^s 
 been accused of compromising the national defence ? 
 But that time is already a long way off ; and our orator 
 at that period, not having yet tasted the advantages of 
 power, did not possess a theory of the State as ferocious 
 as that which he possesses to-day. 
 
 —\, 
 
 I think that I have said sufficient to enable me to con- / 
 elude that if by chance our Parliamentary SociaUsts get u- 
 possession of the reins of Government, they will prove to 
 be worthy successors of the Inquisition, of the Old Regime, , '. 
 and of Robespierre ; political courts will be at work on 
 a large scaile, and we may even suppose that the unfortu- _V_ 
 note law of 1848, which aboUshed the death penalty in "- 
 
 political matters, will be repealed. Thanks to this reform, 
 we might again see the State triumphing by the hand of 
 the executioner. 
 
 Proleta rian ac tso f violence h ave no resemblance to these , ^ 
 proscriptions : they jre purely and _simBlxJ£iiJSLMaj:,: >f<. 
 
 1 J. Jaures, op. cit. p. 1731. 
 
122 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 I they have the valueof railitar5Cj,smon5trMJija§,..aai.sgjx 
 
 I tojnarkthe separation of classes. Everything^ in_ war is 
 
 I carried on \\ath£ut_hatxed anid JsaillPJjt J]ie.,§^iajUof 
 
 \ revenge : in war the vanquished are not killed ; non- 
 
 ( combatants are not made to bear the consequences of the 
 
 I disappointments which the armies may have experienced 
 
 I on the fields of battle ; ^ force is then displayed according 
 
 \ to its own nature, without ever jprofessing to borrow any- 
 
 \ thing from the Judicial procee3ings which society sefs'lip 
 
 \ against criminals. '""'''^' — »-»™~-~„— —»-«., ,..._„ 
 
 V The more Syndicalism develops, by abandoning the 
 old superstitions which come to it from the Old Regime 
 and from the Church — through the men of letters, pro- 
 fessors of philosophy, and historians of the Revolution, — 
 the more will social conflicts assume the character of a 
 simple struggle, Similar to those of armies on campaign. 
 We cannot censure too severely those who teach the people 
 that they ought to carry out the highly idealistic decrees 
 of a progressive justice. Their efforts will only result in 
 the maintenance of those ideas about the State which 
 ' provoked the bloody acts of '93, whilst the idea^f a 
 class war, on the contrary, tends to refine the conception 
 of violence. 
 
 [^' 
 
 IV 
 
 Syndicalism in France is engaged on an, .antimilitarist 
 propaganda, which shows clearly the immense distance 
 which separates it from Parliamentary Socialism in its 
 conception of the nature of the State. Many newspapers 
 believe that all this is merely an exaggerated humanitarian 
 movement, provoked by the articles of Herve ; this is a 
 
 ' I bring to notice here a fact which is perhaps not very well known : 
 the Spanish war in the time of Napoleon was the occasion of innumerable 
 atrocities, but Colonel Lafaille says that in Catalonia the murders 
 and cruelties were never committed by Spanish soldiers who had been 
 enlisted for some time and had become familiar with the usages of war 
 (Mimoives sur Us campagnes de Catalogne de iSoS d 1814, pp. 164-165). 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE 123 
 
 great error. We^should be misconceiving the nature of 
 the movement if we supposed that it was merely a protest 
 against harshness of discipline, against the length of 
 military service, or against the presence, in the higher 
 ranks, of officers hostile to the existing institutions of 
 the country ; ^ these are the reasons which led many 
 middle-class people to applaud declamations against the 
 army at the time of the Dreyfus case, but they are not the 
 Sjmdicalists' reasons. 
 
 T he arra y is the clearest and the most tangible of all^ 
 possible mamfes^i^io ns^ftEe'S'tate, in3~the"onev^icETs 
 most firmly connected wiiK "ife^origins and traditions. 
 S^Ldkalists do not p ropose to reform. the. State, as the 
 
 men of tfie"ei^'|^il]rcehf ufy "^d ; t h'ey' want to destroy -^ | 
 i|2iS!?^'tIge"th'eylvisE~!o 'realise this i3m^ Marx"s^ tfiat ' "^ 
 the Socialist revolution ougHnot to culminate ' in the 
 replacement ""of one governing" minority by another 
 minority^ "^ The S^i^alSts' outline TEeiT doctrine still 
 more clearly when they give it a more ideological aspect, 
 and declare themselves antipatriotic — following the 
 example of the Communist Manifesto. 
 
 It is impossible that there should be the slightest 
 understanding between Syndicalists and official Socialists 
 on this question ; the latter, of course, speak of breaking 
 up everything, but t^ej;_attsi^men jn power xatherthan 
 power itself ; they hope to p^ssess^hg. State JforceSj^^^and 
 
 1 According to Joseph Reinach, an error was committed after the 
 war in choosing as generals former pupils of the military schools 
 (Saint-Cyr and the Poly technique) . He said that the Jesuit colleges 
 had sent many clericals to the School, and it would have been better 
 to choose instead officers who had risen from the ranks ; the generals 
 would have then been less clerical. Loc. cit. pp. 555-556 (I beUeve that 
 his system would not have had the result he imagined it would). 
 
 ' " The society which will organise production on the basis of a free 
 and equal association of producers will transport the whole machiner;^ 
 of State to where its place will be henceforward — in the museum of 
 antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and "the bronze axe " 
 (Engels, Les Origines de la SocUU, French trans, p. 281). 
 
 3 Manifests communiste, translated, Andler, tome i. p. 39. ^ 
 
X 
 
 124 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 they are aware thai jaji,.llia, day. wlien 4^ 
 Government they will have needjoL, an armiLl-,t he.y wil l 
 c^rry~Bfr' foreign politics, and consequently they iiLjUlfiir 
 tunPwill have to praise the ieeling of dewjdpn to the 
 fatherland. 
 
 Parliamentary Socialists perceive that antipatriotism 
 is deeply rooted in the minds of Socialist workmen, and 
 they make great efforts to reconcile the irreconcilable ; 
 they are anxious not to oppose too strongly ideas to 
 which the proletariat has become attached, but at the 
 same time they cannot abandon their cherished State, 
 which promises them so many delights. They have 
 stooped to the most comical oratorical acrobatics in order 
 to get over the difficulty. For instance, after the sentence 
 of the Court of Assizes of the Seine, condemning Herve 
 and the antimilitarists, the National Council of the 
 Socialist party passed a resolution branding this " verdict, 
 due to hatred and fear," declaring that a class justice 
 could not " respect liberty of opinion," protesting against 
 the employment of troops in strikes, and affirming 
 " resolutely the necessity for action, and for an inter- 
 national understanding among the workers, for the sup- 
 pression of war" {Socialiste, January 20, 1906). All 
 this is very clever, but the fundamental question is 
 avoided. 
 
 Thus it cannot any longer be contested that there is 
 . an absolute opposition between revolutionary Syndicalism 
 and the State ; this opposition takes in France the particu- 
 larly harsh form of antipatriotism, because the politicians 
 have devoted all their knowledge and ability to the task 
 of spreading confusion in people's minds about the 
 essence of Socialism. On the plane of patriotism there 
 can be no compromises and half-way positions ; it is 
 therefore on this plane that the Syndicalists have been 
 forced to take their stand when middle-class people of 
 every description employed all their powers of seduction 
 
PREJUDICES AGAINST VIOLENCE 133 
 
 ta corrupt Socialism and tqjJienate the workers from the 
 revolutionary idea. TKey have been led to deny"the idea 
 of patriotism by one of those necessities which are met 
 with at all times in the course of history, ^ and which 
 philosophers have sometimes great difficulty in explaining 
 — because the choice is imposed by external conditions, 
 and not freely made for reasons drawn from the nature of 
 things. This character of historical necessity gives to 
 the existing antipatriotic movement a strength which it 
 would be useless to attempt to dissimulate by means of 
 sophistries.^ 
 
 We have the right to conclude from the preceding 
 analysis that-^Syndicalist violence, perpetrated in the course 
 of strikes by proletarians who desire the overthrow of the 
 State, must not be confused with those acts of savagery 
 which -.the superstition of the State suggested to the j,. 
 revolutionaries of '93, when they had power in their hands 
 and were able. to oppress the conquered — following the 
 principles which they had received from the Church and 
 from the Monarchy. We have the right to hope that a 
 SociaUst revolution carried out by pure S5mdicalists would 
 not be defiled by the abominations which sullied the 
 middle-class revolutions. 
 
 1 After the trial of Herve, L6on Daudet wrote : " Those who followed 
 this case were thrilled by the testimonies, by no means theatrical, of 
 the trade union secretaries" {Libre Parole, December 31, 1905). 
 
 2 Yet Jaur6s had the audacity to declare in the Chamber on May 11, 
 1907, that there was only " on the surface of the working-class move- 
 ment a few paradoxical and outrageous formulas, which originated, 
 not from the negation of the fatherland, but from condemnation of the 
 abuse to which word and idea were so often put." Language like this 
 could only have been used before an assembly which was entirely 
 ignorant of the working-class movement. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 
 
 I. The confusion in Parliamentary Socialism and the clearness 
 of the general strike — Myths in history — The value of the 
 general strike proved by experience. 
 
 II. Researches made to perfect Marxism — Means of throwing 
 light upon it, starting from the point of view of the general 
 strike : class war ; preparation for the revolution and 
 absence of Utopias ; irrevocable character of the revolution. 
 
 III. Scientific prejudices against the general strike ; doubts about 
 science — The clear and the obscure parts in thought — 
 Economic incompetence of Parliaments. 
 
 Every time that we attempt to obtain an exact conception 
 of the ideas behind proletarian violence we are forced to 
 go back to the notion of the general strike ; and this same 
 conception may render many other services, and throw 
 an miexpected light on all the obscure parts of Socialism. 
 In the last pages of the first chapter I compared the 
 general strike to the Napoleonic battle which definitely 
 crushes an adversary ; this comparison wUl help us to 
 understand the part played by the general strike in the 
 world of ideas. 
 
 Military writers of to-day, when discussing the new 
 methods of war necessitated by the employment of troops 
 infinitely more numerous than those of Napoleon, equipped 
 with arms much more deadly than those of his time, do 
 
 126 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE isy 
 
 not for all that imagine that wars will be decided in 
 any other way than that of the Napoleonic battle. The 
 new tactics proposed must fit into the drama Napoleon 
 had conceived ; the detailed development of the combat 
 will doubtless be quite different from what it used to be, 
 but the end must always be the catastrophic defeat of the 
 enemy. The methods of military instruction are intended 
 to prepare the soldier for this great and terrible action, in 
 which everybody must be ready to take part at the first 
 signal. From the highest to the lowest, the members of 
 a really solid army have always in mind this catastrophic 
 issue of international conflicts. 
 
 The revolutionary Syndicates argue about Sociahst 
 action exactly in the same manner as military writers 
 argue about war ; they restrict the whole of Sociahsm 
 to the general strike ; they look upon every combination *" 
 as one that should culminate in this catastrophe ; they 
 see in each strike a reduced facsimile, an essay, a prepara- 
 tion for the great final upheaval. 
 
 The new school, which calls itself Marxist, Syndicalist, i 
 and revolutionary, declared in favour of the idea of the • 
 general strike as soon as it became clearly conscious of 
 the true sense of its own doctrine, of the consequences of 
 its activity, and of its own originality. It was thus led 
 to leave the old official, Utopian, and political tabernacles, 
 which hold the general strike in horror, and to launch 
 itself into the true current of the proletarian revolutionary 
 movement ; for a long time past the proletariat had made 
 adherence to the principle of the general strike the test 
 by means of which the Socialism of the workers was 
 distinguished from that of the amateur revolutionaries. 
 
 Parliamentary Socialists can only obtain great influence 
 if they can manage, by the use of a very confused language, pL^ 
 to impose themselves on very diverse groups ; for example, '' 
 they must have working-men constituents simple enough 
 to allow themselves to be duped by high-sounding phrases 
 
is8 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 about future collectivism ; they are compelled to repre- 
 sent themselves as profound philosophers to stupid middle- 
 class people who wish to appear to be well informed 
 about social questions ; it is very necessary also for 
 them to be able to exploit rich people who think that they 
 are earning the gratitude of humanity by taking shares 
 in the enterprises of Socialist politicians. This influence 
 is founded on balderdash, and our bigwigs endeavour — 
 sometimes only too successfully — to spread confusion 
 among the ideas of their readers ; they detest the general 
 strike because all propaganda carried on from that point 
 of view is too socialistic to please philanthropists. 
 
 In the mouths of these self-styled representatives of 
 the proletariat all socialistic formulas lose their real sense. 
 The class war still remains the great principle, but it^inust 
 be subordinated to national solidarity.^ Internationahsm 
 is an article of faith about which the most moderate declare 
 themselves ready to take the most solemn oaths ; but 
 patriotism also imposes sacred duties.^ The emancipa- 
 tion of the workers must be the work of the workers them- 
 selves — their newspapers repeat this every day, — but real 
 emancipation consists in voting for a professional poli- 
 tician, in securing for him the means of obtaining a 
 comfortable situation in the world, in subjecting oneself 
 to a leader. In the end the State must disappear — and 
 
 1 The Petit Parisien, which makes a specialty of Socialist and 
 working-class questions, warned strikers on March 31, 1907, that they 
 " must never imagine that they are absolved from the observance of 
 the ordinary social duties and responsibilities." 
 
 2 At the time when the antimilitarists were beginning to occupy 
 pubUc attention, the Petit Parisien was distinguished by its patriotism : 
 on October 8, 1905, it published an article on " The Sacred Duty " 
 and on " The Worship of this Tricolor Flag which has carried aU over 
 the World our Glories and our Liberties " ; on January I, 1906, it con- 
 gratulated the Jury de la Seine : " The flag has been avenged for the 
 insults flung by its detractors on this noble emblem. When it is 
 carried through the streets it is saluted. The juries have done more 
 than bow to it ; they have gathered round it with respect." This is 
 certainly very cautious Socialism. 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE isg 
 
 they are very careful not to dispute what Engels has 
 written on this subject — but this disappearance will take 
 place only in a future so far distant that you must prepare 
 yourself for it by using the State meanwhile as a means of 
 providing the politicians with titbits ; and the best means 
 of bringing about the disappearance of the State consists 
 in strengthening meanwhile the Governmental machiner 
 This method of reasoning resembles that of Gribouille, 
 who threw himself into the water in order to escape/ 
 getting wet in the rain. 
 
 Whole pages could be filled with the bare outhnes of 
 the contradictory, comical, and quack arguments which 
 form the substance of the harangues of our great men ; 
 nothing embarrasses them, and they know how to combine, 
 in pompous, impetuous, and nebulous speeches, the most 
 absolute irreconcilability with the most supple opportun- 
 ism. A learned exponent of Socialism has said that the 
 art of reconciling opposites by means of nojgse nse is t he 
 most obvious result which he had got from the study of 
 the works of Marx.^ I confess my extreme incompetence 
 in these difficult matters ; moreover, I make no claim 
 whatever to be counted among the people upon whom 
 poUticians confer the title of learned ; yet I cannot easily 
 bring myself to admit that this is the sum and substance 
 of the Marxian philosophy. 
 
 The controversy between Jauresand Clemenceaudemon- 
 strated quite clearly that our Pariiamentary Socialists can 
 succeed in deceiving the pubhc only by their equivocation ; 
 
 1 Two motions had been discussed at length by the National Council, 
 one proposing that the departmental federations should be invited 
 to enter the electoral struggle wherever it was possible, the other that 
 candidates should be put forward everywhere. One member got up 
 and said, " I should be glad of your earnest attention, for the argu- 
 ment which I am about to state may at first sight appear strange and 
 paradoxical. (These two motions) are not irreconcilable, if we try to 
 solve this contradiction according to the natural Marxian method of 
 solving any contradiction" (Socialiste, October 7, 1905). It seems that 
 nobody understood. And, in fact, it was unintelligible. 
 
 K 
 
ijo REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 and that, as the result of continually deceiving their readers, 
 they have finally lost aU sense of honest discussion. In the 
 Aurore of September 4, 1905, Clemenceau accuses Jaures 
 of muddling the minds of his partisans " with meta- 
 physical subtleties into which they are incapable of 
 following him " ; there is nothing to object to in this 
 accusation, save the use of the word metaphysical ; Jaures 
 is no more a metaphysician than he is a lawyer or an 
 astronomer. In the number of October 26 Clemenceau 
 proves that his opponent possesses " the art of falsifying 
 his texts," and he ends by sajdng, " It seemed to me 
 instructive to expose certain polemical practices which we 
 wrongly supposed to be monopoly of the Jesuits." 
 
 Against this noisy, garrulous, and lying Socialism, 
 which is exploited by ambitious people of every descrip- 
 tion, which amuses a few buffoons, and which is admired 
 by decadents — revolutionary Syndicahsm takes its stand, 
 and endeavours, on the cdntfary, to leave nothing in a state 
 of indecision ; its ideas are honestly expressed, without ,1 j 
 trickery and without mental reservations ; no attempt 'J 
 is made to dilute doctrines by a stream of confused com- 
 mentaries. S3mdicalism endeavours to employ methods 
 of expression which throw a fuU hght on things, which 
 put them exactly in the place assigned to them by their 
 nature, and which bring out the whole vedue of the forces 
 in play. Oppositions, instead of being glozed over, must 
 be thrown into sharp relief if we desire to obtain a clear 
 idea of the Syndicalist movement ; the groups which are 
 struggUng one against the other must be shown as separate 
 and as compact as possible ; in short, the movements. of 
 the revolted masses must be represented in such a way 
 that the soul of the revolutionaries may receive a deep 
 and lasting impression. 
 
 These results could not be produced in any very certain 
 [N, I manner by the use of ordinary language ; use must be 
 V made of a body of images which, by intuition alone, and 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 131 
 
 before any considered analyses are made, is capable of 
 evoking as an. undivided whole the mass of sentiments 
 which corresponds to the different manifestations of the 
 war rmdertaken. by Socialism against " inodefii society. 
 The Syndicalists solve this problem perfectly, by con- 
 centrating the whole of Socialism in the drama of 
 the general strike ; there is thus no longer any place 
 for the reconciliation of contraries in the equivocations 
 of the professors ; everything is clearly mapped out, 
 \j so that only one interpretation of Socialism is possible. 
 This method has all the advantages which "integral" 
 knowledge has over analysis, according to the doctrine o£_ 
 Bergson ; and perhaps it would not be possible to cite 
 another example which would so perfectly demonstrate 
 the value of the famous professor's doctrines.^ 
 
 The possibility of the actual realisation of the general 
 strike has been much discussed ; it has been stated that 
 the Socialist war could not be decided in one single battle. 
 To the people who think themselves cautious, practical, 
 and scientific the difficulty of setting great masses of the 
 proletariat in motion at the same moment seems pro- 
 digious ; they have analysed the difficulties of detail which 
 such an enormous struggle would present. It is the opinion 
 of the Socialist-sociologists, as also of the politicians, that , 
 the general strike is a popular dream, characteristic of \ 
 the beginnings of a working-class movement ; we have \ 
 had quoted against us the authority of Sidney Webb, j 
 who has decreed that the general strike is an illusion of 
 youth,^ of which the English workers — whom the mono- 
 pohsts of sociology have so often presented to us as the 
 
 1 The nature of these articles will not allow of any long discussion 
 of this subject ; but I believe that it would be possible to develop still 
 further the application of Bergson's ideas to the theory of the general 
 strike. Movement, in Bergson's philosophy, is looked upon as an 
 undivided whole ; which leads us precisely to the catastrophic con- 
 ception of Socialism. 
 
 2 Bourdeau, Evolution du Socialisme, p. 232. 
 
133 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 depositaries of the true conception of the working-class 
 movement — soon rid themselves. 
 
 That the general strike is not popular in contemporary 
 England, is a poor argument to bring against the historical 
 significance of the idea, for the English are distinguished 
 by an extraordinary lack of understanding of the class 
 war ; their ideas have remained very much dominated 
 by medieval influences : the guild, privileged, or at least 
 protected by laws, still seems to them the ideal of work- 
 ing-class organisation ; it is for England that the term 
 working-class aristocracy, as a name for the trades unionists, 
 was invented, and, as a matter of fact, trades unionism 
 does pursue the acquisition of legal privileges.^ We 
 might therefore say that the aversion felt by England 
 for the general strike should be looked upon as strong 
 presumptive evidence in favour of the latter by all those 
 who look upon the class war as the essence of Socialism. 
 
 Moreover, Sidney Webb enjoys a reputation for 
 competence which is very much exaggerated ; all that 
 can be put to his credit is that he has waded through un- 
 interesting blue-books, and has had the patience to compose 
 an extremely indigestible compilation on the history of 
 trades unionism ; he has a mind of the narrowest descrip- 
 tion, which could only impress people unaccustomed to 
 reflection.2 Those who introduced his fame into France 
 knew nothing at all about Socialism ; and if he is really 
 in the first rank of contemporary authors of economic 
 history, as his translator affirms,* it is because the 
 
 1 This is seen, for example, in the efforts made by the trade unions 
 to obtain laws absolving them from the civil responsibilities of their 
 acts. 
 
 2 Tarde could never understand the reputation enjoyed by Sidney 
 Webb, who seemed to him to be a worthless scribbler. 
 
 ' M6tin, Le Socialisme en Angleterre, p. 210. This writer has 
 received from the Government a certificate of socialism ; on July 26, 
 1904, the French Commissioner-General at the St. Louis exhibition 
 said : " M. Metin is animated by the best democratic spirit ; he is an 
 excellent republican ; he is even a socialist whom working-class organisa- 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 
 
 133 
 
 intellectual level of these historians is rather low ; more- 
 over, many examples show us that it is possible to be a 
 most illustrious professional historian and yet possess a 
 mind something less than mediocre. -^ 
 
 Neither do I attach any importance to the objections ' 
 made to the general strike based on considerations of a '' 
 practical order. The attempt to construct hj^otheses 
 about the nature of the struggles of the future and the 
 means of suppressing capitalism, on the model furnished 
 by history, is a return to the old methods of the Utopists. 
 There_ is no process by which the future can be predicted i 
 scientificallyj nor even one which enables us to discuss 
 whether one hypothesis, about it is better than another ; it 
 has been proved by too many memorable examples that 
 the greatest men have committed prodigious errors in thus 
 desiring to make predictions about even the least distant | 
 future.! ~^ 
 
 And yet without leaving the present, without reasoning 
 about this future, which seems for ever condemned to 
 escape our reason, we should be unable to act at all. 
 Experience shgwsjaaLlll£jiam#^ 
 t'wgg^gywtit a^g'^S wgr mav,. w hen, it is di()r\ f.ArL.&-cer^va. ^:i:iL. 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^5^^^!i^Li^:,^^S^^iS^^^~^^ this 
 happens v^xenTthe ant icipations of the futur e take the 
 form of those '^yiha-J^liich enclose with' IKm^ainthe 
 strxjngest inclmations of a people, of a partyorraXcTass, 
 mclmat ions which recur to the mind wi th th e insistence of 
 instincts in .alLths..cir.C-Umstances of life : and whlch-give 
 a n aspe ct of complete reality to the hopes of immedia te 
 action by which, more easily than by a.ny otKeFmethbd, ! j 
 men can~refoimThar^sires7paSo^^^^ I 
 
 tion should welcome as a friend " {Association ouvnire, July 30, 1904). 
 An amusing study could be made of those persons who possess certificates 
 of this kind, given to them, either by the Government, the Musie social, 
 or the well-informed press. 
 
 ^ The errors committed by Marx are numerous and sometimes 
 enormous (cf. G. Sorel, Saggi di critica del marxismo, pp. 5I-57)- 
 
134 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 We know, moreover, that these social mjrths in no way 
 prevent a man profiting by the observations which he 
 makes in the 'course of his hfe, and form no obstacle to 
 the pursuit of his normal occupations.^ 
 
 The truth of this may be shown by numerous examples. 
 
 The first Christians expected the return of Christ "lEnd 
 the total ruin of the pagan world, with the inauguration 
 of the kingdom of the saints, at the end of the first genera- 
 tion. The catastrophe did not come to pass, but Christian 
 thought profited so greatly from the apocalyptic mjrth 
 that certain contemporary scholars maintain that the 
 whole preaching of Christ referred solely to this one point.^ 
 The hopes which Luther and Calvin had formed of the 
 religious exaltation of Europe were by no means realised ; 
 these fathers of the Reformation very soon seemed men 
 of a past era ; for present-day Protestants they belong 
 rather to the Middle Ages than to modem times, and the 
 problems which troubled them most occupy very little 
 place in contemporary Protestantism. Must we for that 
 reason deny the immense result which came from their 
 dreams of Christian renovation ? It must be admitted 
 that the real developments of the Revolution did not in 
 any way resemble the enchanting pictures which created 
 the enthusiasm of its first adepts ; but without those 
 pictures would the Revolution have been victorious ? 
 Many Utopias were mixed up with the Revolutionary 
 myth,^ because it had been formed by a society passion- 
 ately fond of imaginative literature, fuU of confidence 
 in the "science,"* and very little acquainted with the 
 
 1 It has often been remarked that English or American sectarians 
 whose religious exaltation was fed by the apocalyptic myths were often 
 none the less very practical men. 
 
 2 At the present time, this doctrine occupies an important place in 
 German exegesis ; it was introduced into France by the Abbe Loisy. 
 
 3 Cf. the Letter to Daniel Halevy, IV. 
 
 * In French petite science. This expression is used to indicate the 
 popular science with which the majority is much more familiar than it 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 135 
 
 economic history of the past. These Utopias came to 
 nothing ; but it may be asked whether the Revolution 
 was not a much more profound transformation than those 
 dreamed of by the people who in the eighteenth century 
 had invented social Utopias. In our own times Mazzini 
 pursued what the wiseacres of his time called a mad 
 chimera ; but it can no longer be denied that, without 
 Mazzini, Italy would never have become a great power, 
 and that he did more for Italian imity than Cavovir and 
 all the politicians of his school. 
 
 A knowledge of what the myths contain in the way 
 of details which will actually form part of the history of 
 the future is then of small importance ; they are not 
 ^ astjglogical ..gfeajia^s ; jl^js e^^^^ 
 
 wMch they contain will ever come to pass,-^as was the 
 case'wth the catastrophe expected by the first Christians.^ 
 In our own daily life, are we not familiar with the fact 
 that what actually happens is very different from our 
 preconceived notion of it ? And that does not prevent 
 us from continuing to make resolutions. Psychologists 
 say that there is heterogeneity between the ends in view 
 and the ends actually realised : the slightest experience of 
 life reveals this law to us, which Spencer transferred into 
 nature, to extract therefrom his theory of the multiplica- 
 tion of effects.^ _ 
 \ The myth must be judged as a meajis of acting on the li 
 V^ ^'entJ ansTattem^^ it ca n be" taken' 
 
 is with the difficult researches of the real scientists. These latter are 
 generally as modest as the writers on popular science are vain and 
 boastful. 
 
 '^ I have tried to show elsewhere how this social m3rth, which has 
 disappeared, was succeeded by a piety which has remained extremely 
 important in Catholic life ; this evolution from the social to the in- 
 dividual, seems to me quite natural in a reUgion (Le Systime historique 
 de Renan, pp. 374-382). 
 
 2 I believe, moreover, that the whole of Spencer's evolutionism is 
 to be explained as an application of the most commonplace psychology 
 to physics. 
 
136 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 literally as future history is devoid of sense. It is the 
 \ ~w^h in its~eniiret'v.'wTnch is atone im1)orta nt : i ts parts ^.re" 
 only of interest in so far as they bring out the niainidea. 
 No useful purpose is served, 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 Jn 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 aspirationT of Socialism, and if it has 
 given to the whole body of Revolutionary thought a pre- 
 cision 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 political science, must be abandoned. 
 Everything which its opponents endeavour to estabhsh 
 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 1 
 partial reality, or only a product of popular imagina- I 
 
 tion, is of little importance. All that it is necessary to v 1/ 
 ^ know is, whether the general strike contains everjrthing 
 that the Socialist doctrine expects of the revolutionary I 
 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 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 137 
 
 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 sociahstic 
 conceptions, and thanks to which their reason, their hopes, 
 and their way of looking at particular facts seem to make 
 but one indivisible imity.^ 
 
 Thanks to these men, we know that the general strike 
 i£ indeed what I have said :, t he i wy ^ ^. in \yhich Socialism 
 is •y^ollv comprised, i .e. a fyTg^ pf i mTprgg Ta"A'h"Kiyi^^ 
 evokin g mstinctively all the sentime nts whir.h rmTespond: 
 ■t^^^ different manif pstatIg£ s~or the" war undertS en 
 by S ocialism apjj nsy'ffindftrrr societyP 'S'triEes Tiave en- 
 gendered m tne proletariat tne noblest, deepest, and most 
 moving sentiments that they possess ; the general strike 
 groups them all in a£0-ordinated picture, and, by bringing 
 thern together, gives to each one of them its ihaxraium 
 of intensity ; appealing to their painful memories of 
 particular conflicts, it colours with an intense life 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 have 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. 
 
 2 This is the " global knowledge " of Bergson's philosophy. 
 
 ' I do not remember that the official Socialists have ever shown up 
 
 ] 
 
 -:A 
 
138 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 social reforms, Clemenceau brought out the Machiavelian- 
 ism in the attitude of Jaures, 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 sub- 
 stance, 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 politicians are no longer 
 content with compUcated 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 fehcity, which any one who looks at these 
 matters scientifically knows can only be very partially 
 reaHsed, and even then only after long efforts on the part 
 of several generations." (That is what Socialist politicians 
 do, according to Clemenceau.) The more readily the 
 electors believe 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 believe every promise of future 
 bliss ; ^ our Socialist poUticians take very good care, 
 
 the 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 naiddle-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 ? 
 
 ' In the article which I have already quoted, Clemenceau recalls that 
 Jaur6s 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 
 strikej^ecause they recognise, in the course of their pro- 
 pagandist rounds, that this conception is so admirably 
 adapted, to the working-class mind that there is a pos- 
 sibility of its dominating the latter in the most absolute 
 manner, thus leaving no place ior 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 Parliamentary 
 regime has been built up. 
 
 The opposition it meets with from official SociaUsts, 
 therefore, furnishes a confirmation of our first inquiry 
 into the scope of the general strike. 
 
 II 
 
 (We must now proceed further, and inqmre whether 
 the picture furnished by the general strike is really com- 
 plete ; that is to say, whether it comprises all those features 
 of the struggle which are recognised by modem Sociahsnii 
 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 un- 
 divided 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 
 
140 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 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 Marxisni and IhfeC^ 
 co-ordinated aspects furnished by the picture of the 
 general strike* 
 
 This affirmation is certain to appear paradoxical to 
 many who have read the publications of the most 
 accredited Marxians ; and, 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 liberating 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 representa- 
 tives of Marxism rather than from the principles of the 
 doctrine itself.^ 
 
 The new school began its emcincipation on the day 
 S< when_ it ^perceived clearly that the formulas of Socialism 
 were often very far from the sjaritvof Marx, and when it 
 recommended a return to that(spkitj It was not without 
 a certain amount of stupefactTrai that it discerned that 
 it had credited the master with many so-called inventibns 
 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 mefaphysique, 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.] 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 141 
 
 Musee Social is considered to be well informed, — " the 
 accumulation (of capital in the hands of a few individuals) 
 is one of the great discoveries of Marx, one of the dis- 
 coveries of whch he was most proud. 1 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 
 Maf33affi Who a'spired to think for themselves began to 
 stu3ythe syndicalist movement; they discovered that "the 
 genuine, tradejanionists have more to teach us than TKey 
 haye 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 
 an5rthing more at bottom than the certainty, at last 
 obtained, of manipulating the concept profitably." ^ 
 And yet another profound thought of Bergson may use- 
 fully be quoted : " 5or we do not obtain an intuition 
 from reality — that is, an intellectual sjmipathy with the 
 most intimate part of it — unlesawe have won its confidence 
 by a long fellowship with its superficial manifestations. 
 had it is' not merely a question of assimilating the most 
 conspicuous facts ; so immense a mass of facts must be 
 accumulated and fused together, that in this fusion all 
 
 1 A. Metin, op. cit. p. 191. 
 
 2 G. Sorel, Avenir socialiste des syndicats, p. 12. 
 
 ' Bergson, loc. cit. 
 
14^ REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 the preconceived and premature ideas which observers 
 may unwittingly have put into their observations will be 
 certain to neutraUze 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 deplor- 
 ably 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 nullified 
 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 profound 
 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 con- 
 temporary 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 until then had 
 remained practically unknown to the big-wigs who pro- 
 fessed to be guiding Socialism. Thus the fundamental 
 principles of Marxism are perfectly intelligible onlyL with 
 the aid of the picture of the generaLstrike, and, on the 
 other hand, the fuU 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 aU Soci^istie^^hought, 
 and which stands in such great need of elucidation, 
 
 ' Bergson, loc. cit. 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 14.3 
 
 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 "V" 
 true that a certain effort of will is necessary before we can 
 find it verified in the phenomena of everyday hfe. 
 
 The organisation of a capitahstic workshop furnishes 
 a first approximation, and piece-work plays an essential 
 part in the formation of the class idea ; in fact, it throws 
 into relief the very clear opposition of interests about 
 the price of commodities ; ^ the workers feel themselves 
 under the thxmib 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, coimtry 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 belong- 
 ing to the proletariat class. 
 
 Ihe strike throws a new light on all this ; it separates j 
 thg^ 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 ; itJ;hen„ becomes clear^ that the administrative group 
 has a natural tendency to become a little aristocracy ; 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 " 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). 
 
144 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 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 
 structurerin so far as the latter is looked upon from the 
 point of view of the class war, reach the summit 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 out- 
 bursts 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. AU that would be 
 negligible if it were only a question of a few exceptional 
 people, but it has often been maintained that the psycho- 
 logy 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. 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 14.3 
 
 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 
 t-endencies are conserva.tive, 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 vaUd for 
 societies which lack the conception of the class war. 
 
 Observation shows that this last conception is main- 
 tained 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 catasirop h g^ on 1 "It" 
 that day th ere is no longer any pos sibilit y of social neace. >.i 
 ot resignation to routine, or of enthusiasm for philan- 
 thropic 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, SociaUsm 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. iii 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. 
 
 L 
 
 
146 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 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 like ours, which has 
 seen so many novelties introduced in an unexpected 
 manner. Modem progress has been brought about by 
 successive compromises ; why not pursue the aims of 
 Socialism by methods which have succeeded so weU ? 
 Many means of satisfying the more pressing desires of the 
 unfortunate classes can be thought of. For a long time 
 these proposals for improvement were inspired by a con- 
 servative, feudal, or Catholic spirit. We wish, said the 
 inventors, to rescue the masses from the influence of the 
 Radicals. The latter, seeing their political influence 
 assailed, not so much by their old enemies as by Socialist 
 politicians, invent nowadays all kinds of projects of a 
 progressive, democratic, free-thinking colour. We are 
 beginning at last to be threatened with socialistic com- 
 promises ! 
 
 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 
 1 class.^ We must no_t always attach too much importance 
 jto violent attacks on the middle class ; they may have 
 i behind them the desire_to reform and perfect capitalism.^ 
 'There are, it seems, quite a number of people about now- 
 adays who, though not in the least desiring the disappear- 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 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. 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 147 
 
 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 
 
 '~*' -"-- ■- i .-.^JU,, -p.. ' . A L".ir"- ' ?-; ' -- ' !^l*J ' ' ■ , "- ■ " ■I I -/ tim ; iii.i M .J» w n wM m .ii ii jj ' iiiiw n ii n i iiii m ^ 
 
 c onsequenceg o r every possible social policy ; its partisans 
 look upon even the Jtnost popular reforms as having a vk 
 
 ^ I „ ■ .1 ii.i,. II ■ ■- ■ w ill nriiiirif .^>>tiM SBMaaa>Mt,* ^ 'j ^ - : ^. . ^.^-i:^- fT'^ 
 
 mj aalfeciass- cnara et er ; sojiar as they are concerned, ^ 
 nothing. can weak en the Jundameiitar opposition of the 
 cl ass jy ^ The more the policy of social reforms becomes • 
 prepocidCTant, 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 wUl be disciplined, united, 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,^ degrada- 
 tion, 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 
 
 1 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 hving, that he did nothing 
 to set him up in life" (La Vie amtricaine, I' Education et la sociiti, p. 9). 
 
