University of Virginia Library

3. PART THREE
THE EXERCISE OF POWER AND ITS
PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTION UPON
THE LEADERS

1. CHAPTER I
PSYCHOLOGICAL METAMORPHOSIS OF THE LEADERS

THE apathy of the masses and their need for guidance has as its counterpart in the leaders a natural greed for power. Thus the development of the democratic oligarchy is accelerated by the general characteristics of human nature. What was initiated by the need for organization, administration, and strategy is completed by psychological determinism.

The average leader of the working-class parties is morally not lower, but on the whole higher, in quality than the average leaders of the other parties. This has sometimes been unreservedly admitted by the declared adversaries of socialism. Yet it cannot be denied that the permanent exercise of leader-ship exerts upon the moral character of the leaders an influence which is essentially pernicious. Yet this also, from a certain point of view, is perhaps good. The bitter words which Labruyère applied to the great men of the court of Louis XIV, that the imitative mania and veneration exhibited towards them by the masses would have grown into an absolute idolatry, if it had occurred to any of them to be simply good men as well as great ones—these words, mutatis mutandis, could be applied with equal truth to the leaders of the vast democratic movements of our own days. [146]

In the majority of instances, and above all at the opening of his career, the leader is sincerely convinced of the excellence of the principles he advocates. Le Bon writes with good reason: “Le memeur a d'abord été le plus souvent un mené. Il a lui-même été hypnotisé par l'idée dont il est ensuite devenu l'apôtre.” [147] In many cases the leader, at first no more than a single molecule of the mass, has become detached from this involuntarily, without asking whither his instinctive action was leading him, without any personal motive whatever. He has been pushed forward by a clearer vision, by a profounder sentiment, and by a more ardent desire for the general good; he has been inspired by the elasticity and seriousness of his character and by his warm sympathy for his fellows. It is obvious that this will be true above all where the leader does not find already established a solid organization capable of offering remunerative employment, but where his first step must be to found his own party. But this must not be taken to mean that wherever a well-organized party already exists the leader seeks at the outset to gratify his personal interests.

It is by no means always by deliberate desire that people become officers of the masses. Using familiar French terms we may express this more clearly by saying that not every arrivé was at first an arriviste. But he who has once attained to power will not readily be induced to return to the comparatively obscure position which he formerly occupied. The abandonment of a public position obtained at the cost of great efforts and after many years of struggle is a luxury which only a “grand seigneur” or a man exceptionally endowed with the spirit of self-sacrifice can afford. Such self-denial is too hard for the average man.

The consciousness of power always produces vanity, an undue belief in personal greatness. The desire to dominate, for good or for evil, is universal. [148] These are elementary psychological facts. In the leader, the consciousness of his personal worth, and of the need which the mass feels for guidance, combine to induce in his mind, a recognition of his own superiority (real or supposed), and awake, in addition, that spirit of command which exists in the germ in every man born of woman. We see from this that every human power seeks to enlarge its prerogatives. He who has acquired power will almost always endeavour to consolidate it and to extend it, to multiply the ramparts which defend his position, and to withdraw himself from the control of the masses. Bakunin, the founder of anarchizing socialism, contended that the possession of power transformed into a tyrant even the most devoted friend of liberty. [149] It is certain that the exercise of power produces a profound and ineffaceable change in the character. This is admirably described by Alphonse Daudet when he writes: “Bien vite, s'il s'agit de l'affreuse politique, nos qualités tournent au pire: l'enthousiasme devient hypocrisie; l'éloquence, faconde et boniment; le scepticisme léger, escroquerie; l'amour de ce qui brille, fureur du lucre et du luxe à tout prix; la sociabilité, le besoin de plaire, se font lâcheté, faiblesse, et palinodie.” [150] To retain their influence over the masses the leaders study men, note their weaknesses and their passions, and endeavour to turn these to their own advantage.

When the leaders are not persons of means and when they have no other source of income, they hold firmly to their positions for economic reasons, coming to regard the functions they exercise as theirs by inalienable right. Especially is this true of manual workers who, since becoming leaders, have lost their aptitude for their former occupation. For them, the loss of their positions would be a financial disaster, and in most cases it would be altogether impossible for them to return to their old way of life. They have been spoiled for any other work than that of propaganda. Their hands have lost the callosities of the manual toiler, and are likely to suffer only from writer's cramp.