 2 Capital, vol. i. p. 342, col. 1. 
 
148 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 one side by means of the theory of myths. The different 
 terms which Marx uses to describe the preparation for the 
 decisive combat are not to be taken literally 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, increas- 
 ing, 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, should prepare for the part 
 it is to play in the future by other ways than those of 
 revolutionary Syndicalism. Thus the exponents of co- 
 operation 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 abolish 
 all the prejudices arising from the old Catholic influence, 
 etc. Many revolutionaries believe that, however useful 
 Syndicalism 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 fundamental law 
 of the world. Socialists should not be ashamed to apply to 
 speciahsts in philosophy and law, of whom there is never 
 any lack. Jaurds 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 place in a period of economic decadence ; many 
 Marxists do not seem to have formed a clear idea of Marx's 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 149 
 
 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 pro- 
 portion to the means of regulation which the capitalistic 
 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 under 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 English 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 peasants and 
 the artisans will not join hands with them unless the 
 future appears so rosy-coloured that industrialism 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 
 
 1 It is not difficult to see that propagandists are obliged to refer 
 frequently to this aspect of the social revolution : this will 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 
 appear in colours favourable to everybody. 
 
130 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 degree of prosperity which industry must possess in order 
 that the realisation of Socialism may be possible ; for ex- 
 perience 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 published 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 hence- 
 forth he looked upon him as a reactionary — for, he said, 
 I .,^" the man who draws up a programme for the future is a 
 a^^ i|reactionary." 2 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 pro- 
 duction where capitalism left it. There was no need for 
 programmes of the future ; the programmes were already 
 
 [worked out in the workshops. The idea of a techno- 
 logical continuity dominates -the whole of the Marxian 
 position. 
 
 li 
 
 1 Kautsky has often dwelt on this idea, of which Engels was particu- 
 larly fond. 
 
 2 Bernstein said about this story that Brentano might have exag- 
 gerated a little, but that " the phrase quoted by him was not incon- 
 sistent with Marx's general line of thought " f^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 coUectivist iroubadourism of Lafargue (Lafargue and 
 Y. Guyot, La ProprUie, pp. 121-122). 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 151 
 
 Experience gainedin strikes leads us to a conception 
 identical with that of Marx. _3Vorkmen who. put down ,^A- 
 theif tools do not go to their^employers with schemes for 
 theb&tter organisation of labour, and do not offer them 
 assistance in the management of their business ; in short, 
 Utopias have no place in economic conflicts. Jaures and 
 his friends are well aware that this is a very strong argu- 
 ment 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 hke to 
 see the creation of what they caU 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 Socialism, 
 and might begin at once. 
 
 With the general strike all these fine things disappear ; 
 t?|<> revnlntiara. appears as a revolt, pure ajidsimole. and 
 
 nn plaf-P ip Tpcprrrprl fnr gnrin1ngig-fg, fnr fa<;Tlinnah1p. people 
 
 whoarem,fevoiu_ofjoaaU£^^ 
 
 who have em brace d the . pxM&ssk muiLJimMML.MLJb'^ 
 proletariat. 
 
 """XT' SSSalisra ha,s always inspired terror because of the 
 enormou s element of the tmknown w hich 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 luU anxiety by pictures of the 
 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. 
 
 Marx was finnly. convinced that the spciaL revolution 
 
IS2 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 of which he spoke would constitute an irrevocable trans- 
 
 * ***'*aEliBai «WHIilM J 1 1 nil I Willi I"» 
 
 fozmatiffn, and that it would mark an absolute separation 
 between two historical eras ; he often returned to this 
 idea, and Engels has endeavoured to show, by means of 
 images which were sometimes a little grandiose, how 
 economic enfranchisement would be the point of departure 
 of an era having no relationship with the past. Rejecting 
 all Utopias, these two founders of modem Socialism 
 renounced all the resources by which their predecessors 
 had rendered the prospect of a great revolution less 
 formidable ; but however strong the expressions which 
 they employed might have been, the effects which they 
 produced are still very inferior to those produced by the 
 evocation of the general strike. This conception makes 
 it impossible for us to ignore the fact that a kind of 
 irresistible wave will pass over the old civilisation. 
 
 There is something really terrifying in all this ; but I 
 believe that it is very essential that this feature of Socialism 
 should be insisted on if the latter is to have its full educa- 
 tional value. Socialists must be convinced that the work 
 to which they are devoting themselves is a serious, 
 formidable, and sublime Jffxixk.; it is only on this condition 
 that they will be able to bear the innumerable sacrifices 
 imposed on them by a propaganda, which can procure 
 them neither honours, profits, nor even immediate 
 intellectual satisfaction. Even if the only result of the 
 idea of the general strike was to make the Socialist con- 
 ception more heroic, it should on that account alone be 
 looked upon as having an incalculable value. 
 
 The resemblances which I have just established 
 between Marxism and the general strike might be carried 
 stm further and deeper ; if they have been overlooked 
 hitherto, it is because we are much more struck by the 
 form of things than by their content ; a large number of 
 people find great difficulty in believing that there can be 
 any parallelism between a philosophy based on Hegelian- 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 153 
 
 ism and the constructions made by men entirely devoid 
 of higher culture. Marx had acquired in Germany a taste 
 for very condensed formulas, and these formulas were so 
 admirably suited to the conditions in the midst of which 
 he worked that he naturally made great use of them. 
 When he wrote, there had been none of the great and 
 numerous strikes which would have enabled him to speak 
 with a detailed knowledge- of the means by which the 
 proletariat may prepare itself for the revolution. This 
 absence of knowledge gained from experience very much 
 hampered Marx's thought ; he avoided the use of too 
 precise formulas which would have had this inconvenience 
 of giving a kind of sanction to existing institutions, which 
 seemed valueless to him ; he was therefore happy to be 
 able to find in German academic writing a habit of abstract 
 language which allowed him to avoid all discussion of 
 detail.i 
 
 No better proof perhaps can be given of Marx's genius 
 than the remarkable agreement which is found to exist 
 between lus views and the doctrine which revolutionary 
 Syndicalism is to-day building up slowly and laboriously, 
 keeping always strictly to strike tactics. 
 
 Ill 
 
 For some time yet, the conception of the general strike 
 will have considerable difficulty in becoming acclimatised 
 in circles which are not specially dominated by strike 
 tactics. I think it might be useful at this point to enquire 
 
 1 I have elsewhere put forward the hypothesis that Marx, in the 
 penultimate chapter of the first volume of Capital perhaps wished to 
 demonstrate the difiEerence between the evolution of the proletariat 
 and that of middle-class force. He said that the working class is 
 disciplined, united and organised by the very mechanism of capitalist 
 production. There is perhaps an indication of a movement towards 
 liberty, opposed to the movement towards automatism which will be 
 discussed later when we come to consider middle-class force {Saggi di 
 criiica, pp. 46-47). 
 
J54 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 into the motives which explain the repugnance felt by 
 many intelligent and sincere people who are disturbed 
 by the novelty ot the Syndicalist point of view. All the 
 members of the new school know that they had to make 
 great efforts in order to overcome the prejudices of their 
 upbringing, to set aside the associations of ideas which 
 sprang up spontaneously in their mind, and to reason 
 along lines which in no way corresponded to those which 
 they had been taught. 
 
 During the nineteenth century there existed an in- 
 credible scientific ingenuousness which was the direct out- 
 come of the illusions that had aroused so much excitement 
 towards the end of the eighteenth century.^ Because 
 astronomers had managed to calculate the tables of the 
 moon, it .was .believed that the aim of all science was to 
 forecast the future with accuracy ; because Le Verrier 
 had been able to indicate the probable position of the 
 planet Neptune-^which had never been seen, and which 
 accounted for the disturbances of observable planets — 
 it was beheved that science could remedy the defects of 
 ^>r-^ society, and indicate what measures should be taken to 
 bring about the disappearance of the unpleasant things 
 ' in the world. It may be said that this was the middle- 
 class conception oJscien£_e : it certainly corresponds "veiy 
 closely to the mental attitude of those capitalists, who, 
 ignorant of the perfected appliances of their workshops, 
 yet direct industry, and always find ingenious inventors 
 to get them out of their difficulties. For the middle class 
 science is a mill which produces solutions to all the 
 problems we are faced with : ^ science is no longer con- 
 
 1 The history of scientific superstitions is of the deepest interest to 
 philosophers who wish to understand Socialism. These superstitions 
 have remained dear to our democracy, as they had been dear to the 
 beaux espriis of the Old Regime ; I have touched on a few of the aspects 
 of this history in Les Illusions du progris. Engels was often under the 
 influence of these errors, from which Marx himself was not always free. 
 
 2 Marx quotes this curious phrase from Ure, written about 1830 : 
 " This invention supports the doctrine already developed by us : if 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE ijs 
 
 sidered as a perfected means to knowledge, but only as a 
 "'^recipe for procuring certain advantages.^ 
 
 I have said that Marx rejected all attempts to determine 
 the conditions gl a future society ; too much stress cannot 
 be laid on this point, for it shows that he took his stand 
 outside middle-class science. The doctrine of the general 
 strik:eal§o repudiates this science, and many professors 
 consequently accuse the new school of having negative 
 ideas only ; their own aim, on the other hand, is the noble 
 one of constructing universal happiness. The leaders of 
 social democracy, it seems to me, have not been very 
 Marxian on this point ; a few years ago, Kautsky wrote 
 a preface to a somewhat burlesque Utopia.^ 
 
 I believe that among the motives which led Bernstein 
 to part from his old friends must be counted the horror 
 which he felt for their Utopias. If Bernstein had hved 
 in France and had known our revolutionary Syndicalism, 
 he would soon have perceived that the latter was on the 
 true Marxian track ; but neither in England nor in 
 Germany did he find a working-class movement which 
 could guide him ; wishing to remain attached to realities, 
 as Marx had been, he thought that it was better to carry 
 on a policy of social reform, pursuing practical ends, than 
 to lull himself to sleep to the sound of fine phrases about 
 the happiness of future humanity. 
 
 The worshippers of this useless pseudo science did not 
 allow themselves to be stopped by the objection, legitimate 
 in this case, that tljeix. methods of calculation. were^ntirely 
 inadequate of their nieans- of, determination. Their con- 
 ception of science, being derived from astronomy, supposes 
 
 capital enlists the aid of science, the rebel hand of labour always learns 
 how to be tractable " (Capital, Eng. trans., vol. i. p. i88, col. 2). 
 
 1 To use the language of the new school, science was considered from 
 the point of view of the consumer and not from the point of view of the 
 
 , producer. 
 
 2 Atlanticus, Ein Blick in den Zukunftsstaat. E. Seilli^re reviewed 
 this book in the Dibats of August 16, 1899. 
 
156 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 that everything can be expressed by some mathematical 
 law. Evidently there are no laws of this kind in sociology ; 
 but man is always susceptible to analogies connected with 
 the forms of expression : it was thought that a high degree 
 of perfection had been attained, and that already some- 
 thing had been accomplished for science when — starting 
 from a few principles not offensive to common sense, 
 which seem confirmed by a few common experiences — it 
 had been foimd possible to present a doctrine in a simple, 
 clear, and deductive manner. This so-called science is 
 simply chatter.^ 
 
 The Utopists excelled in the art of exposition in 
 accorda:nce with these prejudices ; the more their exposi- 
 tion satisfied the requirements of a school book, the more 
 convincing they thought their inventions were. I believe 
 that the contrary of this belief is the truth, and that we 
 should distrust proposals for social reform all the more, 
 when every difficulty seems solved in an apparently satis- 
 factory manner. 
 
 I should like to examine here, very briefly, a few of the 
 illusions which have arisen out of what may be called the 
 litUe science? which beheves that when, it has attained 
 
 1 " It has not been enough noticed how feeble is the reach of deduc- 
 tion in the psychological and moral sciences. . . . Very soon appeal 
 has to be made to common sense, that is to say, to the continuous ex- 
 perience of the real, in order to inflect the consequences deduced and 
 bend them along the sinuosities of life. Deduction succeeds in things 
 moral only metaphorically so to speak " (Bergson, Creative Evolution, 
 p. 224). Newman had already written something similar to this, 
 but in more precise terms : " Thus it is that the logician for his own 
 purposes, and most usefully as far as these purposes are concerned, 
 turns rivers, full, winding and beautiful, into navigable canals. . . . His 
 business is not to ascertain facts in the concrete but to find and dress 
 up middle terms ; and, provided they and the extremes which they go 
 between are not equivocal, either in themselves or in their use. Sup- 
 posing he can enable his pupils to show well in a viva voce disputation, 
 ... he has achieved the main purpose of his profession " [Grammar of 
 Assent, pp. 261-262). There is no weakness in this denunciation of 
 small talk. 
 
 ^ See note, p. 66. 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 157 
 
 clarity of exposition that it has attained truth. This 
 little science has contributed a great deal towards creating 
 the crisis in Marxism, and every day we hear the new 
 school accused of delighting in the obscurities of which 
 Marx has so often been accused, while French Sociahsts 
 and Belgian Sociologists, on the contrary, . . . ! 
 
 Perhaps the best way of giving an accurate idea of the 
 error committed by these sham scientists against whom 
 the new school is waging war will be to examine the general 
 characteristics of some social phenomena, and to run 
 through some of the achievements of the mind, beginning 
 with the highest. - 
 
 A. (i) The^ositivists, who represent, in an eminent 
 degree, mediocrity, pride, and pedantry, had decreed that 
 philosophy was to give way, before ^^AezV science ; hut 
 philosophy is not dead, and it has acquired a new and 
 vigorous lease of life thanks to Bergson, who far from 
 wishing to reduce everything to science, has claimed for 
 the philosopher the right to proceed in a manner quite 
 opposed to that employed by the scientist. It might be 
 said that metaphysics has reclaimed the lost ground by 
 demonstrating to man the illusion of so-called scientific 
 solutions, and by bringing the mind back to the mysterious 
 region which the little science abhors. Positivism is still 
 achnired by a few Belgians, the employees of the Office 
 du Travail} and General Andre ; ^ but these are people 
 who count for very Uttle in the world of thought. 
 
 (2) Religions do not seem to be on the point of dis- 
 appearing. Li^ei;aL Protestantism is dying because it 
 
 1 This is the office of the Minister for Labour, and is principally 
 occupied with the Syndicates. It gives itself a certain socialistic air 
 in the hope of duping the workmen. 
 
 2 A few years ago, this illustrious warrior (?) was instrumental in 
 blocking the candidature for the ColUge de France of Paul Tennery 
 (whose erudition was universally recognised in Europe) in favour of 
 a positivist. The positivists constitute a lay congregation which is 
 ready for any dirty work. 
 
158 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 attempted, at all costs, to give a perfectly rationalistic ex- 
 position of Christian theology. Auguste Comte manufac- 
 tured a caricature of Catholicism, in which he had retained 
 only the administrative, hierarchical, and disciplinary 
 machinery of that Church; his attempt obtained success 
 only with those people who hke to laugh at the simplicity 
 of their dupes. In the course of the nineteenth century, 
 Catholicism recovered strength to an extraordinary degree 
 because it would abandpn. nothing ; . it even strengthened 
 its mysteries, and, what is very curious, it gains ground 
 in cultivated circles where the rationalism which was 
 formerly in fashion at the University is scoffed at.^ 
 
 (3) The old claim_made by our fathers that they had 
 created a science oi art or even that they could describe 
 a work of art in so adequate a manner that the reader 
 could obtain from a book an exact aesthetic appreciation 
 of a picture or of a statue, we look upon nowadays as 
 a perfect example of pedantry. Taine's efforts in the 
 direction first mentioned are very interesting, but only as 
 regards the history of the various schools. His method 
 gives us no useful information about the works themselves. 
 As for the descriptions, they are only of value if the works 
 themselves are of small aesthetic value, and if they belong 
 to what is sometimes called literary fainting. The poorest 
 photograph of the Parthenon conveys a himdred times as 
 much information as a volume devoted to the praise of the 
 marvels of this monument ; it seems to me that the famous 
 Priere sur I'Acropole, so often praised as one of the finest 
 passages in Renan, is a rather remarkable example of 
 rhetoric, and that it is much more likely to render Greek 
 art unintelligible to us than to make us admire the 
 Parthenon. Despite all his enthusiasm for Diderot 
 
 ' Pascal protested eloquently against those who considered obscurity 
 an objection against Catholicism, and Bruneti^re was right in looking 
 upon him as being one of the most anticartesian of the men of his time 
 {iiudes critiques, 4" serie, pp. 144-149). 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE ijg 
 
 (which is sometimes comical and expressed nonsensically), 
 Joseph Reinach is obliged to acknowledge that his hero 
 was lacking in artistic feeling in his famous Salons, because 
 Diderot appreciated most of all those pictures which 
 offered possibilities of Uterary dissertation,^ and Brunetiere 
 could say that Diderot's Salons were the corruption of 
 criticism, because he discussed works of art in them as if 
 they were books.^ 
 
 The impotence of speech is due to the fact that art 
 flourishes best on mystery, hah shades and indeterminate 
 .outlines ; the more speech is methodical and perfect, the 
 naore hkely is it to eliminate everything that distinguishes 
 a masterpiece ; it reduces the masterpiece to the pro- 
 portions of an academic product. 
 
 As a result of this preliminary examination of the three\ 
 highest achievements of the mind, we are led to beheve 
 that ttis^iossibl^ to distinguish in every complex body of 
 knowledge a clear, and an obscure region, and to say that 
 the, lattet-is- perhaps the more important. The mistake 
 made by superficial people consists in the statement that 
 this second part must disappear with the progress of 
 enlightenment, and that eventually everything wiU be 
 explained rationally in terms of the little science. This 
 error is particialarly revolting as regards art, and, above 
 all, perhaps, as regards modern painting, which seeks 
 more and more to render combinations of shades to which 
 no attention was formerly paid on account of their lack of 
 stability and of the difficulty of rendering them by speech.l^ 
 
 B. (i) Ia^tbi^;_the^part that can be expressed easily, 
 
 1 J. Reinach, Diderot, pp. 116-117, 125-127, 131-132. 
 
 2 Brunetiere, Evolution des genres, p. 122. Elsewhere he calls 
 Diderot a philistine, p. 153. 
 
 ' It is to the credit of the impressionists that they showed that these 
 fine shades can be rendered by painting ; but some few among them 
 soon began to paint according to the formulas of a school, and then 
 there appeared a scandalous contrast between their works and their 
 avowed aims. 
 
i6o REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 in clearly reasoned expositions, is that which has reference 
 to the equitable rdations between men ; it contains 
 maxims which are to be found in many different civilisa- 
 tions ; consequently it was for a long time believed that 
 a resume of these precepts might form the basis of a natural 
 morality applicable to the whole of humanity. The 
 obscure part of morality is that which has reference Jo 
 sexual relationships, and this part is not easily expressed 
 in formulas ; to understand it thoroughly you must have 
 lived in a country for a great number of years. It is, more- 
 over, the fxmdamental part ; when it is known the whole 
 psychology of a people is understood ; the supposed 
 uniformity of the first system in reality then conceals 
 many differences ; almost identical maxims may corre- 
 spond to very different applications ; their clearness was 
 only a delusion. 
 
 (2) In legislation, everybody sees immediately that 
 the law regulating contracts and debts constitutes the 
 obvious part, that which is called scientific ; here again 
 there is great uniformity in the rules adopted by different 
 peoples, and it was believed that it was eminently desirable 
 to draw up a common code founded on a rational revision 
 of those which existed, but in practice it is again found 
 that, in different countries, the courts generally attach 
 different meanings to these supposed common principles ; 
 that is because there is something individual and particular 
 in each maxim. 
 
 The mysterious region is the family, which influences 
 all social relationships. Le Play was very much struck 
 by an opinion of TocqueviUe on this subject : "I am 
 astonished," said this great thinker, "that ancient and 
 modem publicists have not attributed a greater influence 
 on the progress of human affairs to the laws, of inherit- 
 ^ance. These laws, it is true, refer to civil private affairs, 
 but they should be placed at the head of all political 
 institutions, for they have an incredible influence on the 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE i6i 
 
 social state of peoples, of which state the political laws 
 are only the expression." ^ This remark governed all the 
 researches of Le Play. 
 
 This division of legislation into a clear and an obscure 
 region has one curious consequence : it is very rare for 
 people who are not members of the legal professions 
 to undertake any discussion of equity ; they know that 
 it is necessary to have an intimate knowledge of 
 certain rules of law, in order to be able to argue about 
 these questions : an outsider would run the risk of 
 making himself ridiculous if he were to venture on an 
 opinion ; but on the question of divorce, of paternal 
 authority, of inheritance, every man of letters believes 
 himself as learned as the cleverest lawyer, because in this 
 obscure region there are no well-defined principles, nor 
 regular deductions. 
 
 (3) In economics, the same distinction is, perhaps, still 
 more evident ; questions relative to exchange can be 
 easily expounded ; the methods of exchange are very 
 much alike in the different countries, and it is hardly 
 likely that any very violent paradoxes wiU be made about 
 monetary circulation. On the other hand, everything 
 relative to production presents a conjjilexity Vhich is 
 sometimes inextricably ; it is" in production that local 
 traditions kre most strongly maintained ; ridiculous 
 Utopias regarding production may be invented indefinitely 
 without revolting the common sense of readers. Nobody 
 denies that production is the fundamental part of any 
 economic system ; this is a truth which plays a great 
 part in Marxism, and which has been acknowledged even 
 by authors who have been unable to understand its 
 importance.^ 
 
 1 Tocqueville, Dimocratie en AmMque, tome i. chap. iii. Le Play, 
 RSforme sociale en France, chap. xvii. 4. 
 
 2 In my Introduction d I'Sconomie moderne I have shown how this 
 distinction may be used to throw light on many questions which had 
 
 M 
 
i62 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 C. Let us now examine how Parliamentiary 9.ssemblies 
 work. For a long time it was believed that their principal 
 function was that of arguing out the most important 
 questions of social organisation, and, above all, those 
 relating to the constitution. In such matters it is possible 
 to proceed from first principles by way of deduction to 
 clear and concise conclusions. Our forefathers excelled 
 in this scholastic type of argument, which forms the 
 luminous part of political discussions. Now that the 
 question of the constitution is scarcely ever discussed, 
 certain great laws stiU give rise to fine oratorical tourna- 
 ments ; thus on the question of the separation of the 
 Church and the State, the professional expounders of first 
 principles were heard and even applauded ; it was the 
 opinion of all that the debates had rarely reached so high 
 a level, and this was because the question was one that 
 lent itself to academic discussion. But when, as more 
 frequently happens, commercial laws or social measures 
 are discussed, then we see the stupidity of our representa- 
 tives displayed in all its splendour ; ministers, presidents, 
 or rapporteurs de commissions,'^ specialists, vie with each 
 other in displays of stupidity ; the reason for this is that 
 we are now dealing with economic questions, and the mind 
 is no longer guided by simple rules ; in order to be able 
 to give an opinion worthy of consideration on these 
 questions, one must have had a practical acquaintance 
 with them, and our honourable members cannot be said 
 to possess this kind of knowledge. Among them may be 
 found many representatives of the little science ; on 
 July 5, 1905, a well-known specialist in venereal diseases ^ 
 
 till then remained exceedingly obscure, and notably to show the exact 
 value of certain important arguments used by Proudhon. 
 
 1 [Laws in France are discussed by a committee elected by the 
 Chamber ; they alter the text of the law, and it is the duty of the rap- 
 porteur, named by the committee, to defend the amended text in open 
 discussion in^the Chamber. — Trans. Note.] 
 
 " Doctor Augagneur was for a long time one of the glories of that 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 163 
 
 declared that he had not studied political economy, having 
 " a certain mistrust for that conjectural science." We 
 must doubtless understand from this that it is more 
 difficult to argue about production than it is to diagnose 
 syphilis. 
 
 The little science has engendered a fabulous number of 
 sophistries which we continually come across, and which 
 go down very well with the people who possess the stupid 
 and mediocre culture distributed by the University. 
 These sophistries consist in putting very different things 
 on the same plane from a love of logical simplicity ; thus 
 sexual morality is reduced to the equitable relations 
 betvireen contracting parties, the family code to that 
 regulating debts and agreements, and production to 
 exchange. 
 
 Because, in nearly every country and in every age, 
 the State has undertaken to regulate circulation, both 
 of money^and of banknotes, or has laid down a legal 
 system of measures, it does not by any means follow that 
 there would be the same advantage in entrusting to the 
 State, for mere love of uniformity, the management of 
 great enterprises : yet this argument is one of those which 
 appeal most strongly to many medical students and 
 nurslings of the School of Law. I am convinced that 
 Jaurfes is even now unable to understand why industry 
 has been abandoned by lazy legislators to the anarchical 
 tendencies of egotists ; if production is really the base of 
 everything, as Marx says, it is criminal not to place it in 
 the front rank, not to subject it to a great legislative 
 action, conceived on the same lines as those parts of 
 legislation which owe their clearness to their abstract 
 character, i.e. not to order and arrange it so that it rests 
 
 class of Intellectuals who looked upon Socialism as a variety of Drey- 
 fusism ; his great protests in favour of Justice have brought him to 
 the governorship of Madagascar, which proves that virtue is sometimes 
 rewarded. 
 
^ 
 
 164 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 on great principles analogous to those which are brought 
 forward when constitutional laws are discussed. 
 
 Socialism is necessarily very obscure, since it deals 
 with jproduction, i.e. with the most mysterious part of 
 human activity, and since it proposes to bring about a 
 radical transformation of that region which it is impossible 
 to describe with the clearness that is to be found in more 
 superficial regions. No effort of thought, no progress of 
 knowledge, no rational induction will ever dispel the 
 mystery which envelops Socialism ; and it is because the 
 philosophy of Marx recognised fully this feature of Socialism 
 that it acquired the right to serve as the starting-point 
 of Socialist inquiry. 
 
 But we must hasten to add that this obscurity lies only 
 m the language by which we endeavour to describe the 
 methods of realising Sociahsm ; this obscurity may be 
 said to be scholastic only ; itdoes not in the least prevent 
 us picturing the proletarian movement in a way that is 
 exact, complete, and striking, and this may be achieved by 
 theaMof that powerful construction which the proTetarian 
 mind has conceived in the course of social conflicts, and 
 which is called the " general^trike." It must never be 
 forgotten that the perfection of this method of representa- 
 tion would vanish in a moment if any attempt were made 
 to resolve the general strike into a sum of historical 
 details ; the general strike must he taken as a whole and, 
 undivided, and the ■passage from capitalism to Socialism 
 conceived as a catastrophe, the development of which baffles 
 description. 
 
 The professors of the little science are really difficult 
 to satisfy. They assert very loudly that they will only 
 admit into thought abstractions analogous to those used 
 in the deductive sciences : as a matter of fact, this is a rule 
 which is insufficient for purposes of action, for we do 
 nothing great without the help of warmly-coloured and 
 clearly-defined images, which absorb the whole of our 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 165 
 
 attention ; now, is it possible to find anything more 
 satisfjdng from their point of view than the general strike ? 
 But, reply the professors, we ought to rely only on those 
 realities which are given by experience : is, then, the picture 
 of the general strike made up of tendencies which were not 
 obtained directly from observation of the revolutionary 
 movement ? Is it a work of pure reason, manufactured 
 by indoor scientists attempting to solve the social problem 
 according to the rules of logic ? Is it something arbitrary ? 
 Is it not, on the contrary, a spontaneous product analogous 
 to those others which students of history come across in 
 periods of action ? They insist, and say that man ought 
 not to let himself be carried away by his impulses without 
 submitting them to the control of his intelligence, whose 
 rights are imchaUenged ; nobody dreams of disputing 
 them ; of course, this picture of the general strike must be 
 tested, and that is what I have tried to do above ; but 
 the critical spirit does not consist in replacing historical 
 daia by the charlatanism of a sham science. 
 
 If it is .desired- to criticise the basis of the idea of the 
 general strike, the attack must be directed against the 
 revolutionary tendencies which it groups together, and 
 showa. as in action ; by no other method worthy of 
 attention can you hope to prove to the revolutionaries 
 that they are wrong in giving all their energies to the cause 
 of Socialism, and that their real interests would be better 
 served if they were politicians ; they have known this 
 for a long time, and their choice is made ; as they do not 
 take up a utilitaxian_.standpoint, any advice which' you 
 may give will be in vain. 
 
 We are perfectly well aware that the historians of the 
 future are bound to discover that we laboured under many 
 illusions, because they will see behind them a finished 
 world. We, on the other hand, must act, and nobody 
 can tell us to-day what these historians will know ; 
 
i66 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 nobody can furnish us with the means of modifying our 
 niotorjmages in such a way as to avoid their criticisms. 
 
 Our situation resembles somewhat that of the physicists 
 who work at huge calculations based on theories which 
 are not destined to endure for ever. We have nowadays 
 abandoned all hope of discovering a complete science of 
 nature ; the spectacle of modem scientific revolutions is 
 not encouraging for scientists, and has no doubt led many 
 people, naturally enough, to proclaim the bankruptcy of 
 science, and yet we should be mad if we handed the 
 management of industry over to sorcerers, mediums, and 
 wonder-workers. The philosopher who does not seek to 
 make a practical application of his theories may take up 
 the point of view of the future historian of science, and 
 then dispute the absolute character of present-day 
 scientific theses ; but he is as ignorant as the present-day 
 physicist when he is asked how to correct the explanations 
 given by the latter ; must he therefore take refuge in 
 scepticism ? 
 
 Nowadays no philosophers worthy of consideration 
 accept the sceptical position ; their great aim, on the 
 contrary, is to prove the legitimacy of a science which, 
 however, makes no claim to know the real nature of things, 
 and which confines itself to discovering relations which 
 can be utilised for practical ends. It is because sociology 
 is in the hands of people who are incapable of any philo- 
 sophic reasoning that it is possible for us to be attacked 
 (in the name of the little science) for being content with 
 methods founded on the laws that a reaUy thorough 
 psychological analysis reveals as fundamental in the 
 genesis of action, and which are revealed to us in all great 
 historical movements. 
 
 To proceed scientifically means, first of all, to know 
 what forces exist in the world, and then to take measures 
 whereby we may utilise them, by reasoning from experience. 
 That is why I say that, by accepting the idea of the general 
 
THE PROLETARIAN STRIKE 167 
 
 strike, although we know that it is a msrth, we are pro- 
 ceeding exactly as a modern physicist does who has 
 complete confidence in his science, although he knows 
 that the future will look upon it as antiquated. It is we 
 who reaUy possess the scientific spirit, while our critics 
 have lost touch both with modem science and modern 
 philosophy ; and having proved this, we are quite easy 
 \^ in our minds. 
 
 >,ralT^-'- 
 
 T^s 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 
 
 I. Use made of the syndicates by politicians — Pressure on Parlia- 
 ments — The general strike in Belgium and Russia. 
 
 II. Differences in the two currents of ideas corresponding to the 
 two conceptions of the general strike : class war ; the State ; 
 the aristocracy of thought. 
 
 III. Jealousy fostered by politicians — War as a source of heroism 
 and as pillage — Dictatorship of the proletariat and its 
 historical antecedents. 
 
 IV. Force and Violence — Marx's ideas about force — Necessity of a 
 new theory in the case of proletarian violence. 
 
 Politicians are people whose wits are singularly sharpened 
 by theifvoracious appetites, and in whom the hunt for 
 fat jobs develops the cunning of Apaches. They hold 
 purely proletarian organisations in horror, and discredit 
 them as much as they can ; frequently they even deny 
 their efficacity, in the hope of alienating the workers from 
 groups which, they say, have no futvire. -£jit when they 
 perceive that their hatred is powerless, that their abuse 
 does not hinder the working of these detested organisa- 
 tions, and that these have become strong, then they 
 seek to turn to their own profit the forces which the pro- 
 letariat has created. 
 
 The co-operative societies were for a long time 
 denounced as useless to the workers ; since they have 
 
 i68 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 169 
 
 prospered, more than one politician has cast languishing 
 eyes on their cash-box, and would like to see the party 
 supported by the income from the bakery and the grocery, 
 as the Israelite consistories in many countries live on 
 the dues from the Jewish butchers.^ 
 
 The syndicates may be very useful in electoral pro- 
 paganda ; a certain amount of skill is needed to utilise 
 them profitably, but politicians do not lack hghtness of 
 finger. Guerard, the secretary of the raUway syndicate, 
 was once one of the most ardent revolutionaries in France ; 
 in the end, however, it was borne in upon him that it was 
 easier to play with politics than to prepare for the general 
 strike; 2 he is to-day one of those men in whom the 
 Direction du Travail has most confidence, and in 1902 
 he went to a great deal of trouble in order to secure the 
 return of MiUerand to Parliament. There is a very large 
 raUway station An the constituency which the Socialist 
 minister sought to represent, and, without the support of 
 Guerard, MiUerand would probably have been defeated. 
 In the Socialiste of September 14, 1902, a Guesdist 
 denounced this conduct, which seemed to him doubly- 
 
 1 In Algeria the scandals in the administration of the consistories 
 (the administrative councils of the Jewish community), which had 
 become sinks of electoral corruption, compelled the Government to 
 reform them ; but the recent law respecting the separation of the 
 Churches and the State will probably bring about a return to the old 
 practices. 
 
 ' An attempt to organise a railway strike was made in 1898 ; Joseph 
 Reinach says this about it : "A very shady individual, Guerard, who 
 had founded an association of railway workers and employees which 
 had a membership of 20,000, intervened (in the conflict with the navvies 
 ofParis) with the announcement of a general strike of his syndicate. . . . 
 Brisson authorised search warrants, had the stations guarded by 
 soldiery, and placed lines of sentinels along the track; nobody came 
 out" (Histoire de V affaire Dreyfus, tome iv. pp. 310-31 1. Nowadays the 
 Guerard syndicate is in such good odour with the Government that the 
 latter has granted it permission to start a big lottery. On May 14, 1907, 
 Clemenceau spoke of it in the Chamber as a body of " sensible and 
 reasonable people," opposed to the goings-on of the Confidkration du 
 Travail. 
 
170 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 scandalous since, in the first place, the congress of 
 railway workers had decided that the syndicate should 
 not enter into politics and, secondly, because a former 
 deputy, a Guesdist, was Millerand's opponent. The 
 author of the article feared that " the corporative groups 
 were on the wrong track, and that, although they started 
 out to utilise politics, they might finally find themselves 
 the tools, of a party. "^ He was quite right ; in any deals 
 between the representatives of the syndicates aiid poli- 
 ticians, it will always be the latter who will reap the 
 greater advantage. 
 
 Politicians have more than once intervened in strikes, 
 desiring to destroy the prestige of their adversaries and 
 to capture the confidence of the workers. The Longwy 
 dock strikes, in 1905, arose out of the efforts of a Republican 
 federation which attempted to organise the syndicates 
 that might possibly serve its policy as against that of the 
 employers ; ^ the business did not quite take the turn 
 desired by the promoters of the movement, who were 
 not familiar enough with this kind of operation. Some 
 Socialist pohticians, on the contrary, possess consummate 
 skill in combining instincts of revolt into electoral forces. 
 It was inevitable, therefore, that a few people should be 
 struck by the idea that the great movements of the masses 
 might be used for political ends. 
 
 The history of England affords more than one example 
 of a Government giving way when numerous demonstra- 
 tions against its proposals took place, even though it 
 was strong enough to repel by force any attack on existing 
 institutions. It seems ^ to be an admitted principle of 
 Parliamentary Government that the majority cannot 
 persist in pursuing schemes which give rise to popular 
 demonstrations of too serious aJkirid. It is one of the 
 applications of the system of r^mnpromjs^on which this 
 regime is founded ; no law is valid when it is looked upon 
 
 1 Mouvement socialiste, December 1-15, 1905, p. 130. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 171 
 
 by a minority as being so oppressive that it rouses them 
 
 to violent opposition. Great riotous demonstrations are "> 
 
 an indication that the moment is not far of£ when an ( "^ 
 
 armed revolt might break out ; Governments which are ■ 
 
 respectful of the old traditions give way before such 
 
 demonstrations.^ 
 
 Between the first simple threat of trouble and a riot 
 a general political strike might take place, which might 
 assiune any one of a large number of forms : it might be 
 peaceful and of short duration, its aim being to show the 
 Government that it is on the wrong track, and that there 
 are forces which could resist it ; it might also be the first 
 act of a series of bloody riots. 
 
 During the last few years Parliamentary Socialists 
 have not been so sure that they would soon come into 
 power, and they have recognised that their authority in 
 the two Houses is not destined to increase indefinitely. 
 When the^e are no exceptional circumstances to force 
 the Government to buy their support with large con- 
 cessions, their Parliamentary power is very much reduced. 
 It would therefore be a great advantage to them if they 
 coiild bring outside pressure to bear on recalcitrant 
 majorities which would appear to threaten the Con- 
 servatives with a formidable insurrection. 
 
 If there were in existence rich working-class federations, 
 highly centralised and in a position to impose a strict 
 discipline on their members. Socialist deputies would not 
 have very much trouble in inflicting .their leadership 
 occasionally on their Parliamentary colleagues. All that 
 they would have to do would be to take advantage of an 
 
 1 The clerical party thought that it would be able to make use of 
 these tactics to block the application of the law regarding the congrega- 
 tions ; it hoped that some show of violence would cause the Govern- 
 ment to give way, but the latter stuck to its guns, and it may be said 
 that one of the mainsprings of the Parliamentary system was thus 
 broken, since there are fewer obstacles than formerly to the dictator- 
 ship of Parliament. 
 
172 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 opportunity that was favourable to a movement of revplt, 
 in order to stop some bf ancK of industry for a Jew days. 
 It has more than once been proposed that the Govern- 
 ment should be brought to a standstill in this fashion by 
 a stoppage in the working of the mines or of the railways.^ 
 For such tactics to produce the full effect desired, the 
 strike must break out imexpectedly at the word of com- 
 mand of the party, and must stop when the latter has 
 signed a compact with the Government. It is for these 
 reasons that politicians are so very much in favour of 
 the centralisation of the S5mdicates, and that they talk 
 so much about discipline.^ It is to be understood, of 
 course, that this discipline is one which must subject the 
 proletariat to their command. Associations which are 
 very decentralised and grouped into Bourses du Travail 
 would offer them far fewer guarantees of success ; so that 
 aU those who are not in favour of a solid concentration 
 of the proletariat round the party leaders are regarded 
 by the latter as anarchists. 
 
 The political general strike has this immense advan- 
 tage, that it does not greatly imperil the precious lives of 
 the politicians ; it is an improvement on the moral in- 
 surrection which the " Mountain " made use of in the 
 month of May 1793, in order to force the Convention to 
 expel the Girondists from its midst ; Jaures, who is afraid 
 of alarming his clients, the financiers (just as the members 
 
 1 In 1890 the National Congress at Lille of the Guesdist party passed 
 a resolution by which it declared that the general strike of the miners 
 was actually possible, and that a general strike of the miners by itself 
 would bring about the results that are expected in vain from a stoppage 
 of every trade. 
 
 2 " There may be room in the party for individual initiative, but 
 the arbitrary fancies of the individual must be put down. The safety 
 of the party lies in its laws ; we must steadfastly abide by them. It 
 is the constitution freely chosen by ourselves which binds us together, 
 and which will enable us to conquer together or to die." Thus spoke 
 a learned exponent of Socialism at the National Council [Socialiste, 
 October 7, 1905). If a Jesuit expressed himself thus, there would be 
 an outcry about monkish fanaticism. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 173 
 
 of the " Mountain " were afraid of alarming the Depart- 
 ments), admires exceedingly any movement which is 
 free from the violent acts that distress humanity ; ^ he 
 is not, therefore, an irreconcilable opponent of the political 
 general strike. 
 
 Recent events have given a very great impetus to 
 the idea of the general pohtical strike. The Belgians 
 obtained the reform of the Constitution by a display 
 which has been decorated, perhaps rather ambitiously, 
 with the name of general strike. It now appears that 
 these events did not have the tragic aspect they have 
 been sometimes credited with : the ministry was very 
 pleased to be put in a position to compel the House to 
 accept an electoral biU which the majority disapproved 
 of ; many Liberal employers were very much opposed to 
 this ultra-clerical majority ; what happened, therefore, 
 was.5pniething quite contrary^ to a proletarian general 
 strike, since the workers ser ved the ends of the Stat e 
 and of the capitalists' Smce those already far-off times 
 there Jias been another attempt to bring pressure to bear 
 on the central authority, with a view to establishing a 
 more democratic system of suffrage ; this attempt failed 
 completely ; the ministry, this time, was no longer 
 secretly on the side of the promoters of the bill, and they 
 did not force its adoption. Many Belgians were very 
 much astonished at tlxeir failure, and could not under- 
 stand why the king did not dismiss his ministers to please 
 the SociaUsts ; he had formerly insisted on the resigna- 
 tion of his clerical ministers in face of a display of Liberal 
 feeling; in fact, this king in their opinion understood 
 nothing of his duties, and, as was said at the time, he was 
 only a pasteboard king. 
 
 This Belgian incident is not without interest, because 
 it brings home to us the fact that the proletarian general 
 
 1 J. Jaurfes, La Convention, p. 1384. 
 
174 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 strike and the political general strike are diametrically 
 opposed to one another. Belgium is one of the countries 
 where the Sjmdicalist movement is weakest ; the whole 
 Sociahst organisation is founded on the bakers', grocers', 
 and haberdashers' shops that are run by committees of 
 the party ; the worker, accustomed from of old to a 
 clerical discipline, remains an inferior, who believes him- 
 self obUged to follow the leadership of people who sell 
 him the commodities he needs at a slight reduction, and 
 who din catholic or socialistic speeches into his ears. Not 
 only do we find grocery set up as a priestcraft, but it is 
 also from Belgiiun that we get the well-known theory of 
 pubhc services against which Guesde wrote such a violent 
 pamphlet in 1883, and which Deville called in the same 
 year a Belgian imitation of collectivism.^ The whole of 
 Belgian Socialism tends towards the development of State 
 industrialism and the constitution of a class of State- 
 workers who would be firmly disciplined tmder the iron 
 hand of leaders accepted by democracy.^ It is quite 
 natural, therefore, that in such a country the general strike 
 should be conceived in a political form ; in such conditions 
 the only aim of popular insurrection must be to take the 
 power from one group of politicians and to hand it over 
 to another — the people still remaining the passive beast 
 that bears the yoke.^ 
 
 The recent troubles in Russia have helped to popularise 
 
 ^ Deville, Le Capital, p. lo. 
 
 2 Paul I^roy-Beaulieu recently proposed to call the whole body of 
 Government employees " the Fourth Estate," and those in private 
 employment " the Fifth Estate " ; he said that the first tended to 
 form hereditary castes (Dibats, November 28, 1905). As time goes 
 on, the distinction between the two groups will grow more pronounced ; 
 the first group is a great source of support to Socialist politicians, who 
 desire to transform it into a perfectly disciplined corporation capable 
 of taking the lead in the working-class movement ; thus, by the inter- 
 mediacy of the employees of the State, the ParUamentarians would 
 govern the more easily the workers in private industry. 
 
 3 This does not prevent Vandervelde from comparing the future 
 world to the Abbey of Thelema, celebrated by Rabelais, where every- 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 175 
 
 the idea of the general strike among professional politicians. 
 Many people were surprised at the results produced by 
 great concerted stoppages of work; but what really 
 happened and what followed from these disturbances is 
 not very weU known. People who are acquainted with 
 the country believe that Witte was hand in glove with 
 many of the revolutionaries, and that he was deMghted at 
 being able to obtain, by terrifying the Czar, the dismissal 
 of his enemies and the grant of institutions which, in his 
 opinion, would put obstacles in the way of any retiun to 
 the old r6gime. It is very remarkable that for a long 
 time the Government seemed paralysed, and in the adminis- 
 tration anarchy was at its height, whUe, from the moment 
 Witte thought it necessary in his personal interests to act 
 vigorously, repression was rapid ; that day arrived (as 
 several people had foreseen) when the financiers needed 
 to revive Russian credit. It seems hardly probable that 
 previous insurrections ever had the irresistible power 
 attributed to them ; the Petit Parisien, which was one 
 of the French newspapers that had advertised ^ the fame 
 of Witte, said that the great strike of October 1905 came 
 to an end on account of the hunger of the workers ; accord- 
 ing to this newspaper, the strike had even been prolonged 
 for a day in the hope that the Poles would take part in the 
 movement, and would obtain concessions as the Finns had 
 done; then it congratulated the Poles for having been 
 wise enough not to budge, and for not having given a pre- 
 text for German intervention {Petit Parisien, November 7, 
 1905)- 
 
 body did as he pleased, and from saying that he aspires to an " anarchist 
 community " (Destrte and Vandervelde, Le Socialisme en Belgique, 
 p. 289). Oh, the magic of big words I 
 
 1 Many French papers advertised the merits of the Russian minister, 
 Witte, exactly as they advertised cures made by patent medicines. 
 The French press receives at all time large subventions from the Russian 
 embassy, but in this period Witte spent much more than usual, in 
 order to secure his continuance in office by quoting French opinion. 
 
176 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 We must not allow ourselves, therefore, to be too much 
 dazzled by certain descriptions, and Ch. Bonnier was 
 right when, in the Socialiste of November i8, 1905, he 
 cast doubt on the truth of the account which had been 
 given of the course of events in Russia ; he had always 
 been an irreconcilable opponent of the general strike, and 
 he pointed out that there was no resemblance at all 
 between what had happened in Russia and what the 
 " genuine Syndicalists in France " look forward to. In 
 his opinion, the strike in Russia had merely been the con- 
 summation of a very complex process, one method out 
 of the many employed, which had succeeded owing to 
 the exceptionally favourable circumstances in which it 
 had developed. 
 
 We have here, then, a criterion which will serve to 
 distinguish two kinds of movement generally designated 
 by the same name. We have studied a proletarian general 
 strike, which is one undivided whole ; now we have to 
 consider the general pohtical strike, which combines the 
 incidents of economic revolt with many other elements 
 depending on systems foreign to the industrial system. 
 In the first case, no detail ought to be considered by 
 itself ; in the second, ever3rthing depends on the art 
 with which heterogeneous details are combined. In this 
 case the parts must be considered separately, their 
 importance estimated, and an attempt made to harmonise 
 them. One would think that such a task ought to be 
 looked upon as purely Utopian (or even quite absurd) by 
 the people who are in the habit of bringing forward so 
 many practical objections to the proletarian general strike ; 
 but if the proletariat, left to itself, can do nothing, poli- 
 ticians are equal to anything. Is it not one of the dogmas 
 of democracy that the genius of demagogues can over- 
 come all obstacles ? 
 
 I will not stop here to discuss what chances of success 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 177 
 
 these tactics have, and I leave it to the stock-jobbers who 
 read L'HumaniU to discover how the general political 
 strike may be prevented from degenerating into anarchy. 
 My only concern in the following pages will be to throw 
 full light on the difference between the two conceptions 
 of the general strike. 
 
 II 
 
 We have seen that the idea of the Syndicalist general _ 
 strike contains within itself the whole of proletarian 
 SociaUsm ; not only are all its real elements found therein, 
 but they are moreover grouped in the same way as in 
 social struggles, and their movements are exactly those 
 proper to their nature. It would be impossible to find 
 any image which would represent equally well the political 
 form of Socialism, and which could be contrasted with the 
 proletarian conception of it as represented by the general 
 strike ; yet, by making the political general strike the 
 pivoting point in the tactics oflthose Sociahsts who are 
 at the same time revolutionary and Parliamentary, it 
 becomes possible to obtain an exact notion of what it is 
 that separates the latter from the Sjmdicalists. 
 
 A. To begin with, we perceive immediately that the 
 politic al general strike does not presuppose a clas s war 
 concentrat ed on a field of battle i n which the proletanat 
 atta cks the mid dle__class ; tjie^ divisiMi^of^society into 
 two antagonistic armies disappears, for this'~'class of 
 revol t IS possibi e_with any. Jtoid jgl^^ciaJ^^^ Tn 
 
 the past many revolutions were the result of coalitions 
 between discontented groups ; SociaUst writers have 
 often pointed out that the poorer classes have more than 
 once allowed themselves to be massacred to no purpose, 
 save to place power in the hands of new rulers who, with 
 great astuteness, had managed to utilise for their own 
 
 N 
 
 ( 
 
178 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 advantage a passing discontent of the people against the 
 former authorities. 
 
 It seems, indeed, that the Russian Liberals had hoped 
 to see something of the kind happen in 1905 ; they were 
 delighted at the number of peasant and working-class 
 insurrections ; it has even been asserted that they heard 
 with great satisfaction of the reverses of the army in 
 Manchuria.^ They believed that the Government, getting 
 alarmed, would have recourse to their enlightenment ; 
 as there is a large number of sociologists among them, 
 the little science would thus have obtained a huge success ; 
 but it is probable that the people would have been left 
 to twiddle their thumbs. 
 
 It is, I suppose, for much the same kind of reason that 
 the capitalistic shareholders of L'Humanite are such ardent 
 admirers of certain strikes ; they look upon the proletariat 
 as a very convenient instrument with which to clear the 
 ground, and they feel certain from their study of history 
 that it will always be possible for a Socialist Government 
 to bring rebels to reason. Moreover, are not the laws 
 against anarchists, made in an hour of madness, stiQ care- 
 fully preserved on the Statute books ? They are stigma- 
 tised as rascally laws ; but they may yet serve to protect 
 capitalist-socialists. 2 
 
 B. (i) Further, under the influence of this conception 
 it would no longer be true to say that the whole organisa- 
 tion of the proletariat was contained within revolutionary 
 
 1 The correspondent of the Dibais, in the issue of November 25, 1906, 
 related how the members of the Duma had congratulated a Japanese 
 i ournalist on the victories of his compatriots. (Cf . the Dibats, December 
 25- 1907.) 
 
 2 We may also ask how much the old enemies of military justice 
 desire the abolition of the courts martial. For a long time, the National- 
 ists were able to maintain with some show of reason that they were 
 retained in order that Dreyfus, if the Court of Cassation ordered a 
 third trial, should not be brought up before a Court of Assizes ; a 
 court martial can be more easily packed than a jury. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 179 
 
 Syndicalism. Since the Syndicalist general strike would 
 no longer be the entire revolution, other organisations 
 would have been created side by- side with the syndicates ; 
 as the strike could only be one detail cunningly dovetailed 
 iriSernany other incidents w;hich must be set going at the 
 propitious jmoment, the syndicates would have to await 
 the word of command of the political committees, oi: at 
 least work in perfect unison with the committees which 
 represent the superior intelligence of the Socialist move- 
 ment. In Italy Ferri has symbolised this unison in a 
 rather comical manner, by saying that Socialism has need 
 of two legs ; this figure of speech was borrowed from 
 Lessing, who little thought that it might become one of 
 the principles of sociology. In the second scene of Minna 
 von Barnhelm, the innkeeper says to Just that a man 
 cannot stand on one glass of brandy any more than he 
 can walk on one leg ; he also adds that aU good things 
 are three in number, and that a rope of four strands is 
 all the stronger. I am not aware that sociology has made 
 any usd of these other aphorisms, which are worth just 
 as much as the one Ferri misused. 
 
 (2) P^ the Syndicalist general strike is co nnected_with 
 the idea of an eraTo rgreaf econo mic ^prpgr^e^^^^ thg_E g]iiJJg§J 
 general strikexalls^SfiSthSSat^SXprnodoi de cadence . 
 ^ Experience sh ows th at classes on the downgrade are mor e 
 easily captured by the faUacious harangues of politicians 
 than classes o n the upgrade, so~tEatthere seems toH Selt 
 closerelation between the__£o]iti^jgerspica£ity~S~me^ 
 ancljthe conditions under which the y live. Prosperous 
 classes may often act very imprudently, because they 
 have too much confidence in their own strength ; they 
 face the future with too much boldness, and they are 
 overcome for the moment by a frenzied desire for renown. 
 Enfeebled classes habitually put^eir trust in people who 
 proinise thenTHE'piFoteEicS'of the State, 'without ever 
 trying to understand how this protection could possibly 
 
i8o REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 harmonise their discordant interests ; they readily enter 
 into every coalition formed for the purpose of forcing 
 concessions from the Government ; they greatly admire 
 charlatans who speak with a glib tongue. Socialism 
 must be exceedingly careful if it is not to fall to the level 
 of what Engels" called bombastic antisemitism/ and the 
 advice of Engels on this point has not always been followed. 
 
 The political general strike presupposes that very 
 diverse social groups shall possess the same faith in the 
 mag ical force of the State ; this faitH is neve r lackmg'fti 
 s oHargroups which are o n tfxe downgrade, and its existence 
 enables windbags to represent theihselves as able to do 
 everything. The pohtical general strike would be greatly 
 helped by the stupidity of philanthropists, and this 
 stupidity is always a result of the degeneration of the rich 
 classes. Its chances of success would be enhanced by 
 the fact that it would have to deal with cowaxdly and 
 discouraged capitalists. 
 
 (3) Under such^nditions it would no longer be possible 
 to ignore plans of the future state of society ; these plans 
 on which Marx poured ridicule, and which the S5mdicahst 
 general strike ignores, would become an essential element 
 of the new system. A political general strike could not 
 be proclainied untU it was known with'absolute certainty 
 that the complete framework of the future organisation 
 
 1 Engels feared that the Socialists, in order to gain adherents in the 
 electorzil struggles rapidly, would make promises which were contrary 
 to Marxist doctrine. The antisemites told the peasants and the small 
 shopkeepers that they would protect them from the development of 
 capitalism. Engels thought that an imitation of this procedure would 
 be dangerous, since, in his opinion, the social revolution could only be 
 realised when capitalism had almost completely destroyed the small 
 proprietors and small industries ; if the Socialists, then, endeavoured to 
 hinder this evolution, they would ultimately compromise their own 
 cause. Engels did not know that the French Socialists (whose agrarian 
 programme he was criticising) had often made such promises, and that 
 several Socialist deputies were very friendly with Drumont. Engels, 
 "Ija, Question agraire et le Socialisme," in the Mouvement socialiste, 
 October 15, 1900, p. 462. Cf. pp. 458-459 and p. 463. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE i8i 
 
 was ready. That is what Jaur^s intended to convey 
 in his articles of 1901 when he said that modem society 
 " will recoil from an enterprise as indeterminate and as 
 empty (as the Syndicahst strike) as one draws back from 
 a precipice." ^ 
 
 There are plenty of young barristers, briefless and 
 likely to remain so, who have filled enormous note-books 
 with their detailed projects for the social organisation of 
 the future. If we have not yet been favoured with the 
 breviary of the revolution which-Lucien Herr announced 
 in 1900, we know at least that regulations have been 
 framed for the establishment of the book-keeping branch 
 of collectivist society, and Tarbouriech has even gone 
 into the question of the printed forms to be recommended 
 for the use of the future bureaucracy.^ Jaures is con- 
 tinually bewailing the fact that so many lights are con- 
 demned to remain hidden under the capitalist bushel ; 
 and he feels convinced that the revolution depends very 
 much less on the conditions Marx had in mind than on 
 the efforts of unknown geniuses. 
 
 C. I have already called attention to the terrible nature 
 of therevolution as conceived by Marx and the Sjmdicalists, 
 and I have said that it is very important that its character 
 oj-^a bsolute and irrevocable transformation should be 
 pre^ervedj because it.is that which^vesSoeiahsm its high 
 educationaLyalue^ - The comfort-loving followers of our 
 politicians _could not view with any approval the pro- 
 foundly serious work which is being carried on by the 
 proletariat ; the former desire to reassure the middle 
 
 ' JaurSs, £tudes socialistes, p. 107. 
 
 2 Many idiotically serious things like this may be found in 
 Tarbouriech's CiU future. People who call themselves well-informed 
 say that Arthur Fontaine, Directeur du Travail, has some astonishing 
 solutions of the social question in his portfolios, and that he will reveal 
 them on the day he retires. Our successors will bless him for having 
 saved up for them pleasures we shall not know. 
 
i82 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 class, and promise not to allow the people to give them- 
 selves up entirely to their anarchical instincts. They 
 explain to the middle class that they do not by any means 
 dream of suppressing the great State machine, but wise 
 Sociahsts desire two things : (i) to take possession of this 
 machine so that they may improve its works, and make 
 them nm to further their friends' interests as much as 
 possible, and (2) to assure the stability of the Government, 
 which will be very advantageous for aU business men. 
 Tocqueville had observed that, since the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century, the administrative institutions of 
 France having changed very little, revolutions had no longer 
 produced any very great upheavals.^ Socialist financiers 
 have not read Tocqueville, but they understand instinctively 
 that the preservation of a highly centralised^ very authori- 
 tative and very democratic State puts immense resources 
 at their disposal, and protects them from proletarian 
 revolution. The transformations which their friends, 
 the Parliamentary Socialists, may carry out will always 
 be of a very limited scope, and it will always be possible, 
 thanks to the State, to correct any imprudences they may 
 commit. 
 
 The general strike of the Syndicalists drives away from 
 Socialism all financiers in quest of adventures ; the 
 political strike rather pleases these gentlemen, because it 
 would be carried out in circumstances favourable to the 
 power of politicians, and consequently to the operations 
 of their financial allies.^ 
 
 1 Tocqueville, VAncien Rigime et la Revolution, p. 297. 
 
 2 In the Avant-Garde of October 29, 1905, may be read the report 
 of Lucien Rolland to the National Council of the Unified Socialist 
 Party on the election at Florae of Louis Dreyfus, a speculator in grain 
 and shareholder of L'Humanite. " I was greatly pained," says Rolland, 
 " to hear one of the rois de I'ipoque (kings of the time) speak in the name 
 of our Internationale, of our red flag, of our principles, and cry, ' Long 
 live the social republic ! ' " Those whose only knowledge of this 
 election has been gained from the official report published in the Socialiste 
 of October 28, 1905, will have gained a singularly false idea of it. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 183 
 
 Marxs upposes, exactly as the Syndicalists do, that th e 
 re volution will be absolute and irrevocable, because it will 
 place the forces of production in the hands of free men, i.e. 
 
 c reated by capitahsm without any need of .masters . This 
 conception would not at all suit" tlie '&ianciers~and the 
 poUticians whom they support, for both are only fit to 
 exercise the noble profession of masters. Therefore, the 
 authors of aU enquiries into modemteSsudalism are forced 
 to acknowledge that the latter implies^the division of 
 society into two groups : the first of these is a select body, 
 organised as a political party, which has adopted^ the 
 rnission^_tlunkin£j^^^ and which 
 
 imagines that, because it allows the latter to enjoy the 
 results of its superior enlightenment, it has done some- 
 thing admirable.^ The second is the whole body of the 
 _pro(iiicers. The select body of politicians has no other 
 profession than that of using its wits, and they find that 
 it is strictly in accordance with the principles of immanent 
 justicg^ (of which they are sole owners) that the proletariat 
 should work to feed them and furnish them with the 
 means for an existence that only distantly resembles an 
 ascetic's. 
 
 This division is so evident that generally no attempt 
 is made to hide..it; the officials of Socialism constantly 
 speakof th^^a.rty_a.s; of an organism having a hfe of its 
 own. At theThternational Sociahst Congress of 1900, 
 the party was warned against the danger it ran in f oUow- 
 
 Official Socialist documents should be mistrusted. I do not believe 
 that, during the Dreyfus case, the friends of the general staff ever 
 distorted truth so much as the of&cial Socialists did on this occasion. 
 
 The fourieriste Tousseil published in the reign of Louis-PhUippe 
 a book entitled Les Juifs rots de I'ipoque, in which he attacked the 
 great speculators. Rolland is cJluding to this, and wishes to recall the 
 fact that L. Dreyfus was a large speculator in corn. 
 
 1 The Intellectuals are not, as is so often said, men who think : they 
 are people who have adopted the profession of thinking, and who take an 
 aristocratic salary on account of the nobility of this profession. 
 
i84 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 ing a policy which might separate it too much from the 
 proletariat ; it must inspire the masses with confidence 
 if it desires to have their support on the day of the great 
 battle.^ The great reproach which Marx levelled at his 
 adversaries in the Alliance was this separation of the 
 leaders and_the led, which had the effect of reinstating 
 the State — and which is to-day so marked in Germany — 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A. We will now carry our analysis of the ideas grouped 
 round the political strike a little farther, and enquire first 
 of all what becomes of the notion of^class,,) 
 
 (i) rt wiU no longer be possible to distinguish the 
 classes by the place occupied by their members in capital- 
 istic production ; we go back to the old distinction between 
 rich groups^ and,, poor ,grougs— such was the division 
 between the classes as it appeared to those older Socialists 
 who sought to reform the iniquities of the actual distribu- 
 tion of riches. The " social Catholics " take up this 
 position also, and endeavour to improve the lot of the 
 poor, not only by charity, but also by a large nmnber of 
 institutions which aim at a mitigation of the wretchedness 
 caused by the capitalist industrial system. It seems that 
 even to-day things are considered from this point of view 
 in circles that admire Jaures as a prophet ; I have been 
 told that the latter sought to convert Buisson to Socialism 
 by making an appeal to the goodness of his heart, and that 
 these two soothsayers had a very ludicrous discussion 
 as to the best way to remedy the dejects of society. 
 
 1 For example, Vaillant says : " Since we have to fight this great 
 battle, do you think that we can win it if we tave not the proletariat 
 behind us ? We must have the proletariat ; and we shall not have it 
 if we have discouraged it, if we have shown it that the Party no longer 
 represents its interests, no longer represents the war of the working 
 class against the capitalist class" {Cahiers-de la Quinzaine, i6« de la 
 II" s^rie, pp. 159-160). This number contains the shorthand note of 
 the proceedings at the Congress. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 185 
 
 The masses believe .that they are suffering from the 
 iniquitous consequences of a past which was full of 
 violence, ignorance, and wickedness ; they are confident 
 that the genius of their leaders wiU render them less 
 imhappy ; they believe that democracy, if it were only 
 free, would replace, a malevolent hierairchyby a benevo- 
 lent hierarchy. 
 
 The leaders, who foster this sweet iUjasipn in their men, 
 see the situation from, quite another point of view i the 
 present social organisation revolts them just in so far as 
 it creates obstacles to thfiir ambition ; they are less shocked 
 by the existence of the classes than by their own inability 
 to attain to the positions already acquired by older men ; 
 when they have penetrated far enough into the sanctuaries 
 of the State, into drawing-rooms and places of amusement, 
 they cease, as a rule, to be revolutionary and speak 
 learnedly of " evolution." 
 
 (2)_The sentiment of revolt which is met with in the 
 poorer classes wiU henceforth be coloured by a violent 
 jealousy. Our democratic newspapers foster this passion 
 with considerable skill, imagining that this is the best 
 means of dulling the minds of their readers and of keeping 
 up the circulation of the paper ; they exploit the scandals 
 which arise from time to time among the rich ; they lead 
 their readers to feel a savage pleasure when they see shame 
 entering the household of one of the great ones of the earth. 
 With a really astonishing impudence, they pretend that 
 they are thus serving the cause of the superfine morality, 
 which they hold as much at heart, they say, as the well- 
 being and the liberty of the poorer classes ! But it is 
 probable that their own interests are the sole motives for 
 their actions.^ 
 
 1 I note here, in passing, that the Petil Parisien, the importance of 
 which as an organ of the policy of social reform is so great, took up 
 strongly the case of the Princess of Saxony and the charming teacher 
 Giron. This newspaper, which is very fond of sermonising the people. 
 
i86 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 Jealousy is a sentiment which seems to belong, above 
 all, to passive beings. Leaders have active sentiments ; 
 with them, jealousy is transforined into a thirst to obtain, 
 at whatever cost, the most coveted situations, and they 
 employ to this end any means which enables them to set 
 aside people who stand in the way of their onward march. 
 In politics, people are no more held back by scruples than 
 they are in sport, and we hear every day of cases where 
 competitors in all kinds of contests seek to improve their 
 chances by some trickery or other. 
 
 (3) Ths. masses who are led have a very vague and 
 extremely.. simple idea of the means by which their lot 
 can be imprQ^yed ; demagogues easUy get them to believe 
 that the best way is to utilise' the- power of .the^State to 
 fester the rich. We pass thus from jealousy to vengeance, 
 and it is well known that vengeance is a sentiment of 
 extraordinary power, especially with the weak. The 
 history of the Greek cities and of the Italian republics 
 of the Middle Ages is fuU of instances of fiscal laws which 
 were very oppressive on the rich, and which contributed 
 not a little towards the ruin of governments. In the 
 fifteenth century, Aeneas Sylvius (later Pope Pius II.) 
 noted with astonishment the extraordinary prosperity 
 of the commercial towns of Germany and the great liberty 
 enjoyed therein by the middle class, who, in Italy, were 
 persecuted.^ If our contemporary social policy were 
 examined closely, i^t would be seen that it also was steeped 
 in ideas of jealousy and vengeance ; many regulations 
 have been framed more with the idea of pestering 
 employers than of improving the situation of the workers. 
 When the clericals are in a minority, they never fail to 
 
 cannot understand why the outraged husband obstinately refuses to 
 take back his wife. On September 14, 1906, it said that " she had 
 broken with the ordinary moral code " ; it may be concluded from this 
 that the moral code of the Petit Parisien is something quite out of the 
 ordinary. 
 
 ^ Jansen, L'Allemagne et la Riforme, French trans., tome i. p. 361. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 187 
 
 recommend severe regulations in order to be revenged 
 on free-thinking free-mason employers.^ 
 
 The leaders obtain all sorts of advantages from these 
 methods ; they alarm the rich, and exploit them for their 
 own personal profit ; they cry louder than anybody 
 against the privileges of fortune, and know how to obtain 
 for themselves all the enjoyments which the latter 
 procures ; by making use of the evil instincts and the 
 stupidity of their followers, they realise this curious 
 paradox, that they get the people to applaud the in- 
 equality of conditions in the name of democratic equality. 
 It would be impossible to understand the success of 
 demagogues from the time of Athens to contemporary 
 New York, if due account was not taken of the extra- 
 ordinary power of the idea of vengeance in extinguishing 
 reasonable reflection. 
 
 I believe that the only means by which this pernicious 
 ijifluence of the deniSgsgues ra'ay-beTViped out are those 
 employed by Socialism in propagating the notion of the 
 proletarian general strike ; it awakens in the depths" of 
 the soul a sentiment of the sublime proportionate to the 
 conditions of a gigantic struggle ; it forces the desire to 
 satisfy jealousy by malice into the background ; it brings 
 to the fore the pride of free men, and thus protects the 
 worker from the quackery of ambitious leaders, hungering 
 for the fieshpots. 
 
 B. The great differences which exist between the two 
 general strikes {i.e. between the two kinds of Socialism) 
 become still more obvious when social struggles are com- 
 pared with war ; in fact, war also may give rise to two 
 
 1 The application of the social laws gives rise — in France, at least — 
 to very singular inequalities of treatment ; judicial proceedings depend 
 on political or financial conditions. The case of the rich tailor may- 
 be remembered who was decorated by MiUerand and against whom 
 proceedings had so often been taken for infringement of the laws for 
 the protection of work-girls. 
 
j8S reflections ON VIOLENCE 
 
 opposite systems of ideas, so that quite contradictory 
 things can be said about it, all based on incontestable 
 facts. 
 
 War may be considered from its noble side, i.e. as it 
 has been considered by poets celebrating armies which 
 have been particiilariy illustrious ; proceeding thus we 
 find in war : 
 
 (i) The idea that the profession of arms cannot 
 compare to any other profession — that it puts the man 
 who adopts this profession in a class which is superior to 
 the ordinary conditions of life, — that history is based 
 entirely on the adventures of warriors, so that the economic 
 life only existed to maintain them. 
 
 (2) The sentiment of glory which Renan so justly 
 looked upon as one of the most singular and the most 
 powerful creations of human genius, and which has been 
 of such incomparable value in history.^ 
 
 (3) The ardent desire to try one's strength in great 
 battles, to submit to the test which gives the military 
 caUing its claim to superiority, and to conquer glory at 
 the peril of one's life. 
 
 There is no need for me to insist on these features of 
 war at any great length ; my readers will understand the 
 part played in ancient Greece by this conception of war. 
 The whole of classical history is dominated by the idea 
 of war conceived heroically : in their origin, the institu- 
 tions of the Greek repubhcs had as their basis the organisa- 
 tion of armies of citizens ; Greek art reached its apex in 
 the citadels ; philosophers conceived of no other possible 
 form of education than that which fostered in youth the 
 heroic tradition, and they endeavoured to keep the study 
 and practice of music within bounds, because they wished 
 to prevent the development of sentiments foreign to this 
 discipline ; social Utopias were created with a view to 
 maintaining a nucleus of homeric warriors in the cities, 
 
 1 Renan, Histoire du peuple d'Israel, tome iv. pp. 199-200. 
 
^>.--r 
 
 THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE iSg 
 
 etc. In our own times, the wars of Liberty have been 
 scarcely less fruitful in ideas than those of the ancient 
 Greeks. 
 
 There is another aspect -of war which does not possess 
 this character of nobihty, and on which the pacificists y/". 
 always dwell.^ The object of war is ho lo nger war itself ; 
 its^obj ect is to alEw~poIigaa^j|^;^^^^jt^ 
 iignsT the foreign er mi^t be conquered in order that they 
 tl jemselve s may obtain great and immediate material 
 advantag es ; the victory must also^give the party which 
 le d the co untry^ duru-^the^ tinie^of Juc^i^lsa great a 
 preponderance that it can distribute great favours to its 
 fo UOTyersT finally, it is hoped that thTatizens^will be so 
 intoxicated Hy^lhe'^speU of victory they will overlookjthe 
 sacrifices which they arF^caHeH^upon to make, and will 
 allow themselves to be carried away by , entha^stic 
 conce ptions of the future. Under the influence of this 
 state of mind, the people permit the Government to 
 develop its authority in an improper manner, without 
 any protest, so that every conquest abroad may be con- 
 sidered as having for its inevitable corollary a conquest 
 at home made by the party in office. 
 
 The _ Syndicalist general strike presents a very great ^ 
 
 mmiber of analogies with the first conception ^of _war : -><j 
 the proietariat organises itself for battle, separating itself 
 distinctly from the other parts of the nation, and regard- 
 ing itself as the great motive power of history, all other 
 social considerations being subordinated to that of 
 combat ; it is very clearly conscious of the^^^OT^ which 
 will be attached to its historical role and of the heroism 
 of its mihtant attitude ; it longs for the final contest in " 
 which it will give proof of the whole measure of its valour. 
 Pursuing no conquest, it has no need to make plans for 
 utilising its victories : it counts on expelling the capitalists 
 
 1 The distinction between the two aspects of war is the basis of 
 Proudhon's book on La Guerre et la paix. 
 
igo REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 from the productive domain, and on taking their place 
 in the workshop created by capitalism. 
 
 This conception of the general strike manifests^in the 
 clearest manner its indifference to the material profits of 
 conquest by affirming that it proposes to suppress the 
 State. The State has always been, in fact, the organiser 
 of the war of conquest, the dispenser of its fruits, and the 
 raison d'etre of the dominating groups which profit by 
 the enterprises — the cost of which is borne by the general 
 body of society. 
 
 Politicians adopt the other point ofview ; they argue 
 about social conflicts in exactly the same manner as 
 diplomats argue about international affairs ; all the actual 
 fighting apparatus interests them very little ; they see in 
 t he com batants nothing but^ instruments. The proletariat 
 istEeir army, wKicE they love in the same way that a 
 colonial administrator loves the troops which enable him 
 to bring large numbers of negroes under his authority ; 
 they apply themselves to the task of training the prole- 
 tariat, because they are in a hurry to win quickly the great 
 battles which will deliver the State into their hands ; they 
 keep up the ardour of their men, as the ardour of troops 
 of mercenaries has always been kept up, by promises of 
 pillage, by appeals to hatred, and also by the small favours 
 which their occupancy of a few political places enables 
 them to distribute already. But the proletariat forjtliem 
 is f ood for ca nnofi, and nothing else, as Marx said in 1873.^ 
 
 The reinforcement of power qfjhe Statejs .at the basi? 
 of alT their conceptions ; in the organisations' wKicETth^ 
 at present control, the politicians are already preparing 
 the framework of a strong, centralised and disciplined 
 authority, which will not be hampered by the criticism 
 of an opposition, which will be able to enforce silence, and 
 which will give currency to its lies. 
 