Those leaders, again, who are refugees from the bourgeoisie are used up after having devoted a few years to the service of the Socialist Party. It was as youthful enthusiasts that they joined the organized workers and soon attained to dominant positions. The life they then had to lead, however great may have been its advantages in certain respects, was one full of fatigue and hardship, and, like all careers in which fame can be acquired, was extremely exhausting to the nervous system. Such men grow old before their time. What are they to do? They have become estranged from their original profession, which is altogether out of relation with their chosen vocation of professional politician. A barrister, indeed, can continue to practice his profession, and may even devote almost all his time to it, without being forced to abandon the party. The political struggle and the life of the lawyer have more than one point of contact, for is not the political struggle a continuous act of advocacy? The barrister who plays a leading part in public life will find many opportunities for the gratification of his love of oratory and argument, and will have no lack of chances for the display of the power of his lungs and the expressiveness of his gestures. It is very different with men of science. These, if they plan an active part in the life of the party, be it as journalists, as propagandists, or as parliamentary deputies, find that their scientific faculties undergo a slow but progressive atrophy. Having become absorbed in the daily political round, they are dead for their discipline, for they no longer have time for the serious study of scientific problems and for the continuous development of their intellectual faculties.

There are, however, additional reasons for the mental transformation which the leaders undergo as the years pass.

As far as concerns the leaders of bourgeois origin in the working-class parties, it may be said that they have adhered to the cause of the proletariat either on moral grounds, or from enthusiasm, or from scientific conviction. They crossed the Rubicon when they were still young students, still full of optimism and juvenile ardor. Having gone over to the other side of the barricade to lead the enemies of the class from which they sprang, they have fought and worked, now suffering defeats and now gaining victories. Youth has fled; their best years have been passed in the service of the party or of the ideal. They are ageing, and with the passing of youth, their ideals have also passed, dispersed by the contrarieties of daily struggles, often, too, expelled by newly acquired experiences which conflict with the old beliefs. Thus it has come to pass that many of the leaders are inwardly estranged from the essential content of socialism. Some of them carry on a difficult internal struggle against their own scepticism; others have returned, consciously or unconsciously, to the ideals of their presocialist youth.

Yet for those who have been thus disillusioned, no backward path is open. They are enchained by their own past. They have a family, and this family must be fed. Moreover, regard for their political good name makes them feel it essential to persevere in the old round. They thus remain outwardly faithful to the cause to which they have sacrificed the best years of their life. But, renouncing idealism, they have become opportunists. These former believers, these sometime altruists, whose fervent hearts aspired only to give themselves freely, have been transformed into sceptics and egoists whose actions are guided solely by cold calculation.

As we have previously seen, these new elements do not join the party with the declared or even the subconscious aim of attaining one day to leadership; their only motives have been the spirit of sacrifice and the love of battle. Visionaries, they see a brother in every comrade and a step towards the ideal in every party meeting. Since, however, in virtue of their superiority (in part congenital and in part acquired), they have become leaders, they are in the course of years enslaved by all the appetites which arise from the possession of power, and in the end are not to be distinguished from those among their colleagues who became socialists from ambition, from those who have from the first deliberately regarded the masses as no more than an instrument which they might utilize towards the attainment of their own personal ambitions.