 1 L'AlUance de la dimocratie socialisie, p. 15. Marx accused his 
 opponents of modelling their policy on Napoleonic lines. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE igi 
 
 C. In Socialist literature the question of a future 
 dicta ^sM^. ofjh e proletariat is constantly cropping up, 
 buTnoBoHyTiIes to eSjSKin it ; sometimes this formula 
 is improved and the epithet impersonal is added to the 
 substantive dictatorship, though this addition does not 
 throw much light on the question. Bernstein pointed 
 out a few years ago that this dictatorship would probably 
 be that " of club orators and of literary men," ^ and he 
 was of opinion that the Socialists of 1848, when speaking 
 of this dictatorship, had had in view an imitation of 1793, 
 " a central, dictatorial and revolutionary authority, up- 
 held by the terrorist dictatorship of the revolutionary 
 clubs " ; he was alarmed by this outlook, and he asserted 
 that aU the working men with whom he had had an 
 opportunity of conversing were very mistrustful of the 
 future.^ Hence he concluded that it would be better 
 to base Socialist policy and propaganda on a conception 
 of modem society more in accordance with the idea of 
 evolution. His analysis seems to me to be inadequate. 
 
 In the dictatorship of the proletariat we may first of 
 all notice a rerniniscence of the Old Regime. Socialists 
 have for a long time been dominated by the idea that 
 capitalist society must be likened to the feudal system ; 
 I scarcely know any idea more false and more dangerous. 
 They imagine that the new feudalism would disappear 
 beneath the influence of forces analogous to those which 
 
 1 Bernstein evidently had in mind here a well-known article by 
 Proudhon, from which, moreover, he quotes a fragment on page 47 of 
 his book. This article closes with imprecations against the Intellectuals : 
 " Then you will know what a revolution is, that has been set going by 
 lawyers, accomplished by artists, and conducted by novelists and poets. 
 Nero was an artist, a lyric and dramatic artist, a passionate lover of 
 the ideal, a worshipper of the antique, a collector of medals, a tourist, 
 a poet, an orator, a swordsman, a sophist, a Don Juan, a Lovelace, a 
 nobleman full of wit, fancy, and fellow-feeling, overflowing with love 
 of Ufe and love of pleasure. That is why he was Nero " (Reprisentant 
 du peuple, April 29, 1848). 
 
 2 Bernstein, Socialisme thiorique et social-dimocratie pratique, pp. 298 
 and 226. 
 
ig2 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 ruined the old feudal system. The latter succumbed 
 beneath the attacks of a strong and centralised power, 
 imbued with the conviction that it had received a mandate 
 from God to employ exceptional measures against the 
 evil. The kings of the new model ^ who estabhshed modem 
 monarchical system were terrible despots, wholly destitute 
 of scruples ; but great historians have absolved them 
 from aU blame for the acts of violence they committed, 
 because they lived in times when feudal anarchy, the 
 barbarous manners of the old nobles and their lack of 
 culture, joined to a want of respect for the ideas of the 
 past,^ seemed crimes against which it was the duty of the 
 royal power to act energetically. It is probably then 
 with a view to treating the leaders of capitalism with a 
 whoUy royal energy that there is so much talk nowadays 
 of a dictatorship of the proletariat. 
 
 Later on, royalty relaxed its despotism and constitu 
 tional government took its place. It is said that the 
 dictatorship of the proletariat wiU also weaken at length, 
 and will disappear, and that finally an anarchical society 
 will take its place ; but how this will come about is not 
 explained. The regal despotism did not faU by itself or 
 by the goodness of sovereigns ; one must be very simple 
 to suppose that the people who would profit by the 
 demagogic dictatorship would willingly abandon its 
 advantages. 
 
 Bernstein saw quite plainly that the., dictatorship of 
 the,4)raletariat corresponds to a division of society into 
 masters and servants, but it is curious that he did not 
 
 1 Cf. Gervinus, Introduction d I'histoire du XIX' siicle, French trans., 
 p. 27. 
 
 ^ The history of the papacy very much embarrasses modem writers ; 
 some of them are fundamentally hostile to it on account of their hatred 
 of Christianity ; but many are led to condone the greatest faults of the 
 papal policy in the Middle Ages on account of the natural sympathy 
 which inclines them to admire all the efforts made by theorists to tyrannise 
 the world. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 193 
 
 perceive that the idea of the political strike (which he 
 now, to a certain extent, accepts) is connected in the closest 
 manner with this dictatorship of pohticians which he fears. 
 The men who had managed to organise the proletariat 
 in the form of Ein army, ever ready to obey their orders, 
 would be generals who would set up a state of siege in 
 vanquished society ; we should therefore have, on the day 
 following the revolution, a dictatorship exercised by those 
 pohticians who in the society of to-day already form 
 a compact group. 
 
 I have already recalled what Marx said about the 
 people who reinstated the State by creating in con- 
 temporary society an embryo of the future society of 
 masters. The history of the French Revolution shows 
 us how these things happen. The revolutionaries made 
 arrangements whereby their administrative staff was 
 ready to take possession of authority immediately the 
 old administration decamped, so that there was no break 
 of continuity in the domination of a governing class. 
 There are no bounds to Jaures's admiration for these 
 operations, which he describes in the course of his Histoire 
 socialiste ; he does not exactly understand their significance, 
 but he guesses the analogy they bear to his own con- 
 ceptions of social revolution. The fiabbiness of the men 
 of that time was so great that sometimes the substitution 
 of the old by the new officials was accomplished under 
 conditions bordering on farce ; we always find a super- 
 numerary state — an ^tat postiche 1 (artificial state), to use 
 
 1 One of the ludicrous comedies of the Revolution is that related by 
 Jaurfes in La Convention, pp. 1386-1388. In the month of May 1793 
 an insurrectionary committee was set up at the Bishop's palace, which 
 formed an £tat postiche (see above), and which on May 31 repaired to 
 the town-hall and declared that the people of Paris withdrew aU powers 
 from every constituted authority ; the general council of the Commune, 
 having no means of defence, " was forced to give in," but not without 
 assuming an air of high tragedy : pompous speeches, embracings all 
 round, " to prove that there was neither wounded vanity on the one part, 
 nor pride of domination on the other " ; finally, this buffoonery was 
 
 O 
 
ig4 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 the expression of that time — which is organised in advance 
 by the side of the legal State, which considers itself a 
 legitimate before it has become a legal power, and which 
 profits by some slight incident to take up the reins of 
 government as they slip from the feeble hands of the 
 constituted authorities. 
 
 The adoption of the red flag i s one of the most singular 
 and the most characteristic episodes of that time. This 
 signal was used in times of disaffection to give warning 
 that martial law was about to be set up ; on August lo, 
 1792, it became the revolutionary symbol, in order to 
 proclaim " the martial law of the people against rebels 
 t o the executive j)ower." Jaures~"commen?s'"*on~~this 
 incidenFin these terms : " It is wg, the people, who are 
 now the law. . . .__We are not rebel^Jl1Ee~reBels'"ai'6' ~ 
 in the Tuileries, and it is against the factions of the court 
 and the party of the constitutional monarchy that we 
 raise, in the name of the country and of hberty, the flag of 
 legal repressions."^ Thus the insurgents began by pro- 
 claiming that they held le^timatT authority^ they^ are 
 fighting against a State which has only the^j££earance_ 
 of legitimacy, and they take the red flag t o symbolise 
 Jij^ ^^ the" re-establishment~T3y force of the real .,Q];dfit.-,- As 
 co nquerors, the y will treat the conquered as c onspi rators, 
 a nd w ilLdemandthat their plots be punished, ifie re al 
 CQnclusion to all these fine ideas was to be the massacre 
 of the prisoners in September. 
 
 All this is perfectly simple, and the ^general political 
 strike would develop in the same way with similar 
 occurrences. In order that this strike should succeed, 
 the greater part of the proletariat must be members of 
 
 terminated by an order which reinstated the council which had just been 
 dismissed. Jaurfes is delightful here : the revolutionary committee, 
 he says, " freed (the legal authority) from all the fetters of legality." 
 This happy thought is a reproduction of the well-known phrase of the 
 Bonapartists : " Sortir de la legalite pour rentrer dans le droit." 
 • Jaurfes, Legislative, p. 1288. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE igs 
 
 syndicates which are under the thumb of poUtical com- 
 mittees ; there must be a complete organisation made up 
 of the men who will take over the Government, so that 
 it will only be necessary to make a simple transmutation 
 in the personnel of the State. The organisation of the 
 Etai posiiche would have to be more complete than it was 
 at the tune of the Revolution, because the conquest of 
 the State by force does not seem so easy to accomplish 
 as formerly; but the principle would be the same. It 
 is even possible that, since the transmission of authority 
 operates nowadays in a more perfect fashion, thanks 
 to the new resources at the disposal of the Parliamentary 
 system, and since the proletariat would be thoroiighly 
 well organised under the official syndicates, we should 
 see the social revolution culminate in a wonderful^j^tem' 
 of slavery." '~ --- ^, -, . 
 
 IV 
 
 The study of the political strike leads us to a better ' 
 imderstanding of a distinction we must always have in 
 mind when we reflect on contemporary social questions. 
 Sometimes the terms force and violence are used in speak- 
 ing of acts of authority, sometimes in speaking of acts of 
 revolt.. It is obvious that the two cases give rise to very 
 different consequences. I think it would be better to 
 adopt a terminology which would give rise to no ambiguity, 
 and that the term innUncp. ghnnlfj ytf employed onlv for 
 acts of jTQvplt ; we should say, therefore, that the object "^ 
 of force is tQ.iiaPQsga certain social order in which the j/ 
 mmonty^soxenis^. while violence, tends to thejiestructiOn 
 o f that order. The middle class have used force since 
 the"B&giHmng of modem times, while the proletariat now 
 reacts against the piiddle class and against the State by J 
 violence. 
 
 For a long time I was convinced that it is very 
 
ig6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 important that the theory of social forces should be thor- 
 oughly investigated — in a large measure, the forces may be 
 compared to those acting on matter ; but I was not able 
 to perceive the capital distinction in question here until 
 I had come to consider the problem of the general strike. 
 Moreover, I do not think that Marx had ever examined 
 any other form of social constraint except force. In my 
 Saggi di critica del marxismo I endeavoured, a few years 
 ago, to sum up the arguments of Marx with respect to the 
 adaptation of man to the conditions of capitalism, and I 
 presented these arguments in the following manner, on 
 pages 38-40 :— 
 
 " (i) There is a social system which is to a certain 
 extent mechanical, in which man seems subject to true 
 natural laws : classical economists place at the beginning 
 of things that automatism which is in reality the last 
 product of the capitalistic regime. ' But the advance of 
 capitalist production,' says Marx,^ ' develops a more and 
 more numerous class of workers who, by education, tradi- 
 tion, and habit, look upon the conditions of that mode of 
 production as self-evident laws of nature.' The interven- 
 tion of an intelligent will in this mechanism would appear 
 as an exception. 
 
 " (2) There is a regime of emulation and of keen com- 
 petition which impels men to set aside traditional obstacles, 
 to seek constantly for what is new, and to imagine con- 
 ditions of existence which seem to them to be better. 
 According to Marx, it is in this revolutionary task that 
 the middle class excelled. 
 
 " (3) There is a regime of violence, which plays an 
 important part in history, and which assumes several 
 distinct forms : 
 
 " (a) On the lowest level, we find a scattered kind of 
 violence, which resembles the struggle for hfe, which acts 
 through economic conditions, and which carries out a 
 1 Capital, English translation edit, by Engels, p. 76. 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE iQ? 
 
 slow but sure expropriation ; violence of this character 
 works especially with the aid of fiscal arrangements.^ 
 
 " (6) Next comes the concentrated and organised force 
 of the State, which acts directly on labour, ' to regulate 
 wages, i.e. force them within the limits suitable to surplus \ A 
 value making, to lengthen the working day, and to main- ' '^ 
 tain the labourer himself in the normal degree of depend- i 
 ence ; this is an essential element of the so-called primitive j 
 accumulation.^ \ 
 
 " (c) We have, finally, violence properly so called, | 
 which occupies so great a place in the history of primitive 
 accumulation, and which constitutes the principle subject J 
 of history." — I 
 
 A few supplementary observations may be useful 
 here. 
 
 We must first of aU observe that these different 
 phases are placed in a logical sequence, starting from 
 states which most resemble an organism, and in which 
 no independent wiU appears, and ending in states in 
 which individual minds bring forward their considered 
 plans ; but the historical order is quite the contrary of 
 this order. 
 
 At the origin of capitalist accumulation we find some 
 very^ distinct -historicaJ^iacts, which appear each in its 
 proper time, with its own characteristics, and under 
 conditions so clearly marked that they are described in 
 the chronicles. We find, for instance, the expropriation 
 oi.. the peasants and the suppression of the old legisla- 
 tion which had constituted " serfdom and the indus- 
 trial hierarchy." Marx adds : " The history of this 
 
 1 Marx points out that in Holland taxation was used to raise the 
 price of necessities artificially ; this was the apphcation of a principle 
 of government : this system had a vicious efiect on the working class 
 and ruined the peasant, the artisan, and the other members of the 
 better-paid workers ; but it secured the absolute submission of the 
 workers to their masters, the manufacturers [Capital, Eng. trans, p. 781). 
 
 2 Capital, Eng. trans, p. 761. 
 
igS REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 expropriation is not a matter of conjecture ; it is in- 
 scribed in the annals of humanity in indelible letters of 
 blood and fire." ^ 
 
 Farther on Marx shows how the dawn of modern 
 times was marked by the conquest of America, the en- 
 slavement of negroes and the colonial wars : " The diffefetit 
 methods of primitive accumulation which the capitalist 
 era brought about are divided in a more or less chrono- 
 logical order first of all [between] Portugal, Spain, France 
 and England, until the latter combined the lot, during 
 the last thirty years of the seventeenth century, into a 
 systematic whole, embracing simultaneously the colonial 
 system, pubHc credit, modern finance and the protec- 
 tionist system. Some of these methods are backed by 
 the employment of brute force ; but all, without excep- 
 tion, exploit the power of the_Sta,te, the concentrated 
 and organised force of society, in order to precipitate 
 violently the passage from the feudal economic order to 
 the capitalist economic order, and to shorten the phases 
 of the transition." It is on this occasion that he com- 
 pared force to a midwife, and says that it multiplies the 
 social movement.^ 
 
 Thus we see that economic forces are closely bound up 
 with pohtical power, and capitalism finally perfects itself 
 to the point of being able to dispense with any direct 
 appeal to the pubUc force, except in very exceptional cases. 
 " In the ordinary run of things, the worker can be left to 
 the action „oi the wate^^ Jazz's p/ production, i.e. to his 
 dependence on capital, a dependence springing from 
 
 1 Capital, Eng- trans, p. 738. 
 
 ' Capital, Eng. trans, p. 776. The German text says that force 
 is an oekonomische Potenz (Kapital, 4th edition, p. 716) ; the French 
 text says that force is an agent iconomique. Fourier calls geometric 
 progressions puissancielles (Nouveau Monde industriel et sociitaire, p. 
 376) . Marx evidently used the word Potenz in the sense of a multiplier ; 
 cf. in Capital, p. 176, col. i, the term travail puissancii for labour of a 
 multiplied productivity. [The English translation has economic power. 
 — Trans. Note.] 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE igg 
 
 guaranteed, and perpetuated by the very mechanism of 
 production." ^ 
 
 When we reach the last historical stage, the action of 
 independent wills disappears, and the whole of society 
 resembles an organised body, working automatically ; 
 observers can then establish an economic science which 
 appears to them as exact as the sciences of physical 
 nature. The error of many economists consisted in their 
 ignorance of the fact that this system, which seemed 
 natural or primitive to them,^ is the result of a series of 
 transformations which might not have taken place, and 
 always remains a very unstable structure, for it couldjjg,^ 
 destroyed by force, as it had been created by the inter- 
 vention of force ; moreover, contemporary economic 
 literature is full of complaints respecting the intervention 
 of the State, which has thereby upset natural laws. 
 
 Nowadays economists are little disposed to believe 
 that these natural laws are in reality laws of Nature ; 
 they are weU aware that the capitaUst system was reached 
 but slowly, but they consider that it was reached by a 
 progress which should enchant the minds of all enlightened 
 men. This progress, in fact, is demonstrated by three 
 remarkable facts : it has become possible to set up a 
 science of economics ; laws can be stated in the simplest, 
 surest, and most elegant formulas, since the law of contract 
 dominates every country of advanced capitalism ; * the 
 caprices of the rulers of the State are no longer so apparent, 
 and thus the path towards liberty is open. Any return 
 
 1 Capital, tome i. p. 327, col. i. 
 
 2 Natural, in the Marxian sense, is that which resembles a physical 
 movement as opposed to the idea of creation by an inteUigent will ; 
 for the deists of the eighteenth century, natural was that which had 
 been created by God, and which was both primitive and excellent ; 
 this is still, it seems, the view of G. de Molinari. 
 
 3 In a very advanced capitaUst regime questions of agricultural rights, 
 women's dowries, the division of landed property go into the back- 
 ground ; the first place is occupied by commercial associations, bills of 
 exchange, sale of stocks and shares, etc. 
 
200 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 to the past seems to them a crime against science, law, 
 and human dignity. 
 
 Socialism looks upon this evolution as being a history 
 of middle-class force, and it only sees differences of degree 
 where the economists imagine that they are discovering 
 difference of kind. Whether force manifests itself under 
 the aspect of historical acts of coercion, or of fiscal oppres- 
 sion, or of conquest, or labour legislation, or whether it 
 is wholly bound up with the economic system, it is always 
 a middle-class force labouring with more or less skill to 
 bring about the capitalist order of society. 
 
 Marx endeavoured to describe the details of this evolu- 
 tion very carefully ; he gave very little detail, however, 
 about the organisation of the proletariat. This gap in 
 his work has often been explained. He found in England 
 an enormous mass of materials concerning the history of 
 capitalism, which was fairly well arranged, and which 
 had already been discussed by economists ; he was there- 
 fore able to investigate thoroughly the different peculiari- 
 ties of middle-class evolution, but he was not very well 
 furnished with matter on which he could argue about the 
 organisation of the proletariat ; he was obUged, therefore, 
 to remain content with an explanation, in very abstract 
 formulas, of his ideas on the subject of the path which the 
 proletariat must take, in order to arrive at the final revolu- 
 tionary struggle. The consequence of this inadequacy 
 of Marx's work was that Marxism has deviated from the 
 path assigned to it by its real nature. 
 
 The people who pride themselves on being orthodox 
 Marxians have made no attempt to add anything essential 
 to what their master has written, and they have always 
 imagined that, in order to argue about the^ proletari5.t, 
 they must make use of what they had learned from the 
 history of middle-class development. They have never 
 suspected, therefore, that a distinction should be drawn 
 between \h& force that aims at^_,^bQrity,^deavqurin£ 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE soi 
 
 to bring abou t an automatic obedience, and the violence 
 ■■t hat woul3~smasBrthat "authorityf AccorSng '"to^h£mr 
 t he proletari at m ust acauir_e force iu slasJhfi, madkj Ja i s. \ -j^ 
 a cquired it,, use it as the latter used it, and end&iaJl^^y 
 e stablishin g a SocialTst StajEe^wTijicEvrairreplace the middle- 
 class State. "" -^»«=^- ■- ™-~~~^ 
 
 As the State formerly played a most important part 
 in the revolutions which aboUshed the old economic 
 systems, so it must again b e the State which should, abolish 
 cap italism . The workers should therejore sacrifice every- 
 thing to one end alone — that of putting into power men 
 who promise them solemnly to ruin capitahsm for the 
 benefit of "BSe people ; that is how a Parliamentary 
 Socialist party'^is formed. Former militant Socialists 
 provided with modest jobs, middle-class people, educated, 
 frivolous, and eager to be in the public eye, and Stock 
 Exchange speculators imagine that a golden age might 
 spring up for them as the result of a cautious — a very 
 cautious— revolution, which would not seriously disturb 
 the traditional State. Quite naturally, these future 
 masters of the world harbour the thought of reprffducing 
 the history of middle-class force, and they are organising 
 themselves so that they may be able to draw the greatest 
 possible profit from this revolution. Quite a number of 
 such people might find a place in the new hierarchy, and 
 what Paul Leroy Beaulieu calls the " Fourth Estate " 
 would become really a lower middle class} 
 
 The whole future of democracy might easily depend 
 
 1 In an article in the Radical (January 2, 1906), Ferdinand Buisson 
 shows that those classes of workers who are more favoured at the present 
 time will continue to rise above the others ; the miners, the railway 
 workers, employees in the State factories or municipal services who are 
 well organised form a " working-class aristocracy," which succeeds all 
 the more easily because it has continually to discuss aU kinds of affairs 
 with corporative bodies who " stand for the recognition of the rights 
 of man, national supremacy, and the authority of universal sufiErage." 
 Beneath this nonsense is to be found merely the recognition of the 
 relationship existing between politicians and obsequious followers. 
 
302 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 on this lower middle class, which hopes to maJce use of 
 the strength of the really -proletarian organisations, for 
 its own great personal advantage.^ They politicians 
 believe that this class will always have peaceful tendencies, 
 that it may be organised and disciplined, 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 hke- 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. 
 
 Z' The political general strike concentrates the whole 
 
 f of this conception into one easily understood picture: 
 
 . j it shows us how the State would lose nothing of its 
 
 ■^l\\ strength, how the transmission of power from one 
 
 I privileged class to another would take place, and how 
 
 I 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 theTproTetariat Js,^,ia JQ3it;at&.J-tie 
 
 middle class ; if cannot conceive that a revolution as 
 
 vasF 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, 
 
 ' " 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 syndicates of civil servants (Les Transformations de la 
 puissance publique, p. 216). 
 
THE POLITICAL GENERAL STRIKE 203 
 
 and speculators — all worshippers and exploiters of the 
 State. It does not wish to restrict itself to the formulas 
 of Marx ."'^though 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 middle- 
 class 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 boimd 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 
 wiU 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 under- 
 stood history as the politicians do. 
 
 We know now the reason for his attitude : he^id-not 
 know the distinction, which appears to us nowadays 
 so obvious, between middle-class force and proletarian 
 violence, because he "did hot' nioye in circles which had 
 acquired a satisfactory notion of the general strike.^ We 
 now possess sufficient material to enable us to understand 
 the Syndicahst 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 
 
 1 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 
 Ufe. Let us not confuse thought and imagination. 
 
304 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 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 organ- 
 ism ; the whole revolutionary effort tends to create /i^ee men, 
 but democratic rulers adopt as their mission the accom- 
 plishment of the moral unity of France. This moral tmity 
 is the automatic discipline of th^ producers, who would 
 doubtless be happy to work for the glory of their intel- 
 lectual 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 S3mdicates which 
 would copy the political forms of the middle class. 
 
 The revolutionary SyndicaUsts have never yet made 
 that mistake, because those who seek to lead them into 
 an imitation of middle-class methods happen to be adver- 
 saries of the Syndicalist general strike, and have thus 
 stood confessed as enemies. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 
 
 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. 
 
 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 con-f 
 sidered 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 favour- 
 ably with military ones. This last point of view explains 
 why, almost vmititerruptedly since the eighteenth century, 
 economists have been in favour of strong central authori- 
 ties, and have troubled little about political liberties. 
 
 Condorcet levels this reproach at the followers of Quesnay, 
 
 205 
 
 -J^j.- 
 
3o6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 and Napoleon III. had probably no greater admirer than 
 Michel Chevalier.^ 
 
 / p 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 pohce 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 Catholic 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, con- 
 demned and hanged in less than a quarter of an hour, if 
 
 1 " One day Michel Chevalier came beaming into the editorial room 
 of the Journal des dibats. His first words were : ' I have achieved 
 liberty ! ' Everybody was all agog ; he was asked to explain. He 
 meant the Uberty of the slaughter-houses " (Renan, Feuilles ditachies, 
 p. 149). 
 
 2 P. Bureau, Le Paysan des fjords de NorwSge, pp. 114 and 115. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 207 
 
 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 1 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, 
 fuU of natural resources, wishing to take advantage of the 
 riches it contains and to acquire a superior situation in 
 life by his labour, wiU 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 aU virtuous people," hanged 
 maffiosi acquitted by the jury.^ 
 
 In Corsica, at the time when the vendetta was the regular 
 means of suppl5ang the deficiencies or correcting the action 
 of a too halting justice, the people do not appear to have 
 
 1 De Rousiers, La Vie amSricaine : ranches, fermes et usines, pp. 
 
 2 De Rousiers, La Vie amirica 
 
 3 De Rousiers, loc. cit. p. 221. 
 
 224-225. 
 
 2 De Rousiers, La Vie amMcaine, I'education et la sooiiU, p. 218. 
 
2oS REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 been less moral than to-day. Before the French conquest, 
 Kabyhe 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 limit, that it is a danger 
 to morahty. This concession cannot be used as an 
 argiunent 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 capitahst class is energetic, it is constantly affirming 
 its determination to defend _ itself ; its frank and con- 
 sistently reactionary attitude contributes at least as greatly 
 as proletarian violence towards keeping distinct that 
 cleavage between the classes which is the basis of all 
 Socialism. 
 
 We may make use here of the great historical example 
 provided by the persecutions which Christians were obhged 
 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 Mart3T:s, 
 that they have generally imagined the Christians as out- 
 laws whose blood was continually 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 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 209 
 
 searches of the poUce ; the catacombs were dug out at 
 great expense by communities with large resources at 
 their disposal, imder 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 aristo- 
 cracy ; "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." 1 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 unroU 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. 
 TertuUian is the writer who has most strongly indicated 
 the horror which the new religion felt for its persecutors, 
 and yet here is what Hamack says : "If, with the help 
 of the works of TertuUian, 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 TertuUian (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 extoUed the glory of martyrdom, 
 
 1 p. Allard, Dix lefons sur U martyre, p. 171. 
 
 2 Renan, iglise chritienne, p. 137. 
 ' P. Allard, op. cit. p. 137. 
 
210 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 and denied that any one had the right to fly from 
 persecution. 
 
 P. Allard combats Hamack's proposition with argu- 
 ments 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 persecu- 
 tion was exceptional ; they were able to look upon them- 
 selves 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 import- 
 ance than the frequency of the torments were the remark- 
 able occurrences which took place during the scenes of 
 
 ' Revue des questions historiques, July 1905. 
 
 " P. Allard, op. cit. p. 142. Cf. what I have said in Le SysUme 
 historique de Renan, pp. 312-315. 
 ' P. Allard, op. cit. p. 206. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 
 
 5 
 
 martyrdom. The Christian ideology was based on these 
 rather rare but very heroic" events ; "there was ""ho " 
 n ecessity for the m artj^rdpins to be numerous in order 
 to prove.-by the..te^ L£d,.e^Bfimnce, the absofute tnith of 
 th^e new religion and the .absQhiJte...£iiQr- of the^.Qld...:to 
 estabhsh thu s that there were two incompatible ways, 
 and to^aK it clear that the reign of evil would come to 
 an end. "In spite of the~"smainhuinb"er' 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 qmte other 
 conclusions than those which a modern 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 accompUshing 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 hteratmre. The pagans had no reason 
 to attach to mart5nrdom the extraordinary importance 
 which the faithful and those who already sympathised 
 with them attached to it. 
 
 This ideology would certainly not have been formed 
 
 1 p. Allard, op. cit. p. 142. 
 
 2 G. Sorel, Le SysUme historique de Renan, pp. 335-336. 
 
X 
 
 }^ 
 
 1/ 
 
 212 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 in SO paradoxical a manner had it not been for the firm 
 behef 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 m5rthology oTthe"' 
 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 Anti- 
 christ. Thus the cleavage sprang at the same time from 
 the persecutions and from the feverish expectation of a 
 decisive battle. When Christianity had developed suffi- 
 ciently, the apocalyptic literature ceased to be cultivated 
 to any extent ; although the root idea contained therein 
 stiU continued to exercise its influence, the^^cts of the 
 Martyrs were drawn up in such a way that they might 
 excite^ the sarne: feelings th^at the, apocalypses excited j 
 it^may be said ^that_ they replaced these : ^ we sometimes 
 find in the hterature 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 bging 
 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 
 
 1 It is probable that the first Christian 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 Smyrniotes telling 
 of the death of Saint Polycarpe) , and why all memory of a certain number 
 of very ancient Roman martyrs has been lost. 
 
 2 Marc AurUe, p. 500. 
 
 ^^\/ 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 213 
 
 _events_ofjtlie_ccuiflki then.-.appearjunder a magnified^ ,-; 
 form, and the idea of catastrophe , being maintained, thep'' 
 cleavage will be perfect/ Thus one objection often urged 
 against re-rolutionary Sociahsm maybe set aside— there 
 is no danger of civilisation succumbing under the con- 
 sequences 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 middle- 
 class 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 
 tp^^maintain in the minds of Jthe proletariat this idea of 
 ileajSLge 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 .philan4hropie, or more demjQcratic (according to the 
 temperament of each) ; let us unite for the accomplish- 
 -vs^sAtxA.sqcial4uty . 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. 
 
 Xh.e„ specious reasoning of these gentlemen — the 
 pontiffs of "social duty " — supposes that violence cannot 
 increase j^ and may even diminish in proportion jas the 
 Intellectuals unbend to the masses and make platitudes 
 
214 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 I 
 
 
 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 little 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 th^ y 
 identify with the regeneration of the world, could not 
 hesitate to make use of any weapon w hich Plight serve 
 to develop to a greater degree the spiri t of the c jass_war, 
 seeing that greater efforts wefe'Telng^made to suppress 
 it. Existing social conditions favouT'the" production" of 
 i-an infinite number of acts of violence, and there hasT)een 
 
 Eo hesitation" in "urging the workers not to refrain from 
 rutality when this might do them ^rvicer"" Philan- 
 thropic 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, ax^-^triptism becomes an essential 
 element of the Syndicalist programme.^ 
 
 1 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 ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 215 
 
 The introduction of anti-patriotism into the working- 
 class movement is all the more remarkable because it 
 came just when,jthe Government was about to put its 
 theories about the solidarity of the classes into practice. 
 It was in vain that L^on 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 
 application of the principles of solidarity ; the proletariat 
 replied to him by denying the social compact in the most 
 brutal fa.shion--'by den5dng 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 flat contradiction with their 
 aims ; it is enough to make one despair of sociology ! 
 If they had any common sense, and if they reaUy desired 
 to protect society against an increase of brutality, they 
 woiild notjirive the Socialists into the necessity of adopt- 
 ing 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, and 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. ^- 
 
 1 This propaganda produced results which went far beyond the 
 expectations of its promoters, and which would be inexplicable without 
 the revolutionary idea. 
 
zi6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 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 b^hiad the great ayereion 
 felt by moralists for acts of violence ; a very brief sumriiary 
 of a few very curious changes which have taken place in 
 the manners, of the working classes is first of all indis- 
 pensable. 
 
 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 iiistrument 
 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 intelligent 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 
 pimishments 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 
 
 ^ Cf. Renan, Histoire du peuple d'Isra'el, tome iv. pp. 289 and 296 ; 
 Y. Guyot, La Morale, pp. 212-215 ; Alphonse Daudet, Numa Roumestan, 
 chap. iv. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 217 
 
 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 lajdng 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 
 iheir workshop had to buy them drink, and on the follow- 
 ing day to treat all his feUow-workers. " The notorious 
 When's it to be ? (Quand est-ce ?) ^ would be started ; every- 
 body gets tipsy. . . . When's it to be ? is the devourer of 
 savings ; in a workshop where When's it to be ? 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 
 
 1 G. Sorel, Essai sur Viglise et Vitat, p. 63. 
 
 2 Quand est-ce? This was the question addressed to the new- 
 comer in a workshop, to remind him that according to custom he must 
 pay for drinks all round — " Pay your footing." 
 
 3 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 by the Mire des compagnons ; the newly arrived 
 
2i8 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 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 L^on, in his book on 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 Subise " : ^ " 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 hunted back, as they 
 say, into the brushwood." ^ There were many secessions 
 when the tyranny of the companions came into opposition 
 with the more hberal habits which prevailed in society. 
 When the workers were no longer in need of protection, 
 especially for the purpose of finding 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 opposi- 
 tion 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. 
 
 ^ Martin Saint-Leon, Le Compagnonnage, pp. 115, 125, 270-273, 
 277-278. 
 
 2 Each trade possessed often several rival 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 Subise 
 has long been forgotten. They are traditional words indicating 
 the rules, and so by extension, the associations which follow these 
 rules. 
 
 ' Martin Saint-Leon, op. cit. p. 97. Cf. pp. 91-92, p. 107. 
 
 * In 1823, the companion joiners claimed La RocheUe 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 ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 219 
 
 the decline of an institution which, while rendering many 
 importtint services, had contributed very much to main- 
 taining the idea of brutality. 
 
 Everybody agrees that the jjsappearancfi of these old/, 
 brutalities is an excellent thing. From this opinion it was 
 so easy to pass to the idea that all violence is an evil, that 
 this step was bound to have been taken ; and, in fact, 
 the great mass of the people, who are not accustomed to 
 thinking, have come to this conclusion, which is accepted 
 nowadays as a dogma by the Heating herd of moralists. 
 They have not asked themselves what there is in brutality 
 which is reprehensible. 
 
 When we no longer remain content with current 
 stupidity we discover that our ideas about the disappear- 
 ance of violence depend much more on a very important 
 transformation which has taken place in the criminal 
 world, than on ethical principles. I shall endeavour to 
 prove this. 
 
 B. Middle-class scientists are very chary of touching 
 on anything relating to the dangerous classes ; ^ that is 
 one of the reasons why their observations on the history 
 of morals always remain superficial ; it is not very 
 difficult to see that it is a knowledge of these classes 
 which alone enables us to penetrate the mysteries of the 
 moral thought of peoples. 
 
 The dangerous classes of past times practised the 
 simplest form of offence, that which was nearest to hand, 
 that which is nowadays left to groups of young scoimdrels 
 without experience and without judgment. Offences of 
 brutaUty seem to us nowadays something abnormal ; so 
 
 compagnonnage, following the refusals with which the latter had met a 
 few rather modest demands for reforms presented by the candidates 
 for election (pp. 108-116, 126, 131). 
 
 ^ On March 30, 1906, Monis said in the Senate : " We cannot write 
 in a legal text that prostitution exists in France for both sexes." 
 
220 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 much SO, that when the brutahty has been great we often 
 ask ourselves whether the culprit is in possession of all 
 his senses. This transformation has evidently not come 
 about because criminals have become moral, but because 
 they have changed their method of procedure to suit 
 the new economic conditions, as we shall see farther on. 
 This change has had the greatest influence on popular 
 thought. 
 
 We all know that by using brutality, associations of 
 criminals manage to maintain excellent discipline among 
 themselves. When we see a child ill-treated we instinc^ 
 tively suppose that its parents have criminal habits. The 
 methods used by the old schoolmasters, which the ecclesi- 
 astical houses persist in preserving, are those of vagabonds 
 who steal children to make clever acrobats or interesting 
 beggars of them. Everything which reminds us of the 
 habits of dangerous classes of former times is extremely 
 odious to us. 
 
 There is a tendency for the old ferocity to be replaced 
 by cunning, and maiiy sociologists believe that this is a 
 real progress. Some philosophers who are not in the habit 
 of following the opinions of the herd, do not see exactly 
 how this constitutes progress, from the point of view of 
 morals : " If we are revolted by the cruelty, by the 
 brutality of past times," says Hartmann, " it must not 
 be forgotten that uprightness, sincerity, a lively sentiment 
 of justice, pious respect before holiness of morals char- 
 acterised the ancient peoples ; while nowadays we see 
 predominant lies, duplicity, treachery, the spirit of 
 chicane, the contempt for property, disdain for instinctive 
 probity and legitimate customs — the value of which is 
 not even understood.^ Robbery, deceit, and fraud 
 
 ' Hartmann here bases his statements on the authority of the 
 English naturalist Wallace, who has greatly praised the simplicity of 
 hfe among the Malays ; there must surely be a considerable element of 
 exaggeration in this praise, although other travellers have made similar 
 observations about some of the tribes of Sumatra. Hartmann wishes 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 221 
 
 increase in spite of legal repression more rapidly than 
 brutal and violent crimes, like pillage, murder, and rape, 
 etc., decrease. Egoism of the basest kind shamelessly 
 breaks the sacred bonds of the family and friendship 
 in every case in which these oppose its desires." ^ 
 
 At the present time money losses are generally looked 
 upon as accidents to which we are constantly exposed 
 and easily made good again, while bodily accidents are 
 not so easily reparable. FTa.i , ^d 15^ .iheref ore, re^ardedas 
 in Anitely less serious- than brutality ; criminals benefit 
 from this change which has come about in legal sentences. 
 
 Our penal code was drawn up at a time when the citizen 
 was pictured as a rural proprietor occupied solely with 
 the administration of his property, as a good family man, 
 saving to secure an honourable position for his children ; 
 large fortunes made in business, in politics, or by specula- 
 tion were rare and were looked on as real monstrosities ; 
 the defence of the savings of the middle classes was one 
 of the first concerns of the legislator. The previous 
 judicial system had been stiU more severe in the ptmish- 
 ment of fraud, for a royal declaration of August 5, 1725, 
 punished a fraudulent bankrupt with death ; it would 
 be difficult to imagine anything further removed from our 
 customs. We are now inclined to consider that offences 
 of this sort can, as a rule, only be committed as the result 
 of the imprudence of the victims, and that it is only 
 exceptionally that they deserve severe penalties ; we, on 
 the contrary, content ourselves with light punishment. 
 
 In a rich community where business is on a very large 
 scale, and in which everybody is wide awake in defence 
 of his own interests, as in America, crimes of fraud never 
 have the same consequences as in a commimity which is 
 forced to practise rigid economy ; as a matter of fact, 
 
 to show that there is no progress towards happiness, and this pre- 
 occupation leads him to exaggerate the happiness of the ancients. 
 1 Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, French trans., pp. 464-465. 
 
222 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 these crimes seldom cause a serious and lasting disturbance 
 in the economic system ; it is for this reason that Americans 
 put up with the excesses of their politicians and financiers 
 with so little complaint. P. de Rousiers compares the 
 American to the captain of a ship who, during a dangerous 
 voyage, has no time to look after his thieving cook. 
 " When you point out to Americans that they are being 
 robbed by their politicians, they usually reply, ' Of course 
 we are quite aware of that ! But as long as business is 
 good and politicians do not get in the way, it will not be 
 very difficult for them to escape the punishment they 
 deserve.' " ^ 
 
 In Europe also, since it has become easy to gain money, 
 ideas, analogous to those current in America, have spread 
 among us. Great company promoters have been able to 
 escape punishment because in their hour of success they 
 were clever enough to make friends in all circles. We 
 have finally come to believe that it would be extremely 
 unjust to condemn bankrupt merchants and lawyers who 
 retire ruined after moderate catastrophes, while the princes 
 of financial swindling continue to lead gay lives. Gradu- 
 ally the new industrial system has created a new and 
 extraordinary indulgence for all crimes of fraud in the 
 great capitalist coimtries.^ 
 
 In those countries where the old parsimonious and non- 
 speculative family economy still prevails, the relative 
 estimation of acts of fraud and acts of brutality has not 
 followed the same evolution as in America, England, and 
 France ; this is why (^many'^as preserved so many of 
 the customs of former tinTSf*' and does not feel the same 
 
 1 De Rousiers, ha Vie amiyicaine : I'iducation et la sociiU, p. 217. 
 
 2 Several small countries have adopted these ideas, thinking by 
 such imitation to reach the greatness of the large countries. 
 
 'It must be noticed that in Germany there are so many Jews in 
 the world of speculation that American ideas do not spread very easily. 
 The majority look upon the speculator as a foreigner who is robbing 
 the nation. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 223 
 
 horror that we do for brutal ptinishments ; these never 
 seem to them, as they do to us, only suitable to the most 
 dangerous classes. 
 
 Many philosophers have protested against this mitiga- 
 tion of sentences ; after what we have related earlier about 
 Hartmann, we shaU expect to meet him among those who 
 protest. " We are already," he says, " approaching the 
 time when theft and lying condemned by law will be 
 despised as vulgar errors, as gross clumsiness, by the clever 
 cheats who know how to preserve the letter of the law 
 while infringing the rights of other people. For my part, 
 I would much rather live amongst the ancient Germans, 
 at the risk of being kiUed on occasion, than be obliged, as 
 I am in modem cities, to look on every man as a swindler 
 or a rogue imless I have evident proofs of his honesty." ^ 
 Hartmann takes no account of economic conditions ; he 
 argues from an entirely personal point of view, and never 
 looks at what goes on round him. Nobody to-day wants 
 to run the risk of being slain by ancient Germans ; fraud 
 or a theft are very easily reparable. 
 
 C. Finally, in order to get to the heart of contemporary 
 thought on this matter, it is necessary to examine the way 
 in which the public judges the relations existing between 
 the State and the criminal associations. Such relations 
 have always existed ; these associations, after having 
 practised violence, have ended by employing craft alone, 
 or at least their acts of violence have become somewhat 
 exceptional. 
 
 Nowadays we should think it very strange if the 
 magistrates were to put' themselves at the head of armed 
 bands, as they did in Rome during the last years of the 
 Republic. In the course of the Zola trial, the Anti-Semites 
 recruited bands of paid demonstrators, who were com- 
 missioned to manifest patriotic indignation ; the Govem- 
 
 1 Hartmann, loc. cit., p. 465. 
 
224 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 ment of Meline protected these antics, which for some 
 months had considerable success and helped considerably 
 in hindering a fair revision of the sentence on Dreyfus. 
 
 1 believe that I am not mistaken in saying that these 
 tactics of the partisans of the Church have been the 
 principal cause of all the measures directed against 
 Catholicism since 1901 ; the middle-class liberals would 
 never have accepted these measures if they had not still 
 been under the influence of the fear they had felt during 
 the Drej^us affair. The chief argument which Clemenceau 
 used to stir up his followers to fight against the Church 
 was that of fear ; he never ceased to denounce the danger 
 which the Republic ran in the continued existence of the 
 Romish faction ; the laws about the congregations, about 
 education and the administration of the churches were 
 made with the object of preventing the Catholic party 
 again taking up its former warlike attitude, which Anatol 
 France so often compared to that of the League ; ^ they 
 were laws inspired, by fear. Many Conservatives felt this 
 so strongly that they regarded with displeasure the 
 resistance recently opposed to the inventories of churches ; 
 they considered that the emplo5nnent of bands of pious 
 apaches would make the middle classes still more hostile 
 to their cause.^ It was not a little surprising to see 
 Brunetiere, who had been one of the admirers of the anti- 
 Drej^us apaches, advise submission ; this was because 
 experience had enlightened him as to the consequences 
 of violence. 
 
 ^ [The League was a political organisation directed by the partisans 
 of the Due de Guise against the Protestants ; it resisted Henri IV. for 
 a considerable time. — Trans. Note.] 
 
 2 At a meeting of the Municipal Council of Paris on March 26, 1906, 
 the Prefect of Police said that the resistance was organised by a com- 
 mittee sitting at 86. rue de Richelieu, which hired pious apaches at 
 between three and four francs a day. He asserted that fifty-two 
 Parisian cures had promised him either to facilitate the inventories or 
 to be content with a merely passive resistance. He accused the Catholic 
 politicians of having forced the hands of the clergy. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 225 
 
 Associations which work by craft provoke no such 
 reactions in the public ; in the time of the " clerical 
 republic," ^ the society of Saint Vincent de Paul was an 
 excellent centre of surveillance over officials of every 
 order and grade ; it is not surprising, then, that free- 
 masonry has been able to render services to the Radical 
 Government of exactly the same kind as those which 
 Catholic philanthropy was able to render to former 
 Governments. The history of recent spying scandals has 
 shown very plainly what the point of view of the country 
 actually was. 
 
 When the nationalists obtained possession of the docu- 
 ments containing information about officers of the army, 
 which had been compiled by the dignitaries of the masonic 
 lodges, they believed that their opponents were lost ; 
 the panic which prevailed in the Radical camp for some 
 time seemed to justify their hopes, but before long the 
 democracy showed only derision for what they called the 
 " petty virtue " of those who publicly denounced the 
 methods of General Andre and his accomplices. In those 
 difficult days Henry Berenger showed that he imderstood 
 admirably the ethical standards of his contemporaries ; 
 he did not hesitate to approve of what he called the 
 " legitimate supervision of the governing classes exercised 
 by the organisations of the vanguard " ; he denounced 
 the cowardice of the Government which had " allowed 
 those who had undertaken the difficult task of opposing 
 the military caste and the Roman Church, of examining 
 and denouncing them, to be branded as informers " [Action, 
 Oct. 31, 1904) ; he loaded with insults the few Dreyf usards 
 who dared to show their indignation ; the attitude of 
 Joseph Reinach appeared particularly scandalous to him ; 
 in his opinion the latter should have felt himself extremely 
 honoured by being tolerated in the " League of the Rights 
 of Man," which had decided at last to lead " the good 
 
 ' [i.e. in the time when MacMahon was President. — Trans. Note.] 
 
 Q 
 
226 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 fight for the defence of rights of the citizen, sacrificed too 
 long to those of one man " {Action, Dec. 12, 1904). Finally, 
 a law of amnesty was voted declaring that no one wanted 
 to hear anjrthing more of these trifles. 
 
 There was some opposition in the provinces,^ but was 
 it very serious ? I am inchned to think not, when I read 
 the documents pubUshed by Peguy in the ninth number 
 of the sixth series of his Cahiers de la quinzaine. Several 
 people, accustomed to speaking a verbose, sonorous, and 
 nonsensical language, doubtless found themselves a httle 
 vmcomfortable under the smiles of the leading grocers and 
 eminent chemists who constituted the elite of the learned 
 and musical societies before which they had been 
 accustomed to hold forth on Justice, Truth, and Light. 
 They found it necessary to adopt a stoical attitude. 
 
 Could anything be finer than this passage from a letter 
 of Professor Bougie, an eminent doctor of social science, 
 which I find on page 13 : "I am very happy to learn that 
 at last the League is going to speak. Its silence astonishes 
 and frightens us." He must be a man who is easily 
 astonished and frightened ! Francis de Pressens^ also 
 suffered some anxiety of mind — he is a specialist in that 
 kind of thing — but his feelings were of a very distinguished 
 kind, as is only proper for an aristocratic Socialist ; he 
 was afraid that democracy was threatened with a new 
 guillotine seche,^ resembling that which had done so 
 much harm to virtuous democrats during the Panama 
 scandal.^ When he saw that the public quietly accepted 
 
 ^ The people in the provinces are not, as a matter of fact, so 
 accustomed as the Parisians are to indulgence towards non-violent 
 trickery and brigandage. 
 
 ' [" Dry guiUotine,"popularexpressionmeaningpersecution. — Trans.] 
 ' Cahiers de la quinzaine, gth of the Vlth series, p. g. F. de Pressens6 
 was at the time of the Panama affair Hebrard's principal clerk ; we 
 know that the latter was one of the principal beneficiaries from the 
 Panama booty, but that has not injured his position in the eyes of 
 the austere Huguenots ; the Temps continues to be the organ of moderate 
 democracy and of the ministers of the Gospel. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 227 
 
 the complicity of the Government with a philanthropic 
 association which had turned into a criminal association, 
 he hurled his avenging thunders against the protestors. 
 Among the most comical of these protestors I pick 
 out a political pastor of St-Etienne called L. Comte. He 
 wrote, in the extraordinary language employed by the 
 members of the League of the Rights of Man : " I had 
 hoped that the [Dreyfus] affair would have definitely 
 cured us of the moral malaria from which we suffer, and 
 that it would have cleansed the republican conscience of the 
 clerical virus with which it was impregnated. It has done 
 nothing. We are more clerical than ever." ^ Accordingly 
 this austere man remained in the League ! Protestant 
 and middle-class logic ! It is always possible, you see, that 
 the League might one of these days be able to render some 
 small service to the deserving ministers of the Gospel. 
 
 I have insisted rather lengthily on these grotesque 
 incidents because they seem to me to characterise very 
 aptly the moral ideas of the people who claim to lead us. 
 Henceforth it must be take n for grant ed that politico - 
 criminal associations which work bv craft. lf}M&nl^^^t^i:^f!iZ' 
 
 ni sed place in a nyjdgmo^cracvthat has attained its maturity. 
 Pr"3e^ Rousiers believes that America will one day cure 
 itself of the evils which result from the guilty manoeuvres 
 of its politicians. Ostrogorski, after making a long and 
 minute inquiry into " Democracy, and the organisation 
 of political parties," believes that he has found remedies 
 which wiU enable modern states to free themselves 
 from exploitation by political parties. These are platonic 
 vows ; no historical experience justifies- the hope that a 
 democracy can be made to work in a capitalist country, , 
 without the criminal abuses experienced everywhere now- 
 adays. When Rousseau demanded that the democracy 
 should not tolerate the existence in its midst of any private 
 association, he reasoned from his knowledge of the republics 
 
 ^ Cahiers de la quinzaine, loc. cit. p. 13. 
 
338 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 of the Middle Ages ; he knew that part of history better 
 than his contemporaries did, and was struck with the 
 enormous part played at that time by the politico- 
 criminal associations ; he asserted the impossibility of 
 reconciling a rational democracy with the existence of 
 such forces, but we ought to learn from experience that 
 there is no way of bringing about their disappearance.^ 
 
 Ill 
 
 The preceding explanations enable us to understand 
 the ideas about the proper function of the worker's 
 sjmdicates formed by the enlightened democrats and the 
 worthy progressives. Waldeck-Rousseau has often been 
 congratulated on having carried the law on syndicates in 
 1884. In order to give an account of what was expected 
 from this law we must recall the situation of France at 
 that epoch. Severe financial embarrassments had com- 
 pelled the Government to sign agreements with the rail- 
 way companies which the Radicals denounced as acts of 
 brigandage ; the colonial policy gave opportunities for 
 extremely violent attacks and was thoroughly unpopular ;'^ 
 the discontent which a few years later took the form of 
 Boulangism was already very marked, and in the elections 
 of 1885 very nearly gave a majority to the Conservatives. 
 
 Waldeck-Rousseau, without being a very profound seer, 
 was yet sharp enough to understand the danger which 
 might threaten the opportunist republic, and cjmical 
 enough to look for a means of defence in a politico- 
 
 1 Rousseau, stating the question in an abstract way, appeared to 
 condemn every kind of association, and our Governments for a long time 
 used his authority to subject every association to authority. 
 
 2 In his Morale, published in 1883, Y. Guyot violently attacks this 
 policy. " In spite of the disastrous experiences [of two centuries], we 
 are taking Tunisia, we are on the point of going to Egypt, we are 
 setting out for Tonkin, we dream of the conquest of Central Africa" 
 (P- 339). 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 229 
 
 criminal association capable of checkmating the Con- 
 servatives. 
 
 At the time of the Empire the Government had tried 
 to manipulate the benefit societies in such a way as to 
 control the employes and a section of the artisans. Later 
 on, it beUeved it might be possible to find, in the work- 
 men's associations, a weapon with which it might be 
 capable of ruining the authority which the Liberal party 
 had with the people, and terrorising the rich classes, 
 who had obstinately opposed the Government since 1863. 
 Waldeck-Rousseau was inspired by these examples and 
 hoped to organise among the workmen a hierarchy under 
 the direction of the police.^ 
 
 In a circular of August 25, 1884, Waldeck-Rousseau 
 explained to the prefects that they ought not to confine 
 themselves to their too limited function of enforcing 
 respect for the law ; they must stimulate the spirit of 
 association and " smooth away the difficulties which were 
 bound to arise from inexperience and lack of practice in 
 this new liberty," their task would be so much the more 
 useful and important if they succeeded in inspiring greater 
 confidence in the workmen ; in diplomatic terms the 
 Minister advised them to undertake the moral leadership 
 of the Syndicalist movement.^ " Although the Govern- 
 ment is not obliged by the law of 1884 to take any part 
 in the search for the solutions of the great economic and 
 social problems, it cannot be indifferent to them, and I 
 am convinced that it is its duty to participate and to put 
 its services and zeal at the disposal of all the parties 
 
 1 I have pointed this out in the Ere nouvelle, March 1894, p. 339. 
 
 2 According to the Socialist deputy, Marius Devize, the Prefect du 
 Gard undertook this leadership of the Syndicalist movement under the 
 minister Combes (&tudes socialistes, p. 323). I find in the France du 
 Sud-Ouest (January 25, 1904) a notice announcing that the Prefect of 
 La Manche, delegated by the Government, together with the under- 
 prefect, the mayor, and the municipality, officially inaugurated the 
 Bourse du Travail at Cherbourg. 
 
330 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 concerned." It will be necessary to act with a great deal 
 of prudence so as " not to excite mistrust," to show the 
 workmen's associations how very much the Government 
 interests itself in their development, and to advise them 
 " when they make applications." The prefects must 
 prepare themselves for " this role of counsellor and 
 energetic collaborator by a thorough study of legislation, 
 and of the similar organisations which exist in France and 
 abroad." 
 
 In 1884 the Government did not in the least foresee 
 that the syndicates might participate in a great revolu- 
 tionary agitation, and the circular spoke with a certain 
 irony of " the hypothetical peril of an anti-social federa- 
 tion of the whole of the workers." Nowadays one is 
 very tempted to smile at the ingenuousness of the man 
 who has so often been represented to us as the prince of 
 cunning ; but to account for his illusions it is necessary 
 to go back to the writings of the democrats of that period. 
 In 1887, in the preface to the third edition of Sublime, 
 Denis Poulot, an experienced manufacturer, former 
 mayor of the nth arrondissement and a follower of 
 Gambetta, said that the syndicates would kill strikes ; 
 he believed that the revolutionaries had no serious 
 influence on the organised workmen, and he saw in the 
 primary schools a sure means of bringing about the dis- 
 appearance of Socialism ; like nearly all the opportunists 
 of that time, he was much more preoccupied with blacks 
 than with reds?- Yves Guyot himself does not seem to have 
 had much more insight than Waldeck-Rousseau, because 
 in his Morale (1883) he considered collectivism to be 
 merely a word, he denounced the existing legislation 
 which " aims at hindering the organisation of workmen 
 for the sale of their labour at the highest possible price 
 and for the discussion of their interests," and he expected 
 that what the syndicates would lead to would be the 
 
 1 Blacks and reds — clericals aad Socialists. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 231 
 
 " organisation of the sale of labour on a wholesale basis." 
 He makes violent attacks on the priests, and the Chagot 
 family is denounced because it forces the miners of 
 Monceau to go to Mass.^ Everybody then coimted on 
 the working men's organisations to destroy the power 
 of the clerical party. 
 
 If the Waldeck-Rousseau had had the slightest fore- 
 sight, he would have perceived the advantage that the 
 Conservatives have tried to draw from the law on syndi- 
 cates, with a view to attempting the restoration of social 
 peace in the country districts under their own leadership. 
 For several years the peril which the RepubUc ran in the 
 formation of an agrarian party has been denounced ; ^ the 
 result has not answered to the hopes of the promoters of 
 agricultural sjmdicates, but it might have been serious. 
 Waldeck-Rousseau never suspected it for an instant ; he 
 does not seem, in his circular, to have suspected even the 
 material services which the new associations would render 
 to agriculture.^ If he had had any idea of what might come 
 to pass, he would have taken precautions in the drawing 
 up of the law ; it is certain that neither the minister who 
 drew up the law, nor the "rapporteur"* understood the 
 importance of the word " agricultural " which was intro- 
 duced by means of an amendment proposed by D'Oudet, 
 the senator for Doubs.^ 
 
 Workmen's associations directed by democrats, using 
 cunning, threats, and sometimes even a certain amount 
 
 * Y. Guyot, Morale, pp. 293, 183-184, 122, 148 and 320. 
 
 i" De Rocquigny, Les Syndicats agricoles et leur ceuvre, pp. 42, 391-394. 
 
 5 This is all the more remarkable since the syndicates are represented 
 in the circular as capable of aiding French industry in its struggle against 
 foreign competition. 
 
 * [See note p. 80. — Trans.] 
 
 5 It was thought to be merely a question of permitting agricultural 
 labourers to form themselves into syndicates ; Tolain declared, in the 
 name of the Committee, that he had never thought of excluding them 
 from the benefits of the new law (De Rocquigny, op. cit. p. 10). As a 
 rule, the agricultural syndicates have served as commercial agencies for 
 farm bailiffs, landowners, etc. 
 
233 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 of violence, could have been of the greatest service to the 
 Government in the struggle against the Conservatives, 
 then so threatening. Those people who have recently 
 transformed Waldeck-Rousseau into the father of his 
 country will probably protest against such a disrespectful 
 interpretation of his policy ; but this interpretation will 
 not seem altogether improbable to the people who 
 remember the cynicism with which he, who is now repre- 
 sented as a great Liberal, governed ; one had the impression 
 that France was about to enter on a regime which would 
 recall the follies, the luxuries, and the brutality of the 
 Caesars. Moreover, when unforeseen circumstances 
 brought back Waldeck-Rousseau to power, he immediately 
 resumed his former policy and tried to use the syndicates 
 against his adversaries. 
 
 In 1899 it was no longer possible to attempt to put the 
 workmen's associations under the direction of the prefects 
 in the way indicated by the circular of 1884 ; but there 
 were other methods which might be tried, and in including 
 Millerand in his ministry, Waldeck-Rousseau thought he 
 had carried out a master-stroke. As Millerand had been 
 able to make himself the leader of the Socialists, who had, 
 until then, been divided into irreconcilable groups, might 
 he not become the broker who would discreetly manipulate 
 the syndicates by influencing their leaders ? Every 
 means of seduction was employed in order to bring the 
 workmen to reason, and to inspire them with confidence 
 in the higher officials of the " Government of Republican 
 Defence." 
 
 One cannot help being reminded of the pohcy that 
 Napoleon, in signing the Concordat, intended to follow ; 
 he had recognised that it would not be possible for him, 
 as for Henry VIII., to directly influence the Church. 
 " Failing that method," said Taine, " he adopts another, 
 which leads to the same end. He does not want to change 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 233 
 
 the opinions of his people, he respects spiritual things and 
 wishes to control them without interfering with them and 
 without becoming entangled himself in them ; he wants to 
 make them square with his pohcy, but by the influence of 
 temporal things." ^ In the same way, Millerand was 
 commissioned to assure the workmen that their Socialist 
 convictions would not be interfered with ; the Government 
 only wanted to direct the action of the syndicates and to 
 make them fit in with its own policy. 
 
 Napoleon had said, " You will see how I shall be able 
 to utilise the priests." ^ Millerand was instructed to 
 gratify in every way the vanity of the leaders of the 
 syndicates,* while the mission of the prefects was to induce 
 the employers to grant material advantages to the 
 workers ; it was thought that this Napoleonic policy 
 would give results as considerable as those obtained from 
 the policy pursued in regard to the Church. Dumay, 
 the Minister of Public Worship, had succeeded in creating 
 a docile episcopacy formed of men whom the ardent 
 Catholics contemptuously called the "prefets violets." * 
 Might it not be possible, by putting a shrewd principal 
 clerk in the office of the minister, to create "prefets 
 rouges." All this was fairly well thought out and corre- 
 sponded perfectly with the kind of talent possessed by 
 Waldeck-Rousseau, who was all his Ufe a great partisan 
 of the Concordat and was fond of negotiating with Rome. 
 It was not unpleasing to him to negotiate with the reds ; 
 the very originality of the enterprise would have been 
 enough to charm a mind like his, that delighted in 
 subtlety. 
 
 1 Taine, Le Rigime moderne, vol. ii. p. 10. 
 
 2 Taine, loc. cii. p. 11. 
 
 ' This is what Mme. Georges Renard very sensibly points out in 
 her report of a workmen's fSte given by Millerand (L. de Seilhac, Le 
 Monde socialiste, p. 308). 
 
 * [Prifets violets ; this expression was used ironically by several 
 papers to designate bishops who were too submissive to the Govern- 
 ment. CathoUc bishops wear a violet robe. — Trans. Note.} 
 
234- REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 In a speech on December i, 1905, Marcel Sembat, who 
 had been in a particularly good position to know how 
 things happened in the time of Millerand, related several 
 anecdotes which very much astounded the Chamber. He 
 told them how the Government, in order to make itself 
 disagreeable to the nationalist municipal councillors of 
 Paris, and to reduce their influence on the Bourse du 
 Travail,! had asked the syndicates " to make applications 
 to it that would justify " the reorganisation of that 
 establishment. A certain amount of scandal was caused 
 by the march past of the red flags before the official plat- 
 form at the inauguration of the monument to Dalou in 
 the Place de la Nation. We now know that this happened 
 as the result of negotiations ; the prefect of pohce had 
 hesitated, but Waldeck-Rousseau had authorised these 
 revolutionary ensigns. The fact that the Government 
 denied having any relations with the syndicates is of no 
 importance — a lie more or less would not trouble a 
 politician of Waldeck-Rousseau's caUbre. 
 
 The exposure of these manoeuvres shows us that the 
 ministry depended on the syndicates to frighten the Con- 
 servatives. Ever since then it has been easy to under- 
 stand the attitude they have adopted in the course of 
 several strikes : on the one hand, Waldeck-Rousseau 
 proclaimed with great fervour the necessity of giving 
 
 ' Millerand did not keep on the former Director of the Office du 
 Travail, who was doubtless not pUant enough for the new poUcy. 
 It seems to me to be clearly estabUshed that at that time considerable 
 attention was being given in this Government department to a kind of 
 enquiry as to the state of feeling among the militants of the syndicates, 
 evidently in order to ascertain in what way they might be advised. 
 This was revealed by Ch. Guieysse in the Pages libres of December lo, 
 1904 ; the protestations of the department and those of Millerand do 
 not appear to have been very serious {Voix du peuple, De'cember i8, 25, 
 1904, January i, 1905, June 25, August 27). [The Office du Travail is 
 a ministerial office, which makes enquiries about labour and publishes 
 statistics ; it was created principally in the hope that it would serve 
 to put the Government into connection with the leaders of the 
 syndicates. — Trans .] 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 335 
 
 the protection of public force to every single workman 
 who wished to work in spite of the strikers ; on the other 
 hand, he has more than once shut his eyes to acts of 
 violence. The reason of this is, that he found it necessary 
 to annoy and frighten the progressists,^ and because he 
 meant to reserve to himself the right of forcible inter- 
 vention at the moment when his political interests 
 require the disappearance of all disorder. In the pre- 
 carious state of his authority in the country he believed 
 it possible to govern only by fear and by imposing himself 
 as the supreme arbitrator in industrial disputes.^ 
 
 Since 1884 Waldeck-Rousseau's plan had been to trans- 
 form the S5mdicates into politico-criminal associations 
 which could- serve as auxiliaries to the democratic Govern- 
 ment. The syndicates were to play a part analogous to 
 that played by the lodges, the latter being useful in 
 spying on the officials, and the former .designed to threaten- 
 ipgj^hfijnterests of those emplayers_ who were not on the 
 side of the administration ; the freemasons being i'e- 
 warde^ by decorations and favours given to their friends, 
 the workmen being authorised to extract extra wages 
 frorS their employers. This policy was sirtipie andx;heap. 
 
 In order that this system may work properly, a certain 
 moderation in the conduct of the workmen is necessary. 
 Not only must violence be used with discretion, but the 
 workmen's demands also must not exceed certain limits. 
 The same principles must be applied in this-case as in the 
 case of the bribery of politicians. Everybody approves 
 
 * It may be questioned whether Waldeck-Rousseau did not go too 
 far, and thus started the Government on a very different road from that 
 which he wanted it to take ; I do not think that the law about associa- 
 tions would have been voted except under the influence of fear, but it 
 is certain that its final wording was much more anti-clerical than its 
 promoter would have wished. 
 
 2 In a speech on June 21, 1907, Charles Benoist complains that the 
 Dre5rfus case had thrown discredit on " reasons of State," and had led the 
 Government to appeal to the elements of disorder in the nation in order 
 to create order. 
 
236 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 of that as iDn&as the politicians are reasonable_in_their 
 demajids. People who are in business know that there 
 is quite a complete art of bribery ; certain intermediaries 
 have acquired a special skiU in estimating the amount of 
 the presents that should be offered to high officials, or to 
 deputies who can get bills passed. If financiers are 
 almost always obliged to have recourse to the services of 
 specialists, there is all the more reason why the workmen, 
 who are quite unaccustomed to the customs of this wofTd, 
 must need intermediaries to fix" the suih which they can 
 exact from their employers without exceeding reasonable 
 limits.^ 
 
 We are thus led to consider arbitration in an entirely , 
 new light and to understand it in a really scientific manner, 
 since, instead of allowing ourselves to be duped by abstrac- 
 tions, we shaU explain it by means of the dominant ideas 
 of middle-class society, who invented it, and who want to 
 impose it on the workers. It would be evidently absurd 
 to go into a pork butcher's shop, order him to sell us a 
 ham at less than the marked price, and then ask him to 
 submit the question to arbitration ; but it is not absurd 
 to promise to a group of employers the advantages to be 
 derived from the fixity of wages for several years, and to 
 ask the specialists-v^hsii present remuneration this guarantee 
 is worth ; this remuneration may be considerable if 
 business is expected to be good during that time. Instead 
 of bribing some influential person, the employers raise 
 their workmen's wages ; from their point of view there 
 is no difference. As for the Government, it becomes the 
 benefactor of the people, and hopes that it will do well in 
 the elections ; to the politician, the electoral advantages 
 which result from a successful conciliation are worth 
 more than a very large bribe. ^ 
 
 It Is "easy to understand now why all politicians have 
 
 1 I suppose that no one is ignorant of the fact that no important 
 undertaking is carried through without bribery. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 237 
 
 SO great an admiration for arbitration; it is because an 
 enterpfSe conducted without bribery is inconceiyaljle to 
 ttoem. - Many of our politicians are lawyers, and clients 
 who'cbnfide their cases to them attach great weight to 
 their ParUamentary influence. It is for this reason that 
 a former Minister of Justice is always sure of getting 
 remunerative law-suits even when he is not very talented, 
 because he has means of influencing the magistrates, with 
 whose failings he is very famiUar, and whom he could 
 ruin if he wished. The great poUtical advocates are sought 
 out by financiers who have serious difficulties to overcome 
 in the law courts, who are accustomed to bribe on a large 
 scale and in consequence pay royally. The world of 
 employers thus appears to our rulers as a world of 
 adventurers, gamblers, and parasites of the stock ex- 
 change; they consider that this rich and criminal class 
 must expect to submit from time to time to the demands 
 of other social groups. ThfiilL.JlfiiaQgEtiQn of the ideal 
 
 MMil!i£^0:ppMit£^uud,e^.tM qus-pices of political Igwyefs.^ 
 The Catholics would not be sorry, now they are in 
 
 ^ I borrow from a celebrated novel by Leon Daudet a description of 
 the character of the barrister Mederbe. "The latter was a. curious 
 character, tall, thin, of a well-set-up figure, surmounted by a head like 
 a dead fish, green impenetrable eyes, oiled and flattened hair, his whole 
 appearance being frozen and rigid. . . . He had chosen the profession 
 of a barrister as being one which would supply his own and his wife's 
 need of money. . . . He took part chiefly in financial cases, on account 
 of the large profit to be made out of them, and of the secrets he learned 
 from them ; he was employed in such cases on account of his semi- 
 political, semi-judicial relations, which always secured him victory in 
 any case he pleaded. He charged fabulous fees. What he was paid 
 for was certain acquittal. This man then had enormous power. . . . 
 He gave one the impression of a bandit armed for social life and sure of 
 impunity. . . ." (Les Morticoles, pp. 287-288). It is clear that many 
 of these traits are copied from those of the man the Socialists so often 
 called the Eiffel barrister, before they made him the demi-god of 
 Republican Defence. [In the Panama affair, Eiffel was prosecuted for 
 having illegally appropriated a large sum. Waldeck- Rousseau defended 
 him in the law courts. — Trans.l 
 
238 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 opposition, to find support in the working classes. It is 
 not only flattery that they address to the workers, in order 
 to convince them that it would be greatly to their 
 advantage to abandon the Socialists. They also would 
 very much like to organise politico-criminal associations, 
 just as Waldeck-Rousseau hoped to do twenty years ago ; 
 but the results they have obtained up till now have been 
 very moderate. Their aim is to save the Church, and they 
 think that the well-disposed capitalists-niight sacrifice 
 a part of their profits to give to the Christian S5mdicates 
 the concessions necessary to assure the success of this 
 religious policy. A well-informed Catholic, who interests 
 himself in social questions, lately told me that in a few 
 years the workers would be obliged to recognise that their 
 prejudices against the Church had no foundation. I think 
 that he deluded himself as much as Waldeck-Rousseau 
 did when in 1884 he regarded the idea of a revolutionary 
 federation of syndicates as ridiculous, but the material 
 interest of the Church so bUnds Catholics that they are 
 capable of every kind of stupidity. 
 
 The Social Catholics ^ have a way of looking at economic 
 questions that makes them resemble our vilest poUticians 
 very closely. In fact it is difficult for the clerical world 
 to conceive that things can happen otherwise than by 
 grace, favouritism, and bribery. 
 
 I have often heard a lawyer say that a priest can never 
 be made to understand that certain actions which the 
 Code never punished are nevertheless villainies; and I 
 have been told by a bishop's lawyer, that while a clientele 
 composed of convents is an excellent one, yet at the same 
 time it is very dangerous, because convents frequently 
 want fraudulent deeds drawn up'. Many people seeing 
 during the last fifteen years so many gorgeous monuments 
 
 1 [The " catholiques softeauji " form a definite party. De Mutz has 
 been for a long time the recognised leader of the party and still 
 exercises considerable influence. — Trans. Note.] 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 239 
 
 erected by the religious congregations have wondered if 
 a wave of madness was not passing over the Church. 
 They are unaware that these building operations enable 
 a crowd of pious rascals to live at the expense of the 
 Chiu-ch treasury. The imprudence of those congrega- 
 tions which persist in carrying on long and costly law- 
 suits against the public treasury has often been pointed 
 out, for such tactics enable the Radicals to work up a 
 lively agitation against the monks by denouncing the 
 avarice of people who claim to have taken vows of poverty. 
 But these law-suits make plenty of business for the army 
 of pious rascality. I do not think I am exaggerating 
 when I say that more than a third of the fortime of the 
 Church has been wasted for the benefit of these vampires. 
 
 A widfi^read dishonesty therefore prevails in the 
 Catholic world, which leads the devout to believe that 
 economic conditions depend chiefly on the caprices of the 
 people who hold the purse. Everybody who Jjas profited 
 by an unexpected gain — and all profit from capital is an 
 unexpected gain to them'^ — ought to share the profit with 
 those people who have a right to his affection or to his 
 esteem : first of aU the priests,^ and then their parishioners. 
 If he does not respect this obligation, he is a rascal, a 
 freemason, or a Jew ; no violence is too great to be used 
 against such an imp of Satan. When priests, then, are 
 heard using revolutionary language, we need not take 
 them literally and beheve that these vehement orators 
 have socialistic sentiments. It simply indicates that the 
 capitalists have not been sufficiently generous. 
 
 Here again, then, there is a case for arbitration ; recourse 
 
 1 I do not think that there exists a class less capable of understanding 
 the economics of production than the priests. 
 
 2 In Turkey when a high palace dignitary receives a bribe, the 
 Sultan takes the money and then gives a certain proportion of it back 
 to his employe ; what proportion is given back depends on the Sultan's 
 disposition at the moment. The Sultan's ethical code in these matters 
 is ^so that of our Catholic social reform group. 
 
m 
 240 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 must be had to men with great experience of life in order 
 to ascertain exactly what sacrifices the rich must submit 
 to on behalf of the poor dependants of the Church. 
 