It cannot be denied that the factor of individuality plays its part in all this, for different individualities react differently to the same environment. Just as women and girls in similar erotic situations act differently in accordance with their varying degrees of congenital sexual irritability and with the differences that have been induced in them by moral education, remaining immaculate, becoming demi-vierges, or yielding to advances, so also the specific qualities of the leaders, in so far as these are acquired and not immanent, manifest themselves differently in different individuals in face of the numerous temptations to which they are exposed in party life. The sense of satiety which arises in those who have attained their end varies greatly in intensity from person, to person. There are similar variations in adaptability to a new and anti-democratic environment, or to an environment hostile to the ideas which the individual has at heart. Some socialists, for instance, are so greatly intimidated by the parliamentary milieu that they are ashamed in that milieu to make use of the expressions “class struggle” and “collectivism,” although it is to the unwearying insistence upon these ideas that they owe their present position. Others among their comrades find amid all the circumstances of their new life that right feeling and that old courage of conviction which cannot be prescribed by any formal rules. It is absurd to maintain, as does Giuseppe Prezzolini, that in the parliamentary atmosphere it is as impossible for a deputy to preserve his socialist purity as it would be for a Joseph to remain chaste while frequently visiting brothels. [151] Such a view is false, if only for the reason that here, as in all social phenomena, we have to consider the personal as well as the environmental factor. It is nevertheless true that in the course of party evolution, as the led becomes a subordinate leader, and from that a leader of the first rank, he himself undergoes a mental evolution, which often effects a complete transformation in his personality. When this happens, the leader often sees in his own transformation nothing more than a reflex of a transformation in the surrounding world. The times have changed, he tells us, and consequently a new tactic and a new theory are necessary. A greater maturity of judgment corresponds to the greater maturity of the: new age. The reformist and revisionist theory in the International Socialist Party is largely the outcome of the psychological need to furnish an explanation and an excuse for the metamorphosis which has taken place in the leaders. A few years ago, one of the leaders of the Italian clericals, after declaring that triumphant reformism, having an evolutionary and legalist character, was in these respects preferable to strict syndicalism, went on to say that in his view the basis of reformist socialism was still the materialist conception of man, of life, and of history, but further corrupted by contact with the utilitarian and Epicurean spirit of the free-thinking bourgeoisie, and that it was consequently even more profoundly anti-Christian than the ideas of the ultra-revolutionists. [152] There is a kernel of truth in this idea. However much we are forced to recognize that reformism sometimes manifests itself as a sane rebellion against the apriorism of orthodox Marxist dogma, and as a scientific reaction against the phraseology of pseudorevolutionary stump-orators, it is nevertheless incontestable that reformism has a logical and causal connection with the insipid and blasé sociolism and with the decadent tendencies which are so plainly manifest in a large section of the modern bourgeois literary world. In many instances, in fact, reformism is no more than the theoretical expression, of the scepticism of the disillusioned, of the outwearied, of those who have lost their faith; it is the socialism of nonsocialists with a socialist past.

It is above all the sudden passage from opposition to participation in power which exercises a powerful influence on the mentality of the leaders. It is evident that in a period of proscriptions and persecutions of the new doctrine and its advocates on the part of society and of the state, the morality of the party leaders will maintain itself at a much higher level than in a period of triumph and of peace, if only for the reason that in the former conditions those of egoistic temperament and those inspired by narrow personal ambition will hold aloof from the party since they have no desire for the martyr's crown. These considerations apply, not merely to the old leaders who have been members of the party during its days of tribulation, and whose qualities, if not completely corrupted by the sun of governmental favor (so as to lead them to abandon the cause of the proletariat), are yet so greatly changed as to render them almost unrecognizable by the masses; but it is equally true of the new leaders who do not put in an appearance until the sun has begun to shine upon the party. As long as the struggle on behalf of the oppressed brings to those engaged in it nothing more than a crown of thorns, those members of the bourgeoisie who adhere to socialism must fulfil functions in the party exacting great personal disinterestedness. Bourgeois adherents do not become a danger to socialism until the labour movement, abandoning its principles, enters the slippery paths of a policy of compromise. At the international congress of Amsterdam, Bebel exclaimed with perfect truth, in answer to Jaures: “When a socialist party forms an alliance with a section of the bourgeoisie, and institutes a policy of cooperation with the government, not only does it repel its own best militants, driving them into the ranks of the anarchists, or into isolated action, but it also attracts to itself a swarm of bourgeois of very dubious value.” [153] In Italy, during the period of persecutions, all scientific investigators bore striking witness to the high moral qualities of the socialist leaders. No sooner, however, had the Socialist Party (towards 1900) begun to display friendship for the government than voices were heard on all hands deploring a deterioration in the composition of the party, and denouncing the numerous elements entering the party simply because they regarded it as the best means by which they could secure a share in the loaves and fishes of public administration. [154] Wherever the socialists have gained control of the municipalities, wherever they run peoples' banks and distributive cooperative societies, wherever they have remunerative posts at their disposal, we cannot fail to observe a notable decline in their moral level, and to see that the ignorant and the self-seeking now constitute the majority among them.