 IV 
 
 The study we have just made has not led us to think 
 that the theorists of " social peace " are on the way to an 
 ethic worthy of acknowledgment. We novy; pass to a 
 counterproof and enquire whether proletarian violence 
 might not be capable of producing the effect in vain 
 expected from tactics of moderation. 
 
 First of all, it must be noticed that modem philosophers 
 seem to agree in demanding a kind of sublimity from the' 
 ethics of the future, which will distinguish it from the 
 petty and insipid morality of the CathoHcs. The chief 
 thing with which the theologians are reproached is that 
 they make too great use of the conception of probabilism ; 
 nothing seems more absurd (not to say more scandalous) 
 to contemporary philosophers than to count the opinions 
 which have been emitted for and against a maxim, in order 
 to find out whether we ought to shape our conduct by it 
 or not. 
 
 Professor Durkheim said recently, at the Societe 
 francaise de philosophic (February 11, 1906), that it would 
 be impossible to suppress the religious element in ethics, 
 and that what characterised this element was its incom- 
 mensurability with other human values. He recognised 
 that his sociological researches led him to conclusions 
 very near those of Kant ; he asserted that utilitarian 
 morality had misunderstood the problem of duty and 
 obligation. I do not want to discuss these here ; I simply 
 cite them to show to what point the character of the 
 sublime impresses itself on authors who, by the nature of 
 their work, would seem the least inclined to accept it. 
 
 No writer has defined more forcibly than Proudhon 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE ? 241 , 
 
 the principles of that morahtj^^which modem times have 
 in vain sought to reahser " To feel and to assert the 
 diefnity of man,'' he says.- " first in everything in con- 
 nection w ith ourselves, then in the persQfi pf , o ur rieighboiir. 
 aj^ that without a shadow, ,ol. egoism, widioutanvco^ 
 si deration either of^,dixilie.or communal sanction — therein^ 
 li^kip;fit." To^b^riML^Tto defend that dignity in fyery 
 circumstance with energy, and, if necessary, against one- 
 self . that,, is Justice . ".. ^ Clemenceau, who doubtless can 
 hardly be said to make a personal use of this morality, 
 expresses the same thought when he writes : " Without 
 the dignity of the human person, w ithout indepen3ence^ 
 liberty, and justice, life is but a bestial .,state„aaL.WQXth 
 tli e trouble orpreseryjn^ ' {Aurore, May 12, 1905). 
 
 ~One well-foimded reproach has been brought against 
 Proudhon, as well as against many others of the great 
 moralists ; it has been said that his maxims were admir- 
 able, but that they were doomed to remain ineffective. 
 And, in fact, experience does prove, unfortimately, that 
 those precepts which the historians of ideas call the most 
 elevated precepts are, as a rule, entirely ineffective. This 
 was evident in the case of the Stoics, it was no less remark- 
 able in Kantism, and it does not seem as if the practical 
 influence of Proudhon has been very noticeable. In order 
 that a man may suppress the t endenidfiS against which 
 morahty struggles, he must have in himself some sou rce 
 of com dction \jjy.ch must dcmiina^^ 
 and act before the cal culations of reflMtiOTTE^^Tune^o 
 
 It may even be said that all the fine arguments by 
 which authors hope to induce men to act morally are more 
 likely to lead them down the slope of probabilism ; as 
 soon as we consider an act to be accomplished, we are 
 led to ask ourselves if there is not some means of escaping 
 
 ^ Proudhon, De la justice dans la revolution et dans Viglise, vol. i. 
 p. 216. 
 
 R 
 
242 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 the strict obligations of duty. A. Comte supposed that 
 human nature would change in the future and that the 
 cerebral organs which produce altruism (?) would destroy 
 those which produce egoism ; in saying this he very likely 
 bore in mind the fact that moral decision is instantafteous, 
 and, Uke instinct, comes from the depth of man's nature. 
 
 At times Proudhon is reduced, like Kant, to appeal to 
 a kind of scholasticism for an explanation of the paradox 
 of moral law. " To feel himself in others, to the point of 
 sacrificing every other interest to ~this' sentiment, —tb 
 demand for others the same respect as for Tiimself , and 
 to be angry with the unworthy creature who suffers others 
 to be lacking in respect for him, as if the care of his dignity 
 did not concern himself alone, such a faculty at first sight 
 seems a strange one. . . . There is a tendency in every 
 man to develop and force the acceptance of that which 
 is essentially himself— which is, in fact, his own dignity. 
 It results from this that the essential in man being identical 
 and one for all humanity, eacji of us is aware ofTiimselfaf 
 the same time as ^individual and as species ; and that an 
 insult is felt by a third party and by the offender himself 
 as well as by the injured person, that in consequence the 
 protest is common. This precisely is what is meant by 
 Justice." 1 
 
 Religious ethics claim to possess this source of action 
 which is wanting in lay ethics,^ but here it is necessary 
 to make a distinction if an error, into which so many 
 authors have fallen, is to be avoided. The great mass 
 of Christians do not carry out the real Christian ethic, 
 that which the philosopher considers as really peculiar 
 to their rehgion ; worldly people who profess Catholicism 
 are chiefly preoccupied with probabilism, mechanical 
 
 1 Proudhon, loc. cit. pp. 216-217. 
 
 " Proudhon thinks that this was also lacking in pagan antiquity : 
 " During several centuries, polytheistic societies had customs, but no 
 ethics. In the absence of a morality solidly based on principles, the 
 customs gradually disappeared " (loc. cit. p. 173). 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 
 
 rites and proceedings more or less related to magic and 
 which are calculated to assure their present and future 
 happiness in spite of their sins.^ 
 
 Theoretical Christianity has never been a religion 
 suited to worldly people ; the doctors of the spiritual life 
 have always reasoned about those people who were able 
 to escape from the conditions of ordinary life. " When 
 the Council of Gangres, in 325," said Renan, " declared that 
 the Gospel maxims about poverty, the renunciation of 
 the family and virginity, were not intended for the ordinary 
 Christian, the perfectionists made places apart where the 
 evangeHcal life, too lofty for the common run of men, 
 could be practised in all its rigour." He remarks, moreover, 
 very justly, that the " monastery took the place of 
 mart5rrdom so that the precepts of Jesus might be carried 
 out somewhere," ^ but he does not push this comparison 
 far enough ; the lives of the great hermits were a material 
 struggle against the infernal powers which pursue them 
 even to the desert,' and this struggle was to continue that 
 which the martyrs had waged against their adversaries. 
 
 T hese facts show us the w ayJojajight-uiLderstanding 
 of the nature of lofty moral con\dctions ; t hese n ever 
 d^end on reasonin g or on any edu cation of the individua 
 will, biit.on a state of war in vyhich menvol uatarily.partiH - ■• 
 pate and which iHKis expression in well-defined myths. 
 In Latnolic countnes tJtie ihonks carry on the struggle 
 against the prince of evil who triumphs in this world, and 
 would subdue them to his will ; in Protestant cotmtries 
 
 1 Heinrich Heine claims that the Catholicism of a wife is a very good 
 thing for the husband, because the wife is never oppressed by the burden 
 of her sins ; after confession she begins again " to chatter and laugh." 
 Moreover, there is no danger of her relating her sin (L'Allemagne, and 
 edition, vol. ii. p. 322). 
 
 ' Renan, Marc-AurHe, p. 558. 
 
 » Catholic saints do not struggle against abstractions but often 
 against apparitions which present themselves with aU the signs of 
 reality. Luther also had to fight the DevU, at whom he threw his 
 inkpot. 
 
244 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 small fanatical sects take the place of the monasteries.^ 
 These are the battle-fields which enable Christian morahty 
 to hold its own, with that character of sublimity which 
 to-day stiU fascinates many minds and gives it sufficient 
 lustre to beget in the community a few pale imitations. 
 
 When one considers a less accentuated state of the 
 Christian ethic, one is struck by seeing to what extent 
 it depends on strife. Le Play, who was an excellent 
 Catholic, often contrasted (to the great scandal of his 
 co-religionists) the solidity of the religious convictions 
 he met with in countries of mixed religions, with the 
 spirit of inactivity which prevails in the countries ex- 
 clusively submitted to the influence of Rome. Among the 
 Protestant peoples, the more vigorously the Estabhshed 
 Church is assailed by dissident sects the greater the 
 moral fervour developed. We thus see that conviction 
 is founded on the competition of communions, each of 
 which regatds itself as the armyqf Jjuth fighting the 
 armies of evil. In such conditions it is possible to find 
 sublimity ; but when religious warfare is much weakened, 
 probabnism, mechanical rites having a certain re- 
 semblance to magic, take the first place. 
 
 We can point out quite similar phenomena in the history 
 of modem Liberal ideas. For a long while our fathers 
 regarded from an almost religious point of view the 
 Declaration of the Rights of Man, which seems to us now- 
 adays only a colourless collection of abstract and con- 
 fused formulas, without any great practical bearing. 
 This was due to the fact that formidable struggles had 
 been undertaken on account of the institutions which 
 originated in this document ; the clerical party asserted 
 that it would demonstrate the fundamental error of 
 Liberalism ; everywhere it organised fighting societies 
 intended to enforce its authority on the people and on the 
 Government ; it boasted that it would be able to destroy 
 
 1 Renan, loc. cit. p. 627. 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 245 
 
 the defenders of the Revolution before long. At the time 
 when Proudhon wrote his book on Justice, the conflict 
 was far from being ended ; thus the whole book is written 
 in a warlike tone astonishing to the reader of to-day : 
 the author speaks as if he were a vetera,n in the wars of 
 Liberty ; he would be revenged on the temporary 
 conquerors who threaten the acquisitions of the Revolu- 
 tion ; he announces the dawn of the great revolt. 
 
 Proudhon hopes that the duel will be soon, that the 
 forces will meet with their whole strength, and that there 
 will be a Napoleonic battle, finally destroying the opponent. 
 He often speaks in a language which would be appropriate 
 to an epic. He did not perceive that when later on his 
 belligerent ideas had disappeared, his abstract reasonings 
 would seem weak. There is a ferment all through his 
 soul which colours it and gives a hidden meaning to his 
 thought, very far removed from the scholastic sense. 
 
 The savage fury with which the Church proceeded 
 against Proudhon's book shows that the clerical camp 
 had exactly the same conception of the nature and con- 
 sequences of the conflict as he had. 
 
 As long as the " sublime " imposed itself in this way 
 on the modern spirit, it seemed possible to create a lay 
 and democratic ethic ; but in our time such an enterprise 
 would seem almost, comic. Everything is changed now 
 that the clericals no longer, seem forrnidable ; there are 
 no longer any Liberal convictions, since the Liberals have 
 ceased to be animated by their former warlike passions. 
 Nowadays everything is in such confusion that the priests 
 claim to be the best of democrats ; they have adopted 
 the Marseillaise as their party hymn, and if a little 
 persuasion is exerted they will have illuminations on the 
 anniversary of August 10, 1792. Sublimity has vanished 
 from the ethics of both parties, giving place to a morality 
 of extraordinary meanness. 
 
S46 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 Kautsky is evidently right when he asserts that in our 
 time'the "advancement of the .W-Ojlketsjias depended on 
 their revolutionary spirit. At the end of a study "^on social 
 reform and revolution he says, " It is hopeless to try, by 
 means of moral homUies, to inspire the Enghsh workman 
 with a more exalted conception of hfe, a feeling of nobler 
 effort. The ethics of the proletariat spring from its revolu- 
 tionary aspirations, these are what give it the greatest 
 force and elevation. It is the idea of revolution which 
 ha?^ raised the proletariat from its degradation," ^ It is 
 clear that for Kautsky morality is always subordinate 
 ta the idea of sublimity. 
 
 The Socialist point of view is quite different from that 
 of former democratic literature ; our fathers believed 
 that the nearer man approached Nature the better he was, 
 arid that a man of the people was a sort of savage ; that 
 consequently the lower we descend the more virtue we 
 find. The democrats have many times, in support of this 
 idea, called attention to the fact that during revolutions 
 the poorest people have often given the finest examples 
 of heroism ; they explain this by taking for granted that 
 these obscure heroes were true children of Nature. I 
 explain it by sa3^ng that, these men being engaged in a 
 war which was bound to end in their triumph or their 
 enslavement, the sentiment of sublimity was bound to be 
 engendered by the conditions of the struggle. As a rule, 
 during a revolution the higher classes show themselves 
 in a particularly unfavourable light, for this reason, that, 
 belonging to a defeated army, they experience the feelings 
 of conquered people, suppliant, or about to capitulate. 
 
 When working-class circles are reasonable, as the 
 
 1 Karl Kautsky, Lo Revolution sociale, French trans., pp. 123-124. 
 I have pointed out elsewhere that the decay of the revolutionary idea 
 in the minds of former miUtants who have become moderate seems to be 
 accompanied by a moral decadence that I have compared to that which 
 as a rule one finds in the case of a priest who has lost his faith {Insegna- 
 mente sociali, pp. 344-345). 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 347 
 
 professional sociologists wish them to be, w h en conflicts 
 arft ^^yyi^pe | r|. to d is Dutes about ma t erial inTe res;ts','4E5^e 
 is no more opportunify " "f or heroism than '^^E^^gn- 
 cid^al,ssi^cater2iags_tfea..,^u^^ 
 guano with manure merchants. It has never been thought 
 that discussions atoiit' prices' could possibly exercise any 
 ethical influence on men ; the experience of sales of live 
 stock would lead to the supposition that in such cases 
 those interested are led to admire cunning rather than 
 good faith ; the ethical values recognised by horse-dealers 
 have never passed for very elevated. Among the im- 
 portant things accomplished by agricultural syndicates, 
 De Rocquigny reports that in 1896, " the municipality 
 of Marmande having wanted to impose on beasts brought 
 to the fair a tax which the cattle-breeders considered 
 iniquitous . . . the breeders struck, and stopped supply- 
 ing the market of Marmande, with such effect that the 
 mimicipaJity found itself forced to give in.^ This was a 
 very peaceful procedure which produced results profitable 
 to the peasants ; but it is quite clear that nothing ethical 
 was involved in such a dispute. 
 
 When pohticians intervene there is^. almost necessarily, 
 a noticeable lowering of ethical standards, because they, 
 do nothing for nothing and only act on condition that 
 the favoured association becomes one of their customers. 
 We are very far here from the path of sublimity, we are 
 on that which leads to the practices of the political- 
 criminal societies. 
 
 In the opinion of many well-informed people, the 
 transition from violence to cunning which shows itself in 
 
 contemporary strikes m England cannot be too much 
 admired. The great object of the Trades Unions is 
 to obtain a recognition of the right to employ threats 
 
 ' De Rocquigny, op. cit. pp. 379-380. I am curious to know how 
 exactly a tax can be iniquitous. These worthy progressives speak a 
 special language. 
 
248 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 disguised in diplomatic formulas; they desire that 
 their delegates should not be interfered with when going 
 the round of the workshops charged with the mission of 
 bringing those workmen who wish to work to understand 
 that it would be to their interests to follow the directions 
 of the Trades Unions ; they consent to express their 
 desires in a form which will be perfectly clear to the 
 listener, but which could be represented in a court of 
 justice as a solidarist^ sermon. I protest I cannot see 
 what is so admirable in these tactics, which are worthy of 
 Escobar. In the past the Catholics have often employed 
 similar methods of intimidation against the Liberals ; I 
 understand thus perfectly well why so many worthy pro- 
 gressives admire the Trades Unions, but the morality of the 
 worthy-progressives does not seem to me very much to be 
 admired. " 
 
 It is true that for a long time in England violence has 
 been void of all revolutionary character. Whether 
 corporative advantages are pursued by means of blows 
 or by craft, there is not much difference between the two 
 methods ; yet the pacific tactics of the Trades Unions 
 indicate an hjrpocrisy which would be better left to the 
 " well intentioned progressives." In a country where the 
 conception of the general strike exists, the blows ex- 
 changed between workmen and representatives of the 
 middle classes have an entirely different import, their 
 consequences are far reaching and they may beget 
 heroism. 
 
 I am convinced that in order to understand part, at any 
 rate, of the dislike that Bernstein's doctrines rouse in 
 German social democracy we must bear in mind these 
 conclusions about the nature of the subhme in ethics. 
 The German has been brought up on sublimity to an 
 
 1 [This is a reference to the " solidarist^ " doctrine, invented by 
 Buisson ; the interests of the classes are not opposed, and the more 
 wealthy have their duties toward the poorer. — Trans. Note.] 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 24^9 
 
 extraordinary extent, first by the literature connected 
 with the wars of independence,^ then by the revival of the 
 taste for the old national songs which followed these wars, 
 then by a philosophy which pursues aims very far removed 
 from sordid considerations. It must also be remembered 
 that the victory of 1871 has considerably contributed 
 toward giving Germans of every class a feeling of confidence 
 in their strength that is not to be found to the same degree 
 in this country at the present time ; compare, for instance, 
 the German Catholic party with the chicken-hearted 
 creatures who form the clientMe of the Church in France ! 
 Our clergy only think of humiUating themselves before 
 their adversaries and are quite happy, provided that there^ 
 are plenty of evening parties during the winter ; they 
 have no recollection of services which are rendered to 
 them.^ 
 
 The German Socialist party drew its strength particu- 
 larly from the catastrophic idea everywhere spread by its 
 propagandists, and which was taken very seriously as long 
 as the Bismarckian persecutions maintained a warlike 
 spirit in the groups. This spirit was so strong in the 
 masses that they have not yet succeeded in understanding 
 thoroughly that their leaders are anything but 
 revolutionaries. 
 
 1 Renan even wrote : " The war of 1813 to 1815 is the only one of 
 our century that had anything epic and elevated about it . . . [it] 
 corresponded to a movement of ideas and had a real intellectual signific- 
 ance. A man who had taken part in this great struggle told me that, 
 awakened by the cannonade on the first night that he passed with the 
 volunteer troops collected in Silesia, he felt that he was witnessing an 
 immense divine service " {fissais de morale et de critique, p. 116). Com- 
 pare Manzoni's ode entitled " Mars 1821," dedicated to " the illustrious 
 memory of Theodore Koemer, poet and soldier of German independence 
 and killed on the field of battle at Leipzig, a name dear to all those peoples 
 who are struggling to defend or to reconquer their fatherland." Our 
 own wars of Liberty were also epic, but they have not been so well 
 written up as the war of 181 3. 
 
 * Drumont has often denounced this state of mind of the fashionable 
 religious world. 
 
250 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 When Bernstein (who was too intelligent not to know 
 what was the real spirit of his friends on the directing 
 committee) announced that the grandiose hopes which 
 had been raised must be given up, there was a moment of 
 stupefaction ; very few people understood that Bernstein's 
 declarations were courageous and honest actions, intended 
 to make the language of Socialism accord more with 
 the real facts. If hereafter it was necessary to be con- 
 tent with the policy of social reform, the parliamentary 
 parties and the ministry would have to be negotiated 
 with — that is, it would be necessary to behave exactly 
 as the middle classes did. This appeared monstrous to 
 men who had been brought up on a catastrophic theory of 
 Socialism. Many times had the tricks of the middle class 
 poHticians been denounced, their astuteness contrasted 
 with the candour and disinterestedness of the SociaUsts, 
 and the large element of artificiality and expediency in 
 their attitude of opposition pointed out. It could never 
 have been imagined that the disciples of Marx might 
 follow in the footsteps of the Liberals. With the new 
 policy, heroic characters, sublimity, and convictions dis- 
 appear ! The Germans thought that the world was 
 turned upside down. 
 
 It is plain that Bernstein was absolutely right in not 
 wanting to keep up a revolutionary semblance which was 
 in contradiction with the real state of mind of the party ; 
 he did not find in his own country the elements which 
 existed in France and Italy ; he saw no other way then 
 of keeping SociaUsm on a basis of reality than that of 
 suppressing aU that was deceptive in a revolutionary 
 programme which the leaders no longer believed in. 
 Kautsky, on the contrary, wanted to preserve the veil 
 which hid from the workmen the real activity of the 
 Socialist party ; in this way he achieved much success 
 among the politicians, but more than any one else he has 
 helped to intensify the Socialist crisis in Germany. The 
 
THE ETHICS OF VIOLENCE 251 
 
 ideas of Socialism cannot be kept intact by diluting the 
 phrases of Marx in verbose comrnentaries, but by con- 
 tinually adapting the_ spout of Marx to facts which are 
 capa.ble_of assurning a revolutionary aspect. The general 
 strike alone can produce this result at the present day. 
 
 One serious question must now be asked. " Why is it 
 that in certain countries acts of violence grouping them- 
 selves round the idea of the general strike, produce a 
 SociaUst ideology capable of inspiring sublimity, and why 
 in others do they seem not to have that power ? " Here 
 national traditions play a great part ; the examination 
 of this problem would perhaps help to throw a strong 
 light on the genesis of ideas ; but we will not deal with it 
 here. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 
 
 I. Morality and religion — Contempt of democracies for morality — 
 Ethical preoccupations of the " new school." 
 
 II. Renan's uneasiness about the future of the world — His con- 
 jectures — The need of the sublime. 
 
 III. Nietzsche's ethics — The rSle of the family in the genesis of 
 morality; Proudhon's theory — The ethics of Aristotle. 
 
 IV. Kautsky's hypothesis — Analogies between the spirit of the 
 general strike and that of the wars of Liberty — Fear in- 
 Spired in the Parliamentarians by this spirit. 
 
 V. The artisan employed in progressive and inventive production, 
 the artist and the soldier in the wars of Liberty : desire to 
 surpass previous models ; care for exactitude ; abandon- 
 ment of the idea of exact recompense. 
 
 Fifty years ago Proudhon pointed out the necessity of 
 giving the people a morality which would fit new needs. 
 The first chapter of the preliminary discourses placed at 
 the beginning of Justice in the Revolution and, in the Church 
 is entitled " The State of Morals in the Nineteenth 
 Century. Invasion of moral scepticism ; society in 
 danger. What is the remedy ? " There one reads these 
 noteworthy sentences : " France has lost its morals. 
 Not that, as a matter of fact7~the men of our generation 
 are worse than their fathers. . . . When I say that 
 France has lost its morals I mean that it has ceased to 
 
 252 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 353 
 
 believe jnJiie_yei3[^principles_of_nwrality, a very different 
 thing. She has nojonger moral intelligence or conscience, 
 she has almost lost the idea of morals rtself ; as a restilt 
 of continual criticism we have come to this melan- 
 choly conclusion : that right and wrong, between which 
 we formerly thought we were able to distinguish dogmatic- 
 ally, are now vague and indeterminate conventional terms ; 
 that all these words. Right, Duty, Morality, Virtue, etc., 
 of which the pulpit and the school talk so much, serve 
 to cover nothing but pure hj^potheses, vain Utopias, 
 and unprovable prejudices ; that thus ordinary social 
 behaviour, which is apparently governed by some sort of 
 human respect or by convention, is in reality arbitrary." ^ 
 However, he did not think that contemporary society 
 was mortally wounded ; he believed that since the 
 Revolution, htmianity had acquired an idea of Justice 
 which was sufficiently clear to enable it to triimiph over 
 temporary lapses ; by this conception of the future he 
 separated himself completely from what was to become the 
 rnost fundamental idea of contemporary official Socialism, 
 which sneers ji morality. " This juridical faith . . . this 
 science of right and duty, which we seek everywhere in 
 vain, that the Church has never possessed, and without 
 which it is impossible for us to live, I say that the Revolu- 
 tion created all its principles ; that these principles, 
 unknown to us, rule and uphold us, but while at the 
 bottom of our hearts affirming them, we shrink from 
 them through prejudice, and it is this infidelity to ourselves 
 that makes our moral poverty and servitude." 2 He 
 
 1 Proudhon, De la justice dans la revolution et dans I'eglise vol. i. 
 p. 70. 
 
 " Proudhon, he. cit. p. 74. By juridical faith Proudhon here 
 understands a triple faith, which dominates the family, contracts, and 
 poUtical relations. The first is " the conception of the mutual dignity 
 (of husband and wife) which, raising them above the level of the senses, 
 renders them more sacred to the other even than dear, and makes their 
 fertile community a religion for them, sweeter than love itself "—the 
 second " raising the mind above egoistical appetites, is made happier 
 
254 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 maintains the possibility of bringing light to our minds, 
 of presenting what he calls " the exegesis of the Revolu- 
 tion " ; in order to do this, he examines history, showing 
 how humanity has never ceased to strive towards Justice, 
 how religion has been the cause of corruption, and how 
 " the French Revolution by bringing about the pre- 
 dominance of the juridical principle (over the religious 
 principle) opens a new epoch, an entirely contrary order 
 of things, the different elements of which it is now our 
 task to determine. ' ' ^ Whatever may happen in the future 
 to our worn-out race, he says at the end of this discourse, 
 " posterity wiU recognise that the third age of humanity ^ 
 has its start in the French Revolution ; that an under- 
 standing of this new law has been given to some of us in 
 all its fulness ; that we have not been found quite wanting 
 in the practice of it ; and that to perish in this sublime 
 childbirth was, after all, not without grandeur. At that 
 hour the Revolution became clear, then it lived. The 
 rest of the nation {j,.e. those who had not understood the 
 Revolution) does not think at all. Will that ■part which 
 lives and thinks be suppressed, by that which does not? " ^ 
 
 I said in the preceding chapter that the whole doctrine 
 of Proudhon was subordinated to revolutionary enthusiasm 
 and that this enthusiasm has been extinct since the 
 Church has ceased to be formidable ; thus there is nothing 
 astonishing in the fact that the undertaking which 
 Proudhon considered so easy (the creation of a morality 
 absolutely free from aU religious belief) seems very un- 
 certain to many of our contemporaries. I find a proof 
 
 by respect for the right of another than by its own fortune " — ^without 
 the third " citizens submitting to the attraction of individualism could 
 not form, whatever they did, anjrthing other than a mere aggregate of 
 incoherent and repulsive existences that the first wind will disperse 
 like dust " (loc. cit. pp. 72-73). In the strict sense of the word, juridical 
 faith would be the second of these three. 
 
 1 Proudhon, loc. cit. p. 93. 
 
 ^ The two first epochs are those of paganism and of Christianity. 
 
 " Proudhon, loc. cit. p. 104. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 255 
 
 of this way of thinking in a speech by Combes delivered 
 during a discussion of the budget of Public Worship, 
 January 26, 1903 : " At the present moment we look 
 upon the moral ideas taught by the Church as necessary 
 ideas. For my part I find it difficult to accept the idea of 
 a society composed of philosophers like M. Allard,^ whose 
 primary education would have sufficiently guaranteed 
 them against the perils and trials of life." Combes is 
 not the kind of man to have ideas of his own ; he repro- 
 duced an opinion current in his circle. 
 
 This declaration created a great commotion in the 
 Chamber. All the deputies who prided themselves on 
 their knowledge of philosophy took part in the debate ; 
 as Combes had referred to the superficial and narrow 
 instruction of our primary schools, F. Buisson felt that 
 as the leading pedagogue of the third Republic, he ought 
 to protest : " The education that we give to the child of 
 the people," he said, " is not a half education, it is the 
 very flower and fruit of civiUsation gathered during the 
 centmies, from among many peoples, in the religions and 
 legal systems of all ages and of all mankind." An ethic 
 of this abstract kind must be entirely devoid of efficacy. 
 I remember having read, in a manual by Paul Bert, that 
 the fundamental principles of morality are based on the 
 teachings of Zoroaster, and the Constitution of the year 
 III. These do not seem to me the kind of principles 
 
 1 This deputy had made a very anticlerical speech from which I 
 quote this curious idea that " the Jewish religion was the most clerical 
 of all religions, possessing the most sectarian and narrowest type of 
 clericalism." A little before this he said, "I myself am not an anti-Semite, 
 and only make one reproach to the Jews, that of having poisoned 
 Aryan thought, so elevated and broad, with Hebraic monotheism." He 
 demanded the introduction of the history of religions into the curriculum 
 of the primary schools in order to ruin the authority of the Church. 
 According to him the SociaUst party saw in " the inteUectual emancipa- 
 tion of the masses the necessary preface to the progress and social 
 evolution of societies." Is it not rather the contrary which is true ? 
 Does not this speech prove that there is an anti-Semitism in free-thinking 
 circles quite as narrow and badly informed as that of the clericals ? 
 
3^6 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 which would be powerful enough to influence a man's 
 conduct. 
 
 It might be imagined that the University had arranged 
 its present" programme in the hope of imposing moral 
 conduct on its pupils by means of the repetition of precepts ; 
 moral courses are multiphed to such an extent that one 
 might ask oneself if (with a sHght difference) the well- 
 known verse of BoUeau might not be applied : 
 
 Aimez-vous la muscade ? On en a mis partout.^ 
 
 I do not think that there are many people who share 
 the naive confidence of F. Buisson and the members of 
 the University in this ethic. Exactly like Combes, G. de 
 Molinari beUeves that it is necessary to have recourse to 
 religion, which promises men a reward in the other world, 
 and which is thus, " the surety of justice. ... It is 
 rehgion which in the infancy of hmnanity, raised the 
 edifice of morahty ; it is rehgion which supports and 
 which alone can support it. Such are the functions which 
 religion has filled and which it continues to fill and which, 
 unpleasant as it may be to the apostles of independent 
 morahty, constitute its usefulness." ^ " We must look 
 for help to a more powerful and more active instrument 
 than the interests of society, to effect those reforms 
 demonstrated by pohtical economy to be necessary, and 
 this instrument can only be found in the religious senti- 
 ment associated with the sentiment of justice." ' 
 
 G. de Molinari expresses himself in intentionally vague 
 terms ; he seems to regard rehgion as do many modem 
 Cathohcs (of the Brunetiere type) ; that is, as a means 
 of social Government, which must be suited to the needs 
 of the different classes ; people of the higher classes have 
 always considered that they had less need of moral 
 disciphne than their subordinates, and it is by making this 
 
 • So do like musk ? It has been put everywhere. 
 2 G. de Molinari, Science et religion, p. 94. 
 ' G. de Molinari, op. cit. p. 198. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 257 
 
 fine discovery the basis of their theology that the Jesuits 
 have had so much success in contemporary middle classes. 
 Our author distinguishes four motive forces capable of 
 assurihg the accomphshment of duty — "the power of 
 society invested in the Governmental organism, the power 
 of public opinion, the power of the individual conscience, 
 and the power of religion " ; and he considers that this 
 spiritual mechanism perceptibly lags behind the material 
 mechanism.! TTxe..J;5j?pjBrst mptive forces may have some 
 influence on capitalists, but none in the workshop; for 
 the workers the last two motive forces are alone effective, 
 and they will become every day more important on 
 account of " the growth of responsibility in those who are 
 charged with the direction and surveillance of the working 
 of machinery." ^ But according to Molinari we could 
 not conceive the power of the individual conscience without 
 that of religion.* 
 
 I believe, then, that G. de Molinari would be inclined 
 to approve of the employers who protect religious institu- 
 tions ; he would only, however, like it done with a little 
 more circumspection than Chagot used at Monceaules 
 Mines.* 
 
 The Socialists for a long tinie- have been greatly pre- 
 judiced against morality, on account of these CathoHc 
 institutions that the large employers established for their 
 workpeople. It seemed to. them that, in our capitalist 
 society, morality was only a means of assuring the docility 
 of workmen, who are kept in the fear created by super- 
 stition. The literature which the middle class have 
 admired for so long describes conduct so outrageous, so 
 scandalous even, that it is difficult to credit the rich 
 
 ' G. de Molinari, op. cit. p. 61. 
 
 ' G. de Molinari, op. cit. p. 54. 
 
 ' G. de Molinari, op. cit. pp. 87 and 93. 
 
 1 I have already mentioned that in 1883 Y. Guyot violently denounced 
 the conduct of Chagot, who placed his workmen under the direction of 
 the priests, and forced them to go to Mass {Morale, p. 183). 
 
 S 
 
2S8 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 classes with sincerity when they speak of inculcating 
 morality in the people. 
 
 The Marxists had a particular reason for showing 
 themselves suspicious in all that concerned ethics ; the 
 propagators of social reforms, the Utopists and the 
 democrats, had so abused the idea of Justice that it was 
 only reasonable to consider all discussions on such a 
 subject as an exercise in rhetoric, or as sophistry intended 
 to mislead those who were interested in the working-class 
 movement. This is why, several years ago, Rosa Luxem- 
 burg called the idea of Justice " this old post horse, on 
 which all the regenerators of the world, deprived of surer 
 means of locomotion, have ridden; this ungainly Rosinante, 
 mounted on which so many Quixotes of history have gone 
 in search of the great reform of the world, bringing back 
 from these journeys nothing but black eyes." ^ From 
 these sarcasms about a fantastic Justice springing from the 
 imagination of Utopists, they often used to pass, too easily, 
 to coarse facetiousness about the most ordinary morality ; 
 a rather sordid selection could easily be made of para- 
 doxes supported by the official Marxists on this subject. 
 Lafargue distinguishes himself particularly from this 
 point of view. 2 
 
 The principal reason which prevented the Socialists 
 from'studying ethical problems as they deserved was the 
 democratic superstition which has dominated them for 
 so long and which has led them to believe that above 
 everything else the aim of their actions must be the 
 acquisition of seats in political assemblies. 
 
 1 Mouvement socialiste, June 15, 1889, p. 649. 
 
 ^ See, for example, the Socialiste of June 30, 1901. " As in a com- 
 munist society the morals which clogs the brains of the civilised will have 
 vanished hke a frightful nightmare, perhaps to be replaced by another 
 ethic, which will incite women to flutter about like butterflies, to use 
 Ch. Fourier's expression, instead of submitting to being the property 
 of a male. ... In savage tribes and among barbarous communists 
 women are much more honoured when they distribute their favours to 
 a great number of lovers." 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 359 
 
 From the moment •ne has anything to d« with elections, 
 it is necessary to submit to certain general conditions 
 which impose themselves imavoidably on all parties in 
 every country and at all times. If one is convinced that 
 the future of the world depends on the' electoral pro- 
 gramme, on compromises between. influential men and 
 on the sale of privileges, it is not -possible, to -pay much 
 attention to the moral constraints which prevent a man 
 going in the direction of his most obvious interests. 
 Experience shows that in all countries where democracy 
 can develop its nature freely, the most scandalous corrup- 
 tion is displayed without any one thinking it even necessary 
 to conceal his rascality. Tammany Hall of New York 
 has always been cited as the most perfect type of demo- 
 cratic life, and in the majority of our large towns politicians 
 are found who ask for nothing better than to follow the 
 paths of their confreres in America. So long as a man 
 is faithful to his party he only commits peccadilloes, but 
 if he is unwise enough to abandon it, he is immediately 
 discovered to have the most shameful vices. It would 
 not be difficult to show, by means of well-known examples, 
 that our Parhamentary SociaHsts practise this singular 
 morality with a certain amount of cynicism. 
 
 There is a great resemblance between the electoral 
 democracy and the Stock Exchange ; in one case as in 
 the other it is necessary to work upon the simphcity of 
 the masses, to buy the co-operation of the most important 
 papers, and to assist chance by an infinity of trickery. 
 There is not a great deal of difference between a financier 
 who puts big sounding concerns on the market which 
 come to grief in a few years, and the politician who 
 promises an infinity of reforms to the citizens which he 
 does not know how to bring about,i and which resolve 
 
 1 On June 21, 1907, Clemenceau, replying to Millerand, told him 
 that in introducing the Ml to establish old age pensions, without con- 
 cerning himself with where the money was to come from, he had not 
 
26o REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 themselves simply into an accumulation of Parliamentary 
 papers. Neither one nor the other know an5rthing about 
 production, and yet they manage to obtain control over 
 it, to misdirect and exploit it shamelessly ; they are 
 dazzled by the marvels of modern industry, and it is their 
 private opinion that the world is so rich that they can 
 rob it on a large scale without causing any great outcry 
 \ among the producers ; the great art of the financier and 
 the politician is to be able to bleed the taxpayer without 
 bringing him to the point of revolt.. Democrats and 
 business men have quite a special science for the purpose 
 of making the deliberative assemblies approve of their 
 swindling ; the Parliaments are as packed as share- 
 holders' meetings. It is probable that they both under- 
 stand each other as perfectly as they do because of pro- 
 f oimd psychological affinities resulting from these methods 
 of operation ; democracy is the paradise of which un- 
 scrupulous financiers dream. 
 