2. CHAPTER II
BONAPARTIST IDEOLOGY

NAPOLEON I, as head of the state, desired to be regarded as the chosen of the people. In his public activities, the emperor boasted that he owed his power to the French people alone. After the battle of the Pyramids, when his glory began to attain its acme, the general imperiously demanded that there should be conferred on him the title of premier représentant du peuple, although hitherto the style of “popular representative” had been exclusively reserved for members of the legislative bodies. [155] Later, when by a plebiscite he had been raised to the throne of France, he declared that he considered his power to repose exclusively upon the masses. [156] The Bonapartist interpretation of popular sovereignty was a personal dictatorship conferred by the people in accordance with constitutional rules.

The Cæsarism of Napoleon III was founded in still greater measure upon the principle of popular sovereignty. In his letter to the National Assembly written from London on May 24, 1848, the pretender to the crown recognized the French Republic which was the issue of the February revolution and was founded upon universal suffrage. At the same time he claimed for himself, and at the expense of the exiled king Louis Philippe, a hereditary right to insurrection and to the throne. This recognition and this claim were derived by him from the same principle. With simultaneous pride and humility he wrote: “En présence d'un roi élu par deux cent députés, je pouvais me rappeler être l'héritier d'un empire fondé sur l'assentiment de quatre millions de français; en présemce de la souveraineté nationale (résultante du suffrage universel), je ne peux et ne veux revendiquer que mes droits de citoyen français.” [157] But Napolean III did not merely recognize in popular sovereignty the source of his power, he further made that sovereignty the theoretical basis of all his practical activities. He made himself popular in France by declaring that he regarded himself as merely the executive organ of the collective will manifested in the elections, and that he was entirely at the disposition of that will, prepared in all things to accept its decisions. With great shrewdness, he continually repeated that he was no more than an instrument, a creature of the masses. While still president he declared in a speech that he was prepared as circumstances might dictate either for abnégation or for persévérance, or, in other words, that he was as ready to go or to remain. It was the pure Bonapartist spirit which was expressed by Ollivier, the keeper of the seals, when in the Chamber, in one of the stormy sittings of the summer of 1870, he declared: “Nous vous appartenons; vous nous reprendrez quand vous voudrez nous serons toujours là pour subir vos reproches et vos anathèmes.” [158]

Bonapartism recognized the validity of the popular will to such an extreme degree as to concede to that will the right of self-destruction: popular sovereignty could suppress itself. Yet if we look at the matter from a purely human point of view, popular sovereignty is inalienable. Moreover, if we think of succeeding generations, it seems illogical and unjust that those of this generation should claim the moral right of renouncing on behalf of their descendants. Consequently the democrats of the Napoleonic epoch insisted most energetically that the power of popular sovereignty was limited to this extent, that it did not carry with it any right of abdication. Bonapartism is the theory of individual dominion originating in the collective will, but tending to emancipate itself of that will and to become sovereign in its turn. In its democratic past it finds a shield against the dangers which may threaten its antidemocratic present. In Bonapartism, the rule of Caesar (as was said by a wit of the last years of the second empire) becomes a regular organ of the popular sovereignty. “Il sera la démocratie personnifiée, la nation faite homme.” [159] It is the synthesis of two antagonistic concepts, democracy and autocracy.

Once elected, the chosen of the people can no longer be opposed in any way. He personifies the majority, and all resistance to his will is antidemocratic. The leader of such a democracy is irremovable, for the nation, having once spoken, cannot contradict itself. He is, moreover, infallible, for “l'Elu de six millions de suffrages exécute les volontés du peuple, il ne les trahi pas.” [160] It is the electors themselves, we are assured, who demand from the chosen of the people that he should use severe repressive measures, should employ force, should concentrate all authority in his own hands. [161] One of the consequences of the theory of the popular will being subsumed in the supreme executive is that the elements which intervene between the latter and the former, the public officials, that is to say, must be kept in a state of the strictest possible dependence upon the central authority, which, in its turn, depends upon the people. [162] The least manifestation of liberty on the part of the bureaucracy would be tantamount to a rebellion against the sovereignty of the citizens. The most characteristic feature of this view is the idea that the power of the chief of the state rests exclusively upon the direct will of the nation. Bonapartism does not recognize any intermediate links. The coup d'état of December 2, 1851, was represented as an emancipation of the people from the yoke of parliament, and as having for its necessary corollary a plebiscite. Victor Hugo compared the relationship between the parliament and the ministry under Napoleon III to the relationship between master and servants, the master (the ministry) being appointed by the emperor, and the servants (the parliament) being elected by the people. [163] This affirmation, though incontestable in fact, is theoretically inexact. In theory, every act of Bonapartism was perfectly legitimate, even if it led to the shedding of the blood of the citizens. The plebiscite was a purifying bath which gave legitimate sanction to every illegality. Napoleon III, when he received the formal announcement of his triumph in the plebiscite, declared that if in the coup d'état he had infringed the laws it was only in order to reenter the paths of legality: “Je ne suis sorti de la legalité que pour rentrer dans le droit.” He was granted absolution by seven million votes. [164] This sanction by plebiscite, three times repeated by the French people, and given to the illegal government of the third Napoleon—confirmed as it was by innumerable and noisy demonstrations of popular sympathy—gave to accommodating republicans a ready pretext for passing from the side of the opposition to that of the monarchy. Was not this plebiscitary Caesarism established upon the same foundation as the republic of their dreams? Emilie Ollivier divided the forms of government into the two great categories of personal and national government. The ruler in the case of a national government is no more than “un délégué de la nation pour l'exercice des droits sociaux.” [165] In this manner his republican conscience was tranquilized and his conversion to Bonapartism could present itself as logical and in conformity with his principles.

The history of modern democratic and revolutionary parties and trade unions exhibits phenomena similar to those we have been analyzing. The reasons are not far to seek. In democratic crowds, Bonapartism finds an eminently favorable soil, for it gives the masses the illusion of being masters of their masters; moreover, by introducing the practice of delegation it gives this illusion a legal color which is pleasing to those who are struggling for their “rights.” Delegation and the abdication by the people of the direct exercise of power, are accomplished in strict accordance with all the rules by a deliberate act of the popular will and without that metaphysical divine intervention vaunted on its own behalf by the detested hereditary and legitimate monarchy. The chosen of the people thus seems to be invested in his functions by a spontaneous act of the popular will; he appears to be the creature of the people. This way of looking at the relations between the masses and the leaders is agreeable to the amour propre of every citizen, who says to himself: “Without me he would not be what he is; I have elected him; he belongs to me.”

There is another reason, at once psychological and historical, why the masses accept without protest a certain degree of tyranny on the part of their elected leaders: it is because the crowd submits to domination more readily when each one of its units shares the possibility of approximating to power, and even of acquiring some power for himself. The bourgeois and the French peasants in the middle of the nineteenth century, imbued with democratic ideas, detested legitimate monarchy, but they gladly gave their votes to the third Napoleon, remembering how readily many of their fathers had become great dignitaries under his glorious uncle. [166]

Similarly in the case of political parties, the weight of an oligarchy is rarely felt when the rights of the masses are codified, and when each member may in the abstract participate in power.

In virtue of the democratic nature of his election, the leader of a democratic organization has more right than the born leader of the aristocracy to regard himself as the emanation of the collective will, and therefore to demand obedience and submission to his personal will. As a socialist newspaper puts it: “The party executive is the authority imposed by the party as a whole and thus incorporating the party authority. The first demand of democratic discipline is respect for the executive.” [167] The absolute obedience which the organized mass owes to its leaders is the outcome of the democratic relationships existing between the leaders and the mass, and is merely the collective submission to the collective will.

The leaders themselves, whenever they are reproached for an anti-democratic attitude, appeal to the mass will from which their power is derived by election, saying: “Since the masses have elected us and re-elected us as leaders, we are the legitimate expression of their will and act only as their representatives.” [168] It was a tenet of the old aristocracy that to disobey the orders of the monarch was to sin against God. In modern democracy it is held that no one may disobey the orders of the oligarchs, for in so doing the people sin against themselves, defying their own will spontaneously transferred by them to their representatives, and thus infringing democratic principle. In democracies, the leaders base their right to command upon the democratic omnipotence of the masses. Every employee of the party owes his post to his comrades, and is entirely dependent upon their good will. We may thus say that in a democracy each individual himself issues, though indirectly, the orders which come to him from above. [169] Thus the reasoning by which the leaders' claim to obedience is defended and explained is, in theory, clear and unanswerable. In practice, however, the election of the leaders, and above all their re-election, is effected by such methods and under the influence of suggestions and other methods of coercion so powerful that the freedom of choice of the masses is considerably impaired. In the history of party life it is undeniable that the democratic system is reduced, in ultimate analysis, to the right of the masses, at stated intervals, to choose masters to whom in the interim they owe unconditional obedience.