 The disheartening spectacle presented to the world 
 by these financial and political parasites ^ explains the 
 success which anarchist writers have had for so long ; 
 these latter founded their hopes of the regeneration of 
 the world on the intellectual progress of individuals ; 
 they never ceased urging the workmen to educate them- 
 selves, to realise more fully their dignity as men, and to 
 show their devotion to their comrades. This attitude 
 
 acted as " a statesman nor even as a responsible person." Millerand's 
 reply is quite characteristic of the pride of the political parvenu : 
 " Don't talk about things that you know nothing about." Of what 
 then does he himself speak ? 
 
 1 I am pleased here to be able to support myself in the incontestable 
 authority of G§rault-Richard who in the Petite Rlpvblique on March 19, 
 1903, denounced the " intriguers, people who wish to get on at all costs, 
 starvelings and ladies' men (who) are only after the spoils " and who 
 at that time were trying to bring about the fall of the Combes ministry. 
 From the following number we see that he is speaking of Waldeck- 
 Rousseau's friends, who, like him, were opposed to the destruction of 
 the congregations. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 261 
 
 was imposed on them by their principles : in fact, how 
 was the formation of a society of free men conceivable 
 if it was not taken for granted that individuals had not 
 aheady acquired the capacity of guiding themselves ? 
 Politicians assert that this is a very naive idea, and that 
 the world will enjoy all the happiness it can desire on 
 the day when messengers of the new Gospel are able to 
 profit from the advantages that power procures ; nothing 
 will be impossible for a State which turns the editors of 
 Humaniie into princes. If in that time it is considered 
 useful to have free men, they will be manufactured by a 
 few good laws ; but it is doubtful if the friends and share- 
 holders of Jaures will find that necessary ; it will be 
 sufiicient for them if they have servants and taxpayers. 
 ,.,-Tbe-. new school is xa-ipi^y differentiating itself from 
 official Socialism in recognising the necessity of the im- 
 provement of morals.^ It is thus , customary for the 
 dignitaries of ParUamentary Socialism to accuse it of 
 anarchical tendencies ; for my part, I should not object to 
 acknowledge myself as an anarchist in this respect, since 
 ParUamentary Socialism professes a contempt for morality 
 equalled only by that which the vilest representatives 
 of the stockbroking middle class have for it. 
 
 The new school also has sometimes been reproached 
 with returning to the dreams of the Utopists. This 
 criticism shows how much our adversaries misunderstand 
 the works of the old Socialists as well as the present 
 situation. The aim of the early Socialists was to build 
 up ethical ideas capable of influencing the feelings of the 
 upper classes, in such a way as to make them sympathise 
 with those who in pity are called " the disinherited 
 classes," and of inducing them to make some sacrifice 
 in favour of their unfortunate brethren. The writers of 
 
 • This is what Benedetto Croce pointed out in the Critica of July 17, 
 1907, pp. 317-319. This writer is well known in Italy as a remarkably 
 acute critic and philosopher. 
 
363 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 that time picture the manufactory of the future in a very 
 different hght from that which it may have in a society of 
 proletarians carr5dng on industry in a technically pro- 
 gressive and inventive way ; they suppose that it might 
 resemble drawing-rooms in which ladies meet to do em- 
 broidery ; in this way they gave a middle-class setting to 
 the mechanism of production. Finally, they credited the 
 proletariat with feelings closely resembling those which 
 eighteenth- and nineteenth-century explorers attributed 
 to savages — goodness, simplicity, and an anxiety to imitate 
 a superior race of men. With such hypotheses it was an 
 easy matter to conceive an organisation of peace and 
 happiness ; it was only necessary to make the rich better 
 and the poorer class more enlightened. These two 
 operations seemed easily realisable, and then the fusion 
 of the drawing-room and the factory, which has turned 
 the heads of so many Utopists, would be brought about. ^ 
 The " new school " never conceives things on an idyllic, 
 Christian, and middle-class model ; it knows that the pro- 
 cess of production requires entirely different qualities from 
 those met with in the upper classes ; it is only on account 
 of the moral qualities, which are necessary to improve 
 production, that it deals so much with ethical questions. 
 The new school, then, resembles the economists much 
 more than the Utopists ; like G. de Molinari, it considers 
 that the moral progress of the proletariat is as necessary 
 as.niaterial improvement in machinery, if modern industry 
 is to be lifted to the increasingly higher levels that 
 technical science allows it to attain ; but it descends 
 farther than this author does into the depths of this 
 problem, and does not content itself with vague recom- 
 mendations about religious duty.^ In its insatiable 
 
 1 In the New-Harmony colony founded by R. Owen the work done 
 was little and bad, but amusements were abundant ; in 1826 the Duke 
 of Saxe- Weimar was dazzled by the music and the balls (DoUeans, 
 Robert Owen, pp. 247-268). 
 
 2 G. de Molinari appears to believe that a natural religion like that 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 263 
 
 desire for reality, it tries to arrive at the real roots of this 
 process of moral perfection and desires to know how to 
 create to-day the ethic of the producers of the future. 
 
 II 
 
 At the beginning of any research on modem ethics 
 this question must be asked, Under what conditions 
 is regeneration possible ? The Marxists' are ' absolutely 
 right in laughing at the Utopists and in maintaining that 
 morality is never created by mild preaching, by the 
 ingenious constructions of theorists, or by fine gestures. 
 Proudhon, having neglected this problem, suffered from 
 many illusions about the persistence of the forces which 
 gave life to his own ethics ; experience was soon to prove 
 that his undertaking was to remain fruitless. And if the 
 contemporary world does not contain the roots of a new 
 ethic what will happen to it ? The sighs of a whimpering 
 middle class will not save it, if it has for ever lost its 
 morality. 
 
 Very shortly before his death Renan was much en- 
 grossed with the ethical future of the world : " Moral 
 values decline, that is a certainty, sacrifice has almost 
 disappeared ; one can see the day coming when every- 
 thing will be syndicaUsed.i when organised selfishness will 
 take the place of love and devotion. There will be strange 
 upheavals. The two things which alone until now have 
 resisted the decay of reverence, the army ^ and the Church, 
 will soon be swept away in the universal torrent." ^ Renan 
 showed a remarkable insight in writing this at the very 
 
 of J. J. Rousseau or Robespierre would suffice. We know to-day that 
 such means have no moral efficacy. 
 
 1 Renan is complaining that the corporative associations dominate 
 society too much. It is clear that he had none of the veneration for 
 the corporative spirit that so many contemporary idealists display. 
 
 ^ He did not foresee that his son-in-law would agitate violently 
 against the army in the Dreyfus affair. 
 
 " Renan, Feuilles ditachies, p. 14. 
 
264 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 moment when so many futile intellects were announcing 
 the renascence of idealism and foreseeing progressive 
 tendencies in a Church that was at length reconciled with 
 the modern world. But all his life Renan had been too 
 favoured by fortune not to be optimistic ; he believed, 
 therefore, that the evil of the future would consist simply 
 in the necessity of passing through a bad period, and 
 he added : "No matter, the resources of humanity are 
 infinite. The eternal designs will be fulfilled, the springs 
 of life ever forcing their way to the surface will never 
 be dried up." 
 
 He had finished, several months before, the fifth volume 
 of his History of the People of Israel, and this volume, 
 having been printed from the imaltered manuscript, 
 contains a more imperfect expression of his ideas on this 
 subject ; (it is known that he corrected his proofs very care- 
 fully) . We find in this the most gloomy presentiments ; the 
 author even questions whether humanity will ever attain 
 its real end. " If this globe should happen not to fulfil 
 its purpose, there will be others to carry on to its final end 
 the programme of aU life — Light, Reason, and Truth." ^ 
 The times to come frightened him. " The immediate 
 future is dark. The triumph of Light is not assured." 
 He dreaded Socialism, and there is no doubt that by 
 Socialism he meant the humanitarian idiocy which he 
 saw emerging in the stupid middle-class world ; it was, 
 in this way, that he came to think that Catholicism might 
 perhaps be the accomplice of Socialism.^ 
 
 On the same page he speaks of the divisions which may 
 exist in a society, and this is of considerable importance. 
 " Judea and the Greco-Roman world were like two uni- 
 verses revolving one beside the other under opposing 
 influences. . . . The history of humanity by no means 
 synchronises in its various parts. Tremble ! At this 
 
 1 Renan, Histoire du peuple d' Israel, vol. v. p. 421. 
 ^ Renan, loc. cit. p. 420. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS [(265 
 
 moment perhaps the religion of the future is being 
 created ... and we have no part in it. I envy wise 
 Kimri who saw beneath the earth. It is there that every- 
 thing is prepared, it is there that we must look." There 
 is in these words nothing that the theorists of the class- 
 war could not approve of ; in them I find the commentary 
 to what Renan said a little later on the subject of " the 
 springs of life ever forcing their way to the surface " ; 
 re generation is bein^ brpught ab out by a class which works ■ 
 s ubterraneously, and which i s sepy ating itself.froj'g.ihg.. 
 modern wdrl(ras° ludaisiirdict from'the ancient world. 
 '■^59'ESeverthfi official sociologists may thittkrlhe lower ' 
 classes are by no means condemned to live on the crumbs 
 which the upper classes let f aU ; we are glad to see Renan 
 protest against this imbecile doctrine. Syndicalism claims 
 toj;reate a real proletarian ideology, and whatever the 
 middle-class professors say of it, historical experience, as 
 proclaimed by the mouth of Renan, tells us that this is 
 quite possible, and that out of it may come the salvation 
 of the world. The syndicalist movement is really being 
 developed underground ; the men who devote themselves 
 to it do not make much noise in the world ; what a 
 difference between them and the former leaders of demo- 
 cracy, whose sole aim was the conquest of power ! 
 
 These men were intoxicated by the hope that the 
 chances of life might some day make them republican 
 princes. While waiting for the wheel of fortune to turn 
 to their advantage in this way, they obtained the moral 
 and material advantages that celebrity procures for all 
 virtuosi, in a society which is accustomed to paying well 
 those who amuse it. The chief motive force behind many 
 of them was their immeasurable pride, and they fancied 
 that, as their name was bound to shine with singular 
 brilliancy in the annals of humanity, they might buy that 
 future glory by a few sacrifices. 
 
 None of these motives for action exist for the Sjmdicalists 
 
366 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 of to-day ; the proletariat has none of the servile instincts 
 of democracy ; it no longer aspires to walk on all fours 
 before a former comrade who has become a chief magistrate, 
 or to swoon for joy before the toilettes of ministers' wives.^ 
 The men who .devote themselves to the revolutionary 
 cause "Sow that they must always remain poor. They 
 carry on their work of organisation without attracting 
 attention, and the meanest hack who scribbles for 
 L'Humanite is much better known than the militants of 
 the Confederation du Travail ; ^ for the great majority of 
 the French public, Griffuelhes will never have the notoriety 
 of Rouanet;^ and in the absence of the material advantages, 
 which they could hardly expect, they have not even the 
 satisfaction that celebrity can give. Putting their whole 
 trust in the movements of the masses, they have no 
 
 ' The essence of democracy is concentrated in the mot attributed to 
 Mme. Flocon. " It is we who are the princesses." The democracy is 
 happy when it sees a ridiculous creature like Fehx Faure, whom Joseph 
 Reinach compared to the bourgeois gentilhomme, treated with princely 
 honours (Histoire de V affaire Dreyfus, vol. iv. p. 552). 
 
 ^ Parliamentary Socialism is very keen on good manners, as we can 
 assure ourselves by consulting Gerault-Richard's numerous articles. I 
 quote at random several specimens. On June i, 1903, he declared 
 in the Petite Ripublique that Queen Nathalie of Servia should have 
 been called to order " for having listened to the preaching of P. Coube 
 at Aubervilles, and he demands that she be admonished by the police 
 commissary of her district." On September 26 he is roused to indigna- 
 tion by the coarseness and the ignorance of good manners exhibited by 
 Admiral Marechal. The socialist code has its mysteries ; the wives 
 of socialists are sometimes called ladies and sometimes citizenesses ; 
 in the society of the future there will evidently be disputes about the 
 order of precedence as there were at Versailles. On July 30, 1903, 
 Cassagnac makes great fun in the Autorite of his having been taken to 
 task by Gerault- Richard, who had given him lessons in good manners. 
 
 ' Griffuelhes, who had been a shoemaker, was at one time secretary 
 of the ConfMiration du Travail ; he was remarkably intelligent ; cf. a 
 pamphlet by him entitled Voyage rivolutionnaire. 
 
 [Rouanet was Malon's principal disciple ; he was for some time a 
 deputy, very much opposed to the Marxists, naturally a great ad- 
 versary of the Confidiration du Travail, a type of socialist politician 
 who occupies a considerable place in journalism and in Parliament, but 
 who does not count at all intellectually. — Trans.'] 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 267 
 
 expectation of a Napoleonic ^loryj, and they leave the 
 superstition olgreat inen_lQ,th£-middlexlasses. 
 
 It is well that it is so, because the proletariat will be 
 able to develop itself much more surely if it organises 
 itself in obscurity ; Socialist politicians shun occupations 
 which do not provide celebrity (and which are consequently 
 not profitable) ; they are, then, not at all disposed to 
 trouble themselves with the work of the syndicates, the 
 object of which is to remain proletarian ; they make a 
 show on the Parliamentary stage, but that, as a rule, does 
 not amount to much. The men who do participate in 
 the real working-class movement are an example of what 
 have always been looked upon as the greatest virtues ; 
 they cannot, in fact, acquire any of those things which 
 the middle classes regard as especially desirable. If then , 
 as Rena n asserts,^ history rewards the r esigned abneg ation 
 o'i men who strive uncomplainingly," and who accomplish , 
 without profit, a great historical work, we have a hew 
 reagonJor_beHe^dn£_ m th e^ad^ 
 
 r epresents the highest moral ideal ever conceived by man. 
 T his time it is not a new rdTgion wfficn 1^^ 
 underground, without the help of the middle-c lass thinkers , ' 
 it js theL hirth Qf^a 'mrlu^''a!'^m^s°^^ 
 Intellectuals are TncapaHle or uBflSffESH^iH^^ virtue 
 whichJia5jl3£.pQs^er_to_g§y^^civxLisatipn,^ as Renan"K^ed 
 it would be saved — but by the total elimination of the 
 class to which Renan belonged. 
 
 Let us n jQw^cqasidjer-xlQselj^Ljhe^reasons which made 
 Renan dread a decadence jgt.the middle'Cla^";^ he was 
 
 ' Renan, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 267. 
 
 ' Renan pointed out one symptom of decadence, on which he did 
 not insist enough and which does not seem to have particularly im- 
 pressed his readers ; he was irritated by the restlessness, the claims to 
 originality, and the naive rivalry of the young metaphysicians : " But, 
 my dear fellows, it is useless to give oneself so much headache, merely 
 to change from one error to another" {Feuilles ditachees, p. 10). A 
 restlessness of this kind (which puts on nowadays a sociological, socialist, 
 or humanitarian air) is a sure sign of anaemia. 
 
268 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 struck by the decay of religious ideas : "An immense 
 moral, and perhaps intellectual, degeneracy will follow the 
 disappearance of religion from the world. We, at the 
 present day, can dispense with religion, because others 
 have it for us. Those who do not believe are carried 
 along by the more or less beUeving majority ; but on the 
 day when the majority lose this impulse, the men of spirit 
 themselves will go feebly to the attack." It is the 
 absence of the sentiment of sublimity which Renan 
 dreaded ; like all old people in their days of sadness, he 
 thinks of his childhood, and adds, " Man is of value in 
 proportion to the religious sentiment which he preserves 
 from his first education and which colours his whole life." 
 He himself had lived all his life under the influence of 
 the sentiment of sublimity inculcated in him by his 
 mother ; we know, in fact, that Madame Renan was a 
 woman of lofty character. But the source of sublimity 
 is dried up : " Religious people live on a shadow. We live 
 on the shadow of a shadow. On what will those who 
 come after us live ? " ^ 
 
 Renan, as was his wont, tried to mitigate the gloom 
 of the outlook which his perspicacity presented to him ; 
 he is hke many other French writers who, wishing to 
 please a frivolous pubhc, never dare to go to the bottom 
 of the problems that hfe presents ; ^ he does not wish to 
 frighten his amiable lady admirers, so he adds, therefore, 
 that it is not necessary to have a religion burdened with 
 dogmas, such a religion, for example, as Christianity ; the 
 religious sentiment should suffice. Since Renan, there 
 has been no lack of chatter about this vague religious 
 sentiment which " should suffice " to replace the positive 
 
 ' Renan, Feuilles dHachies, pp. 17-18. 
 
 2 Bruneti^e addressed this reproach to French literature : " If you 
 wish to know why Racine or Moli^re, for example, never attained the 
 depth we find in a Shakespeare or a. Goethe . . . cherchez la femme, 
 and you will find that the defect is due to the influence of the salons, 
 and of women " ({Evolution des genres, 3rd edition, p. 128). 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 269 
 
 religions which are coming to grief. F. Buisson informs 
 us that " no religious doctrines will survive, but only 
 religious emotions, which, far from contradicting either 
 science, art, or morality, will steep them in a feeling of 
 profound harmony with the life of the Universe." ^ This, 
 unless I am unable to see beyond my nose, is the merest 
 balderdash. 
 
 " On what will those who come after us live ? " This 
 is the great problem posed by Renan and which Ihejjiiddle 
 classes wiU Jieyer .be able to sqlye. If any doubt is pos- 
 sible on this point, the stupidities uttered by the of&cial 
 moralists would show that the decadence is henceforth 
 fatal. SpecuJatiSSS oh the harmony of the Universe (even , 
 when the Universe is personified) are not the kind of thing 
 which, will give men that courage wtiicK Renan compared 
 to that of the soldier in the moment of attack. Sub-'^ 
 limityisjiead in the middle classes, and they are doomed 
 to-possessno ethic in the future.^ The winding-up of the 
 Dreyfus affair, which the Dreyfusards, to the great indigna- 
 tion of Colonel Picquart,^ knew how to put to such good 
 account, has shown that middle-class sublimity is a Stock 
 Exchange asset. All the intellectual and moral defects 
 of a class tainted with folly showed themselves in that 
 affair. 
 
 1 Questions de morale (lectures given by several professors) in the 
 Bibliothique des sciences sociales, p. 328. 
 
 ^ I must call attention to tlie extraordinary prudence shown by 
 Ribot in his Psychologie des sentiments in dealing with the evolution of 
 moraUty ; it might have been expected that, on the analogy of the other 
 sentiments, he would have come to the conclusion that there was an 
 evolution towards a purely intellectual state and to the disappearance 
 of its efftcacy ; but has not dared to draw this conclusion for morality 
 as he did for religion. 
 
 3 I refer to an article published in the Gazette de Lausanne, April 2, 
 1906, from which the Libre Parole gave a fairly long extract (cf. Joseph 
 Reinach, op. cit. vol. vi. p. 36). Several months after I had written 
 these Unes Picquart was himself the object of exceptionally favourable 
 treatment; he had been conquered by the fatalities of Parisian life, 
 which have ruined stronger men than he. 
 
270 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 III 
 
 Before examining what qualities the modem industrial 
 system requires of free producers, we must analyse the 
 component parts of morahty. The philosophers always 
 have a certain amount of difficulty in seeing cleariy into 
 these ethical problems, because they feel the impossibility 
 of harmonising the ideas which are current at a given time 
 in a class, and yet imagine it to be their duty to reduce 
 everything to a unity. To conceal from themselves the 
 fundamental heterogeneity of all this civilised morality, 
 they have recourse to a great number of subterfuges, 
 sometimes relegating to the rank of exceptions, importa- 
 tions, or survivals, everything which embarrasses them— 
 sometimes drowning reality in an ocean of vague phrases 
 and, most often, employing both methods the better to 
 obscure the problem. My view, on the contrary, is that 
 the lest way of understanding any groupofidsasin the 
 history of thougM is to bring all the contradictions into 
 sharp relief. I shall adopt this method and take for a 
 starting-point the celebrated opposition which Nietzsche 
 has established between two groups of moral values, an 
 opposition about which much has been written, but which 
 has never been properly studied. 
 
 A. We know with what force Nietzsche praised the 
 values constructed by the masters, by a superior class of 
 warriors who, in their expeditions, enjoying to the full 
 freedom from all social constraint, return to the siniplicity 
 of mind of a wild beast, become once more triumphant 
 monsters who continually bring to mind " the superb 
 blond beast, prowling in search of prey and bloodshed," 
 in whom " a basis of hidden bestiahty needs from time 
 to time a purgative." To understand this thesis properly, 
 we must not attach too much importance to formulas 
 which have at times been intentionally exaggerated, but 
 should examine the historical facts ; the author tells us 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 271 
 
 that he has in mind " the aristocracy of Rome, Arabia, 
 Germany, and Japan, the Homeric heroes, the Scandina- 
 vian vikings." 
 
 It is chiefly the Homeric heroes that we must bear in 
 mind in order to understand what Nietzsche wished to 
 make clear to his contemporaries. We must remember 
 that he had been professor of Greek at the University of 
 Bale, and that his reputation began with a book devoted 
 to the glorification of the Hellenic genius {The Origin of 
 Tragedy). He notices that, even at the period of their 
 highest culture, the Greeks still preserved a memory of 
 their former character of masters. " Our daring," said 
 Pericles, " has traced a path over earth and sea, raising 
 eversrwhere imperishable monuments both of good and 
 evil." It was of the heroes of Greek legend and history 
 that he was thinking when he speaks of " that audacity 
 of noble races, that mad, absurd, and spontaneous 
 audacity, their indifference and contempt for all security 
 of the body, for life, for comfort." Does not " the terrible 
 gaiety and the profound joy which the heroes tasted in 
 destruction, in all the pleasmres of victory and of cruelty," 
 apply particularly to Achilles ? ^ 
 
 It was certainly to the type of classic Greek that 
 Nietzsche alluded when he wrote " the moral judgments 
 of the warrior aristocracy are founded , on a powerful 
 bodily constitution, a floiirisliing health without forgetful- 
 ness of what was necessary to the maintenance of that over- 
 flowing vigour — war, adventure, hunting, -danciitg.,_games, 
 and physical exercises, in short, everything impHe^ by a 
 robust, freehand joyful activity." ^ 
 
 That very ancient type, the Achaean type celebrated 
 by Homer, is not simply a memory ; it has several times 
 reappeared in the world. " During the Renaissance there 
 was a superb reawakening of the classic ideal of the 
 
 ' Nietzsche, GinSalogie de la moral, trad, franf., pp. 57-59. 
 ' Nietzsche, op. cit. p. 43. 
 
272 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 aristocratic valuation of all things ; and after the Revolu- 
 tion " the most prodigious and unexpected event came to 
 pass, the antique ideal stood in person with unwonted 
 splendour before the eyes and consciousness of humanity. 
 . . . (Then) appeared Napoleon, isolated and belated 
 example though he was." ^ 
 
 I beUeve that if the professor of philology had not been 
 continually cropping up in Nietzsche he would have per- 
 ceived that the master type still exists under our own eyes, 
 and that it is this type which, at the present time, has 
 created the extraordinary greatness of the United States. 
 He would have been struck by the singular analogies 
 which exist between the Yankee, ready for any kind of 
 enterprise, and the ancient Greek sailor, sometimes a pirate, 
 sometimes a colonist or merchant ; above all, he would 
 have established a parallel between the ancient heroes and 
 the man who sets out on the conquest of the Far West.^ 
 P. de Rousiers has described the master type admirably. 
 " To become and to remain an American, one must look 
 upon life as a struggle and not as a pleasure, and seek in it, 
 victorious effort, energetic and efficacious action, rather 
 than pleasure, leisure embellished by the cultivation of 
 the arts, the refinements proper to other societies. Every- 
 where — ^we have seen that what makes the American 
 succeed, what constitutes his type — ^is character, personal 
 energy, energy in action, creative energy."^ The pro- 
 found contempt which the Greek had for the Barbarian 
 is matched by that of the Yankee for the foreign worker 
 who makes no effort to become truly American. " Many 
 of these people would be better if we took them in hand," 
 
 1 Nietzsche, op. cit. pp. 78-80. 
 
 2 P. de Rousiers observes that everywhere in America approximately 
 the same social environment is found, and the same type of men at the 
 head of big businesses ; but " it is in the West that the qualities and 
 defects of this extraordinary people manifest themselves with the greatest 
 energy ; . . . it is there that the key to the whole social system is to be found " 
 (La Vie amiricaine : ranches, fermes, et usines, pp. 8-9 ; cf. p. 261). 
 
 3 De Rousiers, La Vie amdricaine : Viducation et la societe, p. 325. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 273 
 
 an old colonel of the War of Secession said to a French 
 traveller, but we are a proud race ; a shopkeeper of 
 Pottsville spoke of the Pennsylvania miners as " the 
 senseless populace." ^ J. Bourdeau has drawn attention 
 to the strange likeness which exists between the ideas of 
 A. Carnegie and Roosevelt, and those of Nietzsche, the 
 first deploring the waste of money involved in main- 
 taining incapables, the second urging the Americans to 
 becoming conquerors, a race of prey.^ 
 
 J am not among those who consider Homer's Achaean 
 type, the indomitable'liefo confident in his strength-and 
 putting himself above rules, as necessarily disappearing in 
 tfe.e future. If it has often been believed that the t5rpe 
 was bound to disappear, that was because the Homeric 
 values were imagined to be irreconcilable with the other 
 values which spring from an entirely different principle ; 
 Nietzsche committed this error, which all those who 
 believe in the necessity of unity in thought are bound to 
 make. It is quite evident that liberty would be seriously 
 compromised if men came to regard the Homeric values 
 (which are approximate the same as the Cornelian values) 
 as suitable only to barbaric peoples. Many moral evils 
 would for ever remain unremedied if some hero of revolt 
 did not force the people to become aware of their own 
 state of mind on the subject. And art, which is after 
 all of some value, would lose the finest jewel in its crown. 
 The philosophers are little disposed to admit the right 
 of art to support the cult of the " will to power " ; it seems 
 to them that they ought to give lessons to artists, instead 
 
 ' De Rousiers, La Vie amiricaine : ranches, fermes, et usines, pp. 303- 
 303- 
 
 ^ J. Bourdeau, Les Maitres de la pensie contemporaine, p. 145. The 
 author informs us on the other hand that " Jaurfes greatly astonished 
 the people of Geneva by revealing to them that the hero of Nietzsche, 
 the superman, was nothing else but the proletariat " (p. 139). I have 
 not been able to get any information about this lecture of Jaur^s ; 
 let us hope that he will some day publish it, for our amusement. 
 
 T 
 
274 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 of receiving lessons from them ; they think that only those 
 sentiments which have received ■ the stamp of the Uni- 
 versities have the right to manifest themselves in poetry. 
 Like industry, art has never adapted itself to the demands 
 of theorists ; it always upsets their plans of social harmony, 
 and humanity has found the freedom of art far too satis- 
 factory ever to think of allowing it to be controlled by the 
 creators of dull systems of sociology. The Marxists are 
 accustomed to seeing the ideologists look at things the 
 wrong way round, and so, in contrast to their enemies, 
 they should look upon art as a reaUty which begets ideas 
 and not as an application of ideas. 
 
 B. To the values created by the master type, Nietzsche 
 opposed the system constructed by sacerdotar castes— 
 the ascetic ideal against which he has piled up so much 
 invective. The history or these values is much more 
 obscure and complicated than that of the preceding ones. 
 Nietzsche tries to connect the origin of asceticism with 
 psychological reasons which I will not examine here. He 
 certainly makes a mistake in attributing a preponderat- 
 ing part to the Jews. It is not at all evident that antique 
 Judaism had an ascetic character ; doubtless, like the 
 other Semitic religions, it attached importance to pilgrim- 
 ages, fasts, and prayers recited in ragged clothes. The 
 Hebrew poets sang the hope of revenge which existed in the 
 heart of the persecuted, but, until the second century of 
 our era, the Jews looked to be revenged by arms : ^ on the 
 other hand, family life, with them, was too strong for the 
 monkish ideal ever to become important. 
 
 Imbued with Christianity as our civilisation may be, 
 it is none the less evident that, even in the Middle Ages, 
 it submitted to influences foreign to the Church, with 
 the result that the old ascetic values were gradually 
 transformed. The values to which, the contemporary 
 
 ' It is always necessary to remember that the resigned Jew of the 
 Middle Ages was more like the Christians than his ancestors. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 375 
 
 world clings mostclosely^,5sQd^^duchJtco^ 
 e^AtcaJG^Miv^iieljaQt. realised ia„convents75ut.in. the 
 lamily ,;^ respecjtJpjL-tbeJiUiBan person^ sexual fidelity 
 and devotion to the weak, constitute tW elements of 
 morality of which all high - minded men are proud ; 
 moraUty, even, is very often made to consist of these alone. 
 
 When we examine in a critical spirit the numerous 
 writings which treat, to-day, of marriage, we see that the 
 reformers who are in earnest propose to improve family 
 relations in such a,,w;^y as ta assure the;; better' realisation 
 ol' these etiiical values ; thus, they demand that * the 
 scandals of conjugal life shall not be exposed in the law 
 courts, that unions shall not be maintained when fidelity 
 no longer exists, and that the authority of the head of the 
 family shall not be diverted from its moral purpose to 
 become mere exploitation, etc. 
 
 On the other hand, it is curious to observe to what 
 extent the modem Church misxmderstands the values 
 that classico-Christian civilisation has produced. It sees 
 in marriage, above all, a contract directed by financial and 
 worldly interests ; it is unwiUing to allow of the union 
 being dissolved when the household is a hell, and takes 
 no account of the duty of devotion.^ The priests are 
 wonderfully skilful in procuring rich dowries for im- 
 poverished nobles, so much so, indeed, that the Church 
 has been accused of considering marriage as a mating of 
 noblemen living as " bullies " with middle-class women 
 reduced to the role of the women who support such men. 
 When it is heavily recompensed, the Church finds un- 
 expected reasons for divorce, and finds means of annulling 
 inconvenient unions for ridiculous motives. Proudhon 
 asks ironically : " Is it possible for a responsible man of 
 a serious turn of mind and a true Christian to care for 
 the love of his wife ? ... If the husband seeking divorce, 
 or the wife seeking separation, alleges the refusal of the 
 
 1 Epistle to the Ephesians, v. 25-31. 
 
376 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 conjugal right, then, of course, there is a legitimate reason 
 for a rupture, for the service for which the marriage is 
 granted has not been carried out." ^ 
 
 Our civilisation having come to consider nearly all 
 morality as consisting of values derived from those 
 observed in the normally constituted family, two serious 
 consequences have been produced : (i) it has been asked 
 if, instead of considering the family as an application of 
 moral theories, it would not be more exact to say that it 
 is the base of these theories ; (2) it seems that the Church, 
 having becpine incompetent on matters connected with 
 sexual union, must also be incompetent as regards morality. 
 These are precisely the conclusions to which Proudhon 
 came. " Sexual duality was created by Nature to be the 
 instrument of Justice. ... To produce Justice is the 
 higher aim of the bisexual division ; generation, and what 
 follows from it, only figure here as accessory." ^ " Marriage, 
 both in principle and in purpose, being the instrument of 
 human right, and the living negation of the divine right, 
 is thus in formal contradiction with theology and the 
 Church." 3 
 
 Love, by the enthusiasm it begets, ^ can produce that 
 sublimity- without- which there would be no effective 
 morahty. At the end of his book on Justice, Proudhon 
 has written pages, which will never be surpassed, on the 
 role of women. 
 
 C. Finally we have to examine the values which escape 
 
 1 Proudhon is alluding sarcastically to the frequently very comic 
 nullifications of marriage, pronounced by the Roman courts, for 
 physiological reasons. Proudhon, op. cit. vol. vi. p. 39- We know that 
 the theologians do not like curious people to consult ecclesiastical 
 writings about conjugal duty and the legitimate method of fulfilling it. 
 
 2 Proudhon, loc. cit. p. 212. 
 
 3 Proudhon, CEuvres, vol. xx. p. 169. This is extracted from the 
 memoir he wrote in his own defence, after he had been condemned to 
 three years in prison for his book on Justice. It is worth while noting 
 that Proudhon was accused of attacking marriage ! This affair is one 
 of the shameful acts which dishonoured the Church in the reign of 
 Napoleon III. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 277 
 
 Nietzsche's classification and which treat of civil relations. - 
 Originally magic was much mixed up in the evahiation 
 of these values ; among the Jews, until recent times, one 
 finds a mixture of hygienic principles, rules about sexual 
 relationships, precepts about honesty, benevolence and 
 national sohdarity, the whole wrapped up in magical 
 superstitions ; this mixture, which seems strange to the 
 philosopher, had the happiest influence on their morality 
 so long as they maintained their traditional mode of 
 living, and one notices among them even now a particular 
 exactitude in the carrying out of contracts. 
 
 The ideas held by modern ethical writers are drawn 
 mainly from those of Greece in its time of decadence ; 
 Aristotle, living in a period of transition, combined ancient 
 values with values that, as time went on, were to prevail ; 
 war and production had ceased to occupy the attention 
 of the most distinguished men of the towns, who sought, 
 on the contrary, to secure an easy existence for themselves ; 
 the most important thing was the establishment of friendly 
 relations between the better educated men of the com- 
 . munity, and the fundamental maxim was that of the 
 golden mean. The new morality was to be acquired 
 principally by means of the habits which the young Greek 
 would pick up in mixing with cultivated people. It may 
 be said that Ijere we are on the Jevel, of an jathic adapted 
 t-e-eonsumers ; it is not astonishing then that Catholic 
 theologians still find Aristotle's ethics an excellent one, 
 for they themselves take the consumer's point of view. 
 
 In the civilisation of antiquity, the ethics of producers 
 could hardly be any other than that of slave-owners, and 
 it did not seem worth developing at length, at the time 
 when philosophy made an inventory of Greek customs. 
 Aristotle-said that,jxa.farHreacJiing science was needed to 
 employ slaves : " For the master wee^ only'^UnoWmn' to 
 ojj£twhatM£-sIaiie.S-must^kn(mihow to execiiter'Sb, as soon as 
 a man can save himself this trouble, he feaves it in the 
 
278 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 charge of a steward, so as to be himself free foi' a 
 political or philosophical life." ^ A little farther on he 
 wrote : " It is manifest, then, that the master ought to be 
 the source of excellence in the slave; but not merely 
 because he possesses the art which trains him in his 
 duties." 2 This clearly expresses the point of view of the 
 urban consumer, who finds it very tiresome to be obUged 
 to pay any attention whatever to the conditions of 
 production.^ 
 
 As to the slave, he needs very limited virtues. " He 
 only needs enough to prevent him neglecting his work 
 through intemperance or idleness." He should be treated 
 with " more indulgence even than children," although 
 certain people consider that slaves are deprived of reason 
 and are only fit to receive orders.* 
 
 It is quite easy to see that during a considerable period 
 the moderns also did not think that there was anything 
 more to be said about workers than Aristotle had said ; 
 they must be given orders, corrected with gentleness, like 
 children, and treated as passive instruments who do not 
 need to think. Revolutionary Syndicalism would be 
 impossible if the world of the workers were under the 
 
 1 Aristotle, Politics, book i. chap. vii. 4-5. 
 
 ''■ Aristotle, op. cit. book i. chap. v. 13, 14. 
 
 3 Xenophon, who represents in everything a conception of Greek 
 life very much earlier than the time in which he lived, discusses the 
 proper method of training an overseer for a farm (Economics, pp. 12-14). 
 Marx remarks that Xenophon speaks of the division of labour in the 
 workshop, and that appears to him to show a middle-class instinct 
 (Capital, vol. i. p. 159, col. i) ; I myself think that it characterises an 
 observer who understood the importance of production, an importance 
 of which Plato had no comprehension. In the Memorabilia (book ii. p. 7) 
 Socrates advises a citizen who had to look after a large family, to set up 
 a workshop with the family ; J. Flach supposes that this was something 
 new (Lepon du /p" avril igof} : it seems to me to be rather a return to 
 more ancient customs. The historians of philosophy appear to me to 
 have been very hostile to Xenophon because he is too much of an old 
 Greek. Plato suits them much better since he is more of an aristocrat, 
 and consequently more detached from production. 
 