Under these conditions, there develops everywhere in the leaders, alike in the democratic political parties and in the trade unions, the same habit of thought. They demand that the masses should not merely render obedience, but that they should blindly and without murmuring carry out the orders which they, the leaders, issue deliberately and with full understanding of the circumstances. To the leaders it is altogether inconceivable that the actions of the supreme authority can be subjected to criticism, for they are intimately convinced that they stand above criticism, that is to say above the party. Engels, who was endowed with an extremely keen sense of the essence of democracy, regarded it as deplorable that the leaders of the German Socialist Party could not accustom themselves to the idea that the mere fact of being installed in office did not give them the right to be treated with more respect than any other comrade. [170]

It is especially exasperating to the leaders when the comrades are not content with mere criticism, but act in opposition to the leaders' advice. When they speak of their differences with those whom they regard as inferiors in education and intelligence, they are unable to restrain their moral indignation at such a profound lack of discipline. When the masses “kick against the advice of the leaders they have themselves chosen,” they are accused of a great lack of tact and of intelligence. In the conference of trade union executives held from February 19 to 23, 1906—a conference which marks an important stage in the history of the German labour movement—Paul Müller, employee of a trade union, complained bitterly that his revolutionary comrades of the Socialist Party were endeavouring “to estrange the members of the unions from the leaders they had chosen for themselves. They have been directly incited to rebellion against their leaders. They have been openly urged to breaches of discipline. What other expressions can be used when in meetings we are told that the members ought to fight against their leaders?” [171]

Whenever a new current of opposition manifests itself within the party, the leaders immediately endeavour to discredit it with the charge of demagogy. If those of the comrades who are discontented with the leaders make a direct appeal to the masses, this appeal—however lofty may be its motives, however sincere the convictions of those who make it, however much they may be justified by a reference to fundamental democratic rights—is repudiated as inexpedient, and is even censured as a wicked attempt to break up the party, and as the work of vulgar intriguers. We have to remember, in this connection, that the leaders, who hold in their hands all the mechanism of power, have the advantage of being able to assume an aureole of legality, whereas the masses, or the subordinate leaders who are in rebellion, can always be placed in an unfavorable light of illegality. The magic phrase with which the leaders invariably succeed in stifling embarrassing opposition in the germ is “the general interest.” In such circumstances they exhibit a notable fondness for arguments drawn from the military sphere. They maintain, for instance, that, if only for tactical reasons, and in order to maintain a necessary cohesion in face of the enemy, the members of the party must never refuse to repose perfect confidence in the leaders they have freely chosen for themselves. It is in Germany, above all, that in the trade union organizations the authoritarian spirit is developed with especial force, and that the leaders are prone to attribute to their adversaries the “criminal intention” of attempting “to dissolve trade union discipline.” Even the socialist leaders make similar charges against their opponents. If we translate such an accusation from the language of the trade union leaders into that of government officials, the charge becomes one of “inciting to revolt against constituted authority.” If the critics are not officials of the party, if they are mere sympathizers or friends, they are then in the eyes of the attacked leaders intrusive and incompetent persons, without any right whatever to form an opinion on the matter. “On no account must the faith of the people be disturbed! Such is the principle in accordance with which all lively criticism of the objective errors of the movement are stigmatized as an attack on the movement itself, whilst the elements of opposition within the party are habitually execrated as enemies who wish to destroy the party.” [172]

The general conduct of the leaders of democratic parties and the phraseology typically employed by them (of which our examples might be multiplied a hundredfold) suffice to illustrate how fatal is the transition from an authority derived from “the favor of the people” to a right based upon “the grace of God”—in a word, to the system which in French history we know by the name of Bonapartism. A right of sovereignty born of the plebiscite soon becomes a permanent and inviolable dominion.

3. CHAPTER III
IDENTIFICATION OF THE PARTY WITH THE LEADER (“LE PARTI C'EST MOI”).

WE have shown that in their struggle against their enemies within the party the leaders of the labour movement pursue a tactic and adopt an attitude differing very little from those of the “bourgeois” government in its struggle with “subversive” elements. The terminology which the powers-that-be employ is, mutatis mutandis, identical in the two cases. The same accusations are launched against the rebels, and the same arguments are utilized in defense of the established order: in one case an appeal is made for the preservation of the state; in the other, for that of the party. In both cases, also, there is the same confusion of ideas when the attempt is made to define the relationships between thing and person, individual and collectivity. The authoritarian spirit of the official representatives of the German Socialist Party (a spirit which necessarily characterizes every strong organization) exhibits several striking analogies with the authoritarian spirit of the official representatives of the German empire. On the one side we have William II, who advises the “malcontents,” that is to say those of his subjects who do not consider that all is for the best in the best of all possible empires, to shake the dust off their feet and go elsewhere. On the other side we have Bebel, exclaiming that it is time to have done once for all with the eternal discontents and sowings of discord within the party, and expressing the opinion that the opposition, if it is unable to express itself as satisfied with the conduct of affairs by the executive, had better “clear out.” [173] Between these two attitudes, can we find any difference other than that which separates a voluntary organization (the party), to which one is free to adhere or not as one pleases, from a coercive organization (the state), to which all must belong by the fact of birth?174

It may perhaps be said that there is not a single party leader who fails to think and to act, and who, if he has a lively temperament and a frank character, fails to speak, after the example of Le Roi Soleil, and to say Le Parti c'est moi.

The bureaucrat identifies himself completely with the organization, confounding his own interests with its interests. All objective criticism of the party is taken by him as a personal affront. This is the cause of the obvious incapacity of all party leaders to take a serene and just view of hostile criticism. The leader declares himself personally offended, doing this partly in good faith, but in part deliberately, in order to shift the bat-tleground, so that he can present himself as the harmless object of an unwarrantable attack, and arouse in the minds of the masses towards his opponents in matters of theory that antipathy which is always felt for those whose actions are dictated by personal rancor. If, on the other hand, the leader is attacked personally, his first care is to make it appear that the attack is directed against the party as a whole. He does this not only on diplomatic grounds, in order to secure for himself the support of the party and to overwhelm the aggressor with the weight of numbers, but also because he quite ingenuously takes the part for the whole. This is frequently the outcome, not merely of a blind fanaticism, but of firm conviction. According to Netchajeff, the revolutionary has the right of exploiting, deceiving, robbing, and in case of need utterly ruining, all those who do not agree unconditionally with his methods and his aims, for he need consider them as nothing more than chair à conspiration. His sole objective must be to ensure the triumph of his essentially individual ideas, without any respect for persons—La Révolution c'est moi! Bakunin uttered a sound criticism of this mode of reasoning when he said that its hidden source was to be found in Netchajeff's unconscious but detestable ambition.

The despotism of the leaders does not arise solely from a vulgar lust of power or from uncontrolled egoism, but is often the outcome of a profound and sincere conviction of theirown value and of the services which they have rendered to the common cause. The bureaucracy which is most faithful and most efficient in the discharge of its duties is also the most dictatorial. To quote Wolfgang Heine: “The objection is invalid that the incorruptibility and efficiency of our party officials, and their love for the great cause, would suffice to raise a barrier against the development of autocracy within the party. The very opposite is true. Officials of high technical efficiency who unselfishly aim at the general good, like those whom we are fortunate enough to possess in the party, are more than all others inclined, being well aware of the importance of their own services, to regard as inalterable laws whatever seems to them right and proper, to suppress conflicting tendencies on the ground of the general interest, and thus to impose restraints upon the healthy progress of the party.” [175] Similarly, where we have to do with excellent and incorruptible state officials like those of the German empire, the megalomaniac substitution of thing for person is partly due to the upright consciences of the officials and to their great devotion to duty. Among the members of such a bureaucracy, there is hardly one who does not feel that a pin-prick directed against his own person is a crime committed against the whole state. It is for the same reason that they all hold together comme les doigts de la main