 * Aristotle, op. cit. book i. chap. v. 9 and 11. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 279 
 
 influence of such a morality of the weak. State Socialism, \ 
 on the coritrarF..qoiiM.«te€oiiiiri6(rate itself to this morality 
 perfectly well, since the latter is based on the idea of a 
 society divided' into a class of producers and a class of ( 
 tbiiikers applying results of scientific investigation to the 
 work of production. The only difference which would 
 exist between this sham Socialism and Capitalism would 
 consist in the employment of more ingenious methods of 
 procuring discipline in the workshop. 
 
 At the present moment, officials of the Bloc are working 
 to create a kind of ethical discipline which will replace 
 the hazy religion which G. de Molinari thinks necessary 
 to the successful working of capitalism. It is perfectly 
 clear, in fact, that religion is daily losing its efficacy with 
 the people ; something else must be found, if the in- 
 tellectuals are to be provided with the means of living on 
 the margin of production. 
 
 IV 
 
 The problem that we shall now try to solve is the most 
 difficult of all those which a Socialist writer can touch 
 upon. We are about to ask how it is possible t o conceive 
 
 Jh e^ transformation, oiJ he^me&^Qi-iq^a.^^ 
 p lofeeEs 9I tormorr ow jsa^cg,T4qg -in m^i> ,u£actQriea. where 
 
 J^ SJ^^-iESi^ nol jnasters. The question must be stated 
 accurately; we must state it, not for a world which has 
 already arrived at Socialism, but solely for our own time 
 and for the preparation of the transition from one world 
 to the other ; if we do not limit the question in this way, 
 we shall find ourselves straying into Utopias. 
 
 Kautsky has given a great deal of attention to the 
 question of the conditions immediately following a social 
 revolution ; the solution he proposes seems to me quite 
 as feeble as that of G. de Molinari. If the syndicates of 
 to-day are strong enough to induce the workmen of to-day 
 
zSo REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 to abandon their workshops and to submit to great 
 sacrifices, during the strikes kept up against the capitahsts, 
 he thinks that they will then doubtless be strong enough 
 to bring the workmen back to the workshops, and to 
 obtain good and regular work from them, when once they 
 see that this work is necessary for the general good.^ 
 Kautsky, however, does not seem to feel much confidence 
 in the value of his own solution. 
 
 Evidently no comparison can be made between the kind 
 of discipline which forces a general stoppage of work on 
 the men and that which will induce them to handle 
 machinery with greater skill. The error springs from the 
 fact that Kautsky is more of a theorist than he is a 
 disciple of Marx ; he loves reasoning about abstractions 
 and believes that he has brought a question nearer to 
 solution when he manages to produce a phrase with a 
 scientific appearance ; the underlying reality interests 
 him less than its academic presentment. Many others 
 have committed the same error, led astray by the different 
 meanings of the word discipline, which may be applied both 
 to regular conduct founded on the deepest feelings of the 
 soul or to a merely external restraint. 
 
 The history of ancient corporations furnishes us with 
 
 no really useful information on this subject ; they do not 
 
 seem to have had any effect whatever in promoting any 
 
 kind of improvement, or invention in technical matters ; 
 
 it would seem rather that they served to protect routine. 
 
 If we examine English Trade Unionism closely, we find 
 
 that it also is strongly imbued with this industrial routine 
 
 springing from the corporative spirit. 
 
 _Nor can the examples of democracy throw any hght 
 
 on the ques-fibh. Work conducted democratically would 
 
 be regulated by resolutions, inspected by police, and 
 
 subject to the sanction of tribunals dealing but rewards 
 
 or imprisonment. The discipline would be an exterior 
 
 ' Karl Kautsky, La Revolution sociale, French translation, p. 153. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 281 
 
 compulsion closely analogous to that which now exists in 
 the capitaUst workshops ; but it would probably be still 
 more arbitrary because the committee would always have 
 their eye on the next elections.^ When one thinks of 
 the peculiarities found in judgments in penal cases one 
 feels convinced that repression would be exercised in a 
 very unsatisfactory way. It seems to be generally agreed 
 that light offences cannot be satisfactorily dealt with in 
 law courts, when hampered by the rules of a strict legal 
 system ; the establishment of administrative councils to 
 decide on the future of children has often been suggested ; 
 in Belgiiun mendicity is subject to an administrative 
 arbitration which may be compared to the " police des 
 moeurs " ; it is well known that this police, in spite of 
 innumerable complaints, continues to be almost supreme 
 in France. It is very noticeable that administrative inter- 
 vention in the case of important crimes is continually 
 increasing. Since the power of mitigating or even of sup- 
 pressing penalties is being more and more handed over 
 to the heads of penal establishments, doctors and 
 sociologists speak in favour of this system, which tends 
 to give the police as important a function as they had 
 under the ancien regime. Experience shows that the 
 discipline of the capitalist workshops is greatly superior 
 to that maintained by the pohce, so that one does not 
 see how it would be possible to improve capitalist dis- 
 cipUne by means of the methods which democracy would 
 have at its disposal.^ 
 
 1 think that there is one good point, however, in 
 
 ' The managers of manufactories would constantly be busying them- 
 selves with how to ensure the success of the government party at the 
 next election. They would be very indulgent to workmen who were 
 influential speakers, and very hard on men suspected of lack of 
 electoral zeal. 
 
 2 We might ask if the ideal of the relatively honest and enlightened 
 democrats is not at the present moment the discipline of the capitalist 
 workshop. The increase of the power given to the mayors and State 
 governors in America seems to me to be a sign of this tendency. 
 
 ^y 
 
 V 
 
S& \ REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 Kautsky's hypothesis ; he seems to have been aware 
 that the motive force of the revolutionary movement 
 
 i must also be the motive force of the ethic of the producers ; 
 that is a view quite in conformity with Marxist principles, 
 but the idea must be applied in quite a different way from 
 that in which he applied it. It must not be thought that 
 the action of the syndicates on work is direct, as he sup- 
 
 ^ poses"; this influence of the syndicates on labour should 
 result from complex and sometimes distant causes, acting 
 on the" general character of the workers rather than from 
 a quasi-military organisation. This is what I try to show 
 by analysing some of the qualities of the best workmen. 
 
 A satisfactory result can be arrived at, by starting 
 from the curious analogies which exist between the most 
 remarkable qualities of the soldiers who took part in the 
 wars of Liberty, the qualities' which engehdefeH the propa- 
 y gandaTinTavouF'of the general strike, and those that wiJJ[ 
 be required of a free worker in a highly progressive state 
 of society. I believe that these analogies constitute a" 
 newfaird perhaps decisive) proof, in favour of revolutionary 
 syndicalism. 
 
 In the wars of Liberty each soldier consjderedjiimself 
 ^, as ah individudl'ESvm^ somethin£^jof importance to Jo in 
 the battle, instead of io^^^ as simplyiOjae 
 
 part of the military mechanism committed to the supreme 
 direction'oT"aleaderr"~In the hterature of those times 
 one is struck by the°°f requency with which the free^men 
 of the repubhcan armies are contrasted with the auto- 
 matons of the royal armies ; this was no mere figure of 
 rhetoric employed by the French writers ; I have con- 
 vinced myself as a result of a thorough first-hand study 
 of one of the wars of that time, that these terms corre- 
 sponded perfectly to the actual feehngs of the soldiers. 
 
 Ba±tlesunderJhese_cQm no l onger 
 
 be liEeneTtcTgamiesof chess in which each man is com- 
 parable to ■a--TTawnT''tfiey b-seaffif TOTg^nronfe^ 
 
 V 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 283 
 
 exploits ac complished by indiyiduals tinder the influenc e 
 of an extraordinary enthusia sm. "Revolutionary litera- 
 ture IS not entirely ialse, when it reports so many grandilo- 
 quent phrases said to have been uttered by the combatants ; 
 doubtless none of these phrases were spoken by the people 
 to whom they are attributed, their form is due to men 
 of letters used to the composition of classical declamation ; 
 but the basis is real in this sense, that we have, thanks 
 to these lies of revolutionary rhetoric, a perfectly exact 
 representation of the aspect under which the combatants 
 looked on war, a true expression of the sentiments aroused 
 by it, and the actual accent of thetptfy^JSomeric conflicts 
 which took place at that timeT I am certain that none 
 of the actors in these dramas ever protested against the 
 words attributed to them ; this was no doubt because 
 each found beneath these fantastic phrases, a true ex- 
 pression of his own deepest feelings.^ 
 
 Until the moment when Napoleon appeared the war had 
 none of the scientific character which the later theoretists 
 of strategy have sometimes thought it incumbent on 
 them to attribute to it. Misled by the analogies they 
 discovered between the triumphs of the revolutionary 
 armies and those of the Napoleonic armies, historians 
 imagined that generals anterior to Napoleon had made 
 great plans of carnpaign ; such plans never existed, or at 
 any rate had very little influence on the course ,oi opera- 
 'tions. The best officers of that time were fully aware 
 that their talent consisted in furnishing their troops with 
 the "suitable opportunities of exhibiting their ardour ; and 
 victory was assured each time that the soldiers could 
 give free scope to all their enthusiasm, unfettered by bad 
 commissariat, or by the stupidity of representatives of the 
 people who looked upon themselves as strategists. On 
 
 ' This history has also been burdened by a great number of adven- 
 tures, which have been fabricated by imitating real ones, and which are 
 very like those which later on The Three Musketeers rendered popular. 
 
284 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 the battle-field the leaders gave an example of daring 
 courage and were merely the first combatants, like true 
 Homeric kings ; it is this which explains the enormous 
 prestige with the young troops, immediately gained by 
 so many of the non-commissioned officers of the ancien 
 regime, who were borne to the highest rank by the 
 unanimous acclamations of the soldiers at the outset of 
 the war. 
 
 If we wished to find, in these first armies, what it was 
 that took the place of the later idea of discipUne, we might 
 say that the soldier was convinced that the slightest 
 failure of the most insignificant private might com- 
 promise the success of the whole and the life of all his 
 comrades, and that the soldier acted accordingly. This 
 presupposes that no account is taken of the relative values 
 of the different factors that go to make up a victory, so 
 that all things are considered from a qualitative and 
 individualistic point of view. One is, in fact, extremely 
 struck by the individualistic characters which are met 
 with in these armies, and by the fact that nothing is to 
 be found in them which at all resembles the obedience 
 spoken of by our contemporary authors. There is some 
 truth then in the statement that the incredible French 
 victories were due to intelligent bayonets. 
 
 The same spirit is found in the working-class groups 
 who are eager for the general strike ; these groups, in 
 fact, picture th^ Revolution as an immense uprising which 
 yet may be called. _ individualistic ; each working with 
 the greatest possible zeal, each acting on his own account, 
 and not-troubling-himseltmuch to subordinate his conduct 
 to a great and scientifically combinedjplan. This character 
 of the proletarian grfieral strike has often been pointed 
 out, and it has the effect of frightening the greedy 
 politicians, who understand perfectly well that a Revolu- 
 tion conducted in this way would do away with all their 
 chances of seizing the Government. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS C^S^ 
 
 Jaures, whom nobody would dream of classing with (\) 
 any but the most circumspect of men, has clearly recog- 
 nised the danger which threatens him ; he accuses the 
 upholders of the general strike of considering only one 
 aspect of social life and thus going against the Revolution.^ 
 This rigmarole -should be translated thus : the revolu- 
 tionary Syndicalists desire to exalt the individuality of 
 the life of the producer ; they thus run counter to the 
 interests of the politicians who want to direct the Revolu- 
 tion in such a way as to transmit power to a new minority ; 
 they thus undermine the foundations of the State. We 
 entirely agree with all this ; it is precisely this character- 
 istic which so terrifies the Parliamentary Socialists, the 
 financiers, and the ideologists, which gives such extra- 
 ordinary moral value to the notion of the general strike. (^ 
 
 The, upholders of the general strike are accused of 
 anarchical.tendencies ; and as a matter of fact, it has been 
 observed during the last few years that anarchists have 
 entered the syndicates in great numbers, and have done 
 a great deal to develop tendencies favourable to the 
 general strike. 
 
 This movement becomes understandable when we 
 bear the preceding explanations in mind ; because the 
 general strike, just like the wars of Liberty, is a most ; 
 st riking manifestation of Mdividualistic force- in ^ \ 
 revolt^ „jmsses. It seems to me, moreover, that the 
 official Socialists would do well not to insist too much on 
 this point ; they would thus avoid some reflections which 
 are not altogether to their advantage. We might, in fact, 
 be led to ask if our official Socialists, with their passion 
 for discipline, and their infinite confidence in the genius 
 of their leaders, are not the authentic inheritors of the 
 traditions of the royal armies, ^hile the anarchists and 
 the upholders of the general strike represent at the pi;e^pnt 
 time th'ft ^mri+ nt tJipTrevdutionarv warriors who, agains t 
 1 Jaurfes, Etudes socialistes, pp. 117-118. 
 
286 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 all the rules of the art of war, so thoro ughly thrashed th e 
 fine armies 'oinffie coalitionr~Tcan uhHeiitand why the 
 SociaTiste approved, controlled, and duly patented by the 
 administrators of Humanite, have not much sympathy 
 for the heroes of Fleurus,^ who were very badly dressed, 
 and would have cut a sorry figure in the drawing-rooms 
 of the great financiers ; but everybody does not adapt 
 his convictions to suit the tastes of M. JaurSs's share- 
 holders. 
 
 V 
 
 I want now to point out some analogies which show 
 how revolutionary syndicalism is the greatest educative 
 force that contemporary society has at its disposal for 
 the preparation of the system of production, which the 
 workmen will adopt, in a society organised in accordance 
 with the new conceptions. 
 
 A. The free producer in a progressive and inventive 
 workshop must never evaluate .hi^ own efforts, by any 
 \ external standing ; he ought to consider the models given 
 him as inferior, and desire to surpass ever5H;hing that has 
 been done before. Constant improvement in quality 
 and quantity wUl be thus assured to production ; the 
 idea of continual progress will be reahsed in a workshop 
 of this kind. 
 
 Early socialists had had an intuition of this law, when 
 they demanded that each should produce according to 
 his faculties ; but they did not know how to explain this 
 principle, which in their Utopias seemed made for a 
 convent or for a family rather than for modern industrial 
 life. Sometimes, however, they pictured their workers 
 as possessed by an enthusiasm similar to that which we 
 find in the lives of certain great artists ; this last point 
 
 1 [The battle of Fleurus, won in 1794 by General Jourdain, was one of 
 the first decisive triumphs of the revolutionary army. The Chant du 
 Dipart was written by J. M. Chenier shortly before this battle.— TmMS.] 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS ( sSp] 
 
 of view is by no means negligible, although the early <;, 
 
 Socialists hardly understood the value of the comparison. y ■. 
 
 Whenever we consider questions relative to industrial ^' ./i 
 progress, we are led to consider ^rt as an anticipation'oi the 1 M>^y-^ 
 hi ghest and technically most perfect forms of production . J >* 
 although the artist, with his caprices, often seems to be at 
 the antipodes of the modem worker.^ This analogy is 
 justified by the fact that the artist dislikes reproducing 
 accepted types; the inexhaustibly inventive turn of 
 his mind _ distinguishes him from the ordinary artisan, 
 who is mainly successful in the unending reproduction 
 of models which are not his own. The inventor is an 
 artist who wears himself out in pursuing the realisation 
 of ends which practical people generally declare absurd ; 
 and who, if he has made any important discovery is often 
 supposed to be mad ; practical people thus resemble 
 artisans. One could cite in every industry important 
 improvements which originated in small changes made 
 by workmen endowed with the artist's taste for innovation. 
 
 This state of mind is, moreover, exactly that which was 
 found in, the first aniiies which .carrifid.oa the wars of 
 Liberty and that possessed by the propagandists of the 
 general strike. This passionate individualism is entirely 
 wanting in the working classes who have been educated 
 by politicians ; all they are fit for is to change their 
 masters. These bad shepherds ^ sincerely hope that it 
 
 1 When we speak of the educative value of art, we often forget that 
 the habits of life of the modem artist, founded on an imitation of those 
 of a jovial aristocracy, are in no way necessary, and are derived from 
 a tradition which has been fatal to many fine talents. Lafargue appears 
 to believe that the Parisian jeweller might find it necessary to dress 
 elegantiy, to eat oysters, and run after women in order to be able to 
 keep up the artistic quality of his work (i.e. in order to keep his mind 
 active ; the artistic quality of his work, destroyed by the wear of daily 
 life in the workshop, will be r econstituted by the gay life he leads outside) 
 (Journal des iconomistes , September 1884, p. 386). He gives no reasons 
 to support this paradox ; we might moreover point out that the mentality 
 of Marx's son-in-law is always obsessed by aristocratic prejudices. 
 
 ^ [This is an allusion to a play by Octave Mirbeau with that titie. — 
 Trans.'] 
 
288 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 will be so ; and the Stock Exchange people would not 
 provide them with money, were they not convinced that 
 Parliamentary Socialism is quite compatible with financial 
 robbery. 
 
 B. Modern industry is characterised by an ever- 
 growing care for exactitude ; as tools get more scientific 
 it is expected that the product shall have fewer hidden 
 faults, and that in use its quality shall be as good as its 
 appearance. 
 
 If Germany has not yet taken the place in the economic 
 world which the mineral riches of its soil, the energy of 
 its manufacturers and the science of its technicians ought 
 to give it, it is because its manufacturers for a long time 
 thought it clever to flood the markets with trash ; although 
 the quahty of German manufactures has much improved 
 during the last few years, it is not yet held in any very 
 great esteem. 
 
 Here again it is possible to draw a comparison between 
 industry in a high state of perfection and art. There 
 have been periods in which the public appreciated above 
 all the technical tricks by which the artist created an 
 illusion of reality ; but these tricks have never been 
 accepted in the great schools, and they are universally 
 condemned by the authors who are accepted as authorities 
 in matters of art.^ 
 
 This honesty which now seems to us to-day as necessary 
 in industry as in art, was hardly suspected by the Utopists ; ^ 
 Fourier, at the beginning of the new era, beUeved that 
 fraud in the quality of merchandise was characteristic 
 
 1 See the chapter in Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture entitled 
 " Lamp of Truth." 
 
 2 It must not be forgotten that there are two ways of discussing art ; 
 Nietzsche attacks Kant for having " hke all the philosophers meditated 
 on art and the beautiful as a spectator instead of looking at the esthetic 
 problem from the point of view of the artist, the creator " (op. cit. 
 p. 178). In the time of the Utopists, esthetics was merely the babbling 
 of amateurs, who were delighted with the cleverness with which the 
 artist had been able to deceive the public. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS iSg 
 
 of the relations between civilised people ; he turned his 
 back on progress and showed himself incapable of under- 
 standing the world which was being formed about him ; 
 like nearly all professional prophets this sham seer con- 
 fused the future with the past. Marx, on the contrary, said 
 that " deception in merchandise in the capitalist system 
 of production is unjust," because it no longer corresponds 
 with the modem system of business.^ 
 
 The soldier of the wars of Liberty attached an almost 
 superstitious importance to the canying out of the smallest 
 order. As a result of this he felt no pity for the generals 
 or officers whom he saw guillotined after a defeat on the 
 charge of dereUction of duty ; he did not look at these 
 events as the historians of to-day do ; he had no means 
 of knowing whether the condemned had really committed 
 treason or not ; in his eyes failure could only be explained 
 by some grave error on the part of his leaders. Xhe high 
 sense of responsibility, felt by the soldier about his own 
 duties, an(f~the extreme thoroughness with which he 
 carried out the most insignificant order, made him approve 
 of rigorous measures taken against men who in his eyes 
 had brought about the defeat of the army and caused it to 
 lose the fruit of so much heroism. 
 
 It is not difficult to see that the same spirit is met with 
 in strikes ; the beaten workmen are convinced that their 
 failure is due tolBFbase conduct oT^few^onrraHes^w^, 
 have not donelill that might have been expected of them : 
 numerous accu sations of treason lare'raought forward ; 
 for the beaten masses^ treason alone can explain thF'defeaf 
 ofherokjrqops fthe sentunenf, felf by all, of thejhorou^- 
 ness that must be bfou^Ft'o the accoriiplishment of their 
 duties, will therefore be accompanied by many acts of 
 violence. 1 do hot thiiik that the authors who have written 
 on"^3ie~~events which follow strikes, have sufficiently 
 reflected on this analogy between strikes and the wars of 
 
 1 Marx, Capital, French translation, vol. iii., first part, p. 375. 
 
 U 
 
sgo) 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 -X" 
 
 Liberty, and, consequently, between these acts of violence 
 and the executions of generals accused of treason.^ 
 
 C. There would never have been great acts of heroism 
 in war, if each soldier, while acting like a hero," yet at the 
 same time claimed to receive a reward proportionate to 
 his deserts. When a column is sent to an assault, the 
 men at the head know they are sent to their death, and 
 that the glory of victory wiU be for those who passing 
 over their dead bodies enter the enemy's position. How- 
 ever, they do not reflect on this injustice, but march 
 forward. 
 
 The value of any army where the need of rewards 
 makes itself actively felt, may be said to be on the decline. ^ 
 Officers who had served in the campaigns of the Revolution 
 and of the Empire, but who had served under the direct 
 orders of Napoleon only in the last years of their career, 
 were amazed to see the fuss made about feats of arms 
 which in the time of their youth would have passed un- 
 noticed : "I have been overwhelmed with praise," said 
 General Duhesne, " for things which would not have been 
 noticed in the army of Sambre-et-Meuse." ^ This theatri- 
 caUty was carried by Murat to a grotesque degree, and 
 historians have not taken enough notice of the responsi- 
 bility of Napoleon for this degeneracy of the true warlike 
 spirit. The extraordinary enthusiasm which had been 
 the cause of so many prodigies of valour on the part of 
 the men of 1794 was unknown to him ; he believed that 
 it was his function to measure all capacities, and to give 
 
 1 p. Bureau has devoted a chapter of his book on the Contrat de 
 Travail to an explanation of the reasons which justify boycotting of 
 workmen who do not join their comrades in strikes ; he thinks that 
 these people merit their fate because they are notoriously inferior both 
 in courage and as workmen. This seems to me very inadequate as 
 an account of the reasons which, in the eyes of the working classes 
 themselves, explain these acts of violence. The author takes up a 
 much too intellectualist point of view. 
 
 2 Lafaille, Mimoires sur les campagnes de Catalogne de iSoS A 1S14, 
 P- 336- 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS sgi 
 
 to each a reward exactly proportionate to what he had 
 accompUshed ; this was the Saint -Simonian principle 
 already coming into practice, and every officer was 
 encouraged to bring himself forward. Charlatanism i ex- 
 hausted the moral forces of the nation whilst its material 
 forces were still very considerable. Napoleon formed 
 very few distinguished general officers and carried on the 
 war principally with those left him by the Revolution ; 
 this impotence is the most absolute condemnation of the 
 system.2 
 
 The scarcity of the information which we possess about 
 the great Gothic artists has often been pointed out. 
 Among the stone-carvers who sculptured the statues in 
 the cathedrals there were men of great talent who seem 
 always to have remained anonymous ; nevertheless they 
 produced masterpieces. Viollet-'le-Duc was surprised 
 that the archives of Notre Dame had preserved for us no 
 detailed information about the building of this gigantic 
 monument and that, as a rule, the documents of the 
 Middle Ages say very little about the architects ; he adds 
 that "'genius can develop itself in obscurity, and that it 
 is its very nature to seek-silence and, obscurity." ^ We 
 
 ' The charlatanism of the followers of Saint Simon was as disgusting 
 as that of Murat ; moreover, the history of this school is unintelligible 
 if we do not compare it with its Napoleonic models. 
 
 " General Donop strongly insists on the incapacity of Napoleon's 
 lieutenants who passively obeyed instructions that they never tried to 
 understand, and the fulfilment of which was minutely overlooked by 
 their master {<yp. cit. pp. 22-29 and 32-34). Napoleon's armies were 
 valued in proportion to the exactitude with which they carried out the 
 orders of their master ; initiative being little valued, it was possible 
 to estimate the conduct of the generals like the ability of a good pupil 
 who has learnt his lessons well ; the Emperor gave pecuniary rewards 
 to his lieutenants, proportionate to the measure of merit he recognised 
 in them. 
 
 ^ Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonni de V architecture franfaise, 
 vol. iv. pp. 42-43. This does not contradict what we read in the 
 article "Architect." From that we learn that the builders often inscribed 
 their names in the cathedrals (vol. i. pp. 109-111) ; from that it has 
 been concluded that these works were not anonymous (Brehier, Les 
 
 U2 
 
\2g2 I REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 might even go farther and question whether their con- 
 temporaries suspected that these artists of genius had 
 raised edifices of unperishable glory ; it seems very 
 probable to me that the cathedrals were only admired 
 by the artists. 
 
 This striving towards perfection which manifests itself, 
 in spite of the absence of any personal, immediate, and 
 proportional reward, constitutes the secret virtue which 
 assures the continued progress of the, world. What would 
 become of modern industry if inventors could only be 
 found for those things which would procure them an 
 almost certain remuneration ? The calling of an inventor is 
 much the most miserable of all, and yet there is no lack of 
 inventors. How often in workshops have little modifica- 
 tions introduced by ingenious artisans into their work, 
 become by accumulation fundamental improvements, 
 without the innovators ever getting any permanent or 
 appreciable benefit from their ingenuity! And has not 
 even simple piece-work brought about a gradual but 
 uninterrupted progress in the processes of production, a 
 progress which, after having temporarily improved the 
 position of a few workers and especially that of their 
 employers, has proved finally of benefit chiefly to the 
 consumer ? 
 
 Renan asked what was it that moved the heroes of 
 great wars. " The soldier of Napoleon was well aware 
 that he would always be a poor man, but he felt that the 
 epic in which he was taking part would be eternal, that he 
 would live in the glory of France." The Greeks had fought 
 for glory ; the Russians and the Turks seek death because 
 they expect a chimerical paradise. " Asoldier is not made 
 by promises of temporal rewards. He must have immor- 
 
 t-glises gothiques, p. 17), but what meaning had these inscriptions for 
 the people of the town ? They could only be of interest to artists who 
 came later on to work in the same edifice and who were familiar with 
 the traditions of the schools. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS spj 
 
 ta^y- , In default of paradise, there is glory, which is itself 
 a kind of immortality." i 
 
 Economic progress goes far beyond the individual life, 
 and profits future generations more than those who create 
 it ; hut does it give glory ? Is there an economic epic 
 capable of stimulating the enthusiasm of the workers. 
 The inspiration of immortality which Renan considered so 
 powerful is obviously without efficacy here, because artists 
 have never produced masterpieces under the influence of 
 the idea that their work would procure them a place in 
 paradise (as Turks seek death that they may enjoy the 
 happiness promised by Mahomet). The workmen are not 
 entirely wrong when they look on religion as a middle- 
 class luxury, since, as a matter of fact, the emotions it 
 calls up are not those which inspire workmen with the 
 desire to perfect machinery, or which create methods of 
 accelerating labour. 
 
 The question must be stated otherwise than Renan 
 put it ; do there exist among the workmen forces capable 
 of producing enthusiasm equivalent to those of which 
 Renan speaks, forces which could combine with the ethics 
 Qf good work, so that in our days, which seem to many 
 people to presage the darkest future, this ethic may acquire 
 all the authority necessary to lead society along the path 
 of economic progress. 
 
 We must be careful that the keen sentiment which we 
 have of the necessity of such a morahty, and our ardent 
 desire to see it realised does not induce us to mistake 
 phantoms for forces capable of moving the world. The 
 abundant " idyUic " literature of the professors of rhetoric 
 is evidently mere chatter. Equally vain are the attempts 
 made by so many scholars to find institutions in the 
 past, an imitation of which might serve as a means of 
 
 1 Renan, Histoire du peuple d' Israel, vol. iv. p. 191 • Renan seems 
 to me to have identified too readily glory and immortality : he has 
 fallen a victim to a figure of speech. 
 
294 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 disciplining their contemporaries ; imitation has never 
 produced much good and often bred much sorrow ; how 
 absurd the idea is then of borrowing from some dead 
 and gone social structure, a suitable means of controlling 
 a system of production, whose principal characteristic is 
 that every day it must become more and more opposed 
 to all preceding economic systems. Is there then nothing 
 to hope for ? 
 
 Morality is not doomed to perish because the motive 
 forces behind it will change ; it is not destined to become 
 a mere collection of precepts as long as it can still vivify 
 itself by an alliance with an enthusiasm capable of conquer- 
 ing all the obstacles, prejudices, and the need of immediate 
 enjoyment, which oppose its progress. But it is certain 
 that this sovereign force will not be found along the p,aths 
 which contemporary philosophers, the experts of social 
 science, and the inventors of far-reaching reforms would 
 make us go. There is only one force which can produce 
 to-day that enthusiasm without whose co-operation no 
 morality is possible, and that is the force resulting from 
 the propaganda in favour of a general .strike. The pre- 
 ceding explanations have shown that the idea of the 
 (general strike (constantly rejuvenated B^TKe"'f^lings 
 rOTised by proletarmn_J2olenceJi^pr^ducga.,,arLe^^ ' 
 
 state of mind, and at the same time bends all the energies 
 ofjthe mindjojhat condition necessary to the r ealisatio n 
 of a workshop earned on~by~iree men, eagerly seeking \ 
 t|ie betterment of the industryT''we"Eave""tiGus~recog- 
 niled that T5ere"arF~great" resemblances between the 
 / sentiments aroused by the idea of the general strike ^d 
 '■ those which are necessary to bring about a continued 
 progress in methods of production. We have then the 
 right to maintain that the modern world possesses that 
 prime mover which is necessary to the creation of the 
 ethics of the producers. 
 
 I stop here, because it seems to me that I have accom- 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE PRODUCERS 295 ] 
 
 plished the task which I imposed upon myself ; I have, 
 in fact, estabhshed that proletarian violence has an en- 
 tirely different significance from that attributed to it by 
 superficial scholars and by pohticians. In the total ruin 
 of institutions and of morals there remains something ■ 
 
 which is powerful, new, and intact, and it is that which 
 constitutes, properly speaking, the soul of the revolutionary 
 proletariat. Nor will this be swept away in the general ! 
 decadence of moral values, if the workers have enough 
 energy to bar the road to the middle-class corrupters, 
 answering their advances with the plainest brutality. 
 
 I believe that I have brought an important contribu- 
 tion to discussions on Socialism ; these discussions must 
 henceforth deal exclusively with the conditions which 
 allow the development of specifically proletarian forces, 
 that is to say, with violence enli ghtened by the idea oljhe^ 
 general strike. All the old abstract dissertations on the 
 Socialist regime of the future become useless ; we pass to 
 the domain of real history, to the interpretation of facts — 
 to the ethical evaluations of the revolutionary movement. 
 
 The bond which I pointed out in the beginning of 
 this inquiry between Socialism and proletarian violence 
 appears to us now in all its strength. It is to vi olence ^^ 
 that Socialism owes_those high ethical values by nieans^ ..^ 
 of which it brings salvation to t^^modenTworld^ ^/ 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 APOLOGY FOR VIOLENCE 
 
 Men who make revolutionary speeches to the people are 
 bound to set before themselves a high standard of sincerity, 
 because the workers understand their words in their exact \ 
 and Uteral sense, and never indulge in any symbohc inter- 
 pretation. When in 1905 I ventured to write in some detail 
 on proletarian violence I understood perfectly the grave 
 responsibility I assumed in trying to show the historic bearing 
 of actions which our ParUamentary Sociahsts try to dis- 
 simulate, with so much skiU. To-day I do not hesitate to 
 assert that SociaUsm could not continue to exist without an 
 apology for violence. 
 
 Ii_is_irL-strikes_ that the proletariat asserts its existence. -5k 
 I cannot agree with the view which sees in strikes merely 
 something analogous to the temporary rupture of commercial 
 relations which is brought about when a grocer and the whole- 
 sale dealer from whom he buys his dried plums cannot agree 
 about the price. The strike is a phenomenon of war. It is 4\ 
 thus a serious misrepresentation to say that violence is an 
 accident doomed to disappear from the strikes of the future. 
 
 The social revolution is an extension of that war in which 
 each great strike is an episode ; this is the reason why Syndi- ;j< 
 caUsts speak of that revolution in the language of strikes ; 
 for them Sociahsm is reduced to the conception, the expecta- 
 tion of, and the preparation for the general strike, which, like 
 the Napoleonic battle, is to completely annihilate a con- 
 demned regime. 
 
 Such a conception allows none of those subtle exegeses 
 in which Jaures excels. It is a question here of an over- 
 throw in the course of which both employers and the State 
 would be set aside by the organised producers. Our 
 
 297 
 
2g8 REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE 
 
 Intellectuals, who hope to obtain the highest places frorti 
 democracy, would be sent back to their literature ; the 
 Parhamentary Socialists, who find in the organisations createfd 
 by the middle classes means of exercising a certain amount of 
 power, would become useless. l 
 
 The analogy which exists between strikes accompanied l^ry 
 violence and war is prohfic of consequences. No one doubts 
 (except d'Estournelles de Constant) that it was war that 
 provided the repubKcs of antiquity with the ideas which form 
 the ornament of our modern culture. The social war, for 
 which the proletariat ceaselessly prepares itself in the syndi- 
 cates, may engender the elements of a new civilisation suited 
 to a people of producers. I continually call the attention of 
 my young friends to the problems presented by Socialism 
 considered from the point of view of a civiUsation of pro- 
 ducers ; I assert that to-day a philosophy is being elaborated 
 according to this plan, whose possibihty even was hardly 
 suspected a few years ago ; this philosophy is closely bound 
 up with the apology for \aolence. 
 
 I have never had that admiration for creative haired, which 
 Jaures has devoted to it ; I do not feel the same indulgence 
 towards the guillotiners as he does ; I have a horror of any 
 measure which strikes the vanquished under a judicial disguise. 
 (War, carried on in broad daylight, without hypocritical 
 yjattenuation, for the purpose of ruining an irreconcilable 
 ''Enemy, excludes all the abominations which dishonoured 
 the middle-class revolution of the eighteenth century. The 
 tpology for violence in this case is particularly easy. 
 
 It would serve no purpose to explain to the poor that they 
 ought not to feel sentiments of jealousy and vengeance against 
 their masters ; these feelings are too powerful to be suppressed 
 by exhortations ; it is on the widespread prevalence of these 
 feelings that democracy chiefly founds its strength, Social 
 / war, by maldng an appeal to the honour which develops so 
 naturally in all organised armies, can eliminate those evil 
 feelings against which morality would remain powerless. If 
 this were the only reason we had for attributing a high civihs- 
 ing value to revolutionary SyndicaUsm, this reason alone 
 would, it seems to me, be decisive in favour of the apologists 
 for violence. 
 
 The conception of the general strike, engendered by the 
 practice of violent strikes, admits the conception of an irre- 
 vocable overthrow. There is something terrifying in this 
 
APPENDIX 299 
 
 which will appear more and more terrifying as violence takes 
 a greater place in the mind of the proletariat. But, in under- 
 taking a serious, formidable, and sublime work, Socialists 
 raise themselves above our frivolous society and make them- 
 selves worthy oi pointing out new roads to the world. 
 
 ParUamentary SociaUsts may be compared to the officials 
 whom Napoleon made into a nobihty and who laboured to 
 strengthen the State bequeathed by the Ancien Regime. 
 Revolutionary Syndicahsm corresponds well enough to the 
 Napoleonic armies whose soldiers accomphshed such heroic 
 acts, knowing all the time that they would remain poor. 
 What remains of the Empire ? Nothing but the epic of the / 
 Grande Armee. What will remain of the present Socialist ( 
 movement will be the epic of the strikes. 
 
 Matin, May i8, 1908. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed iy R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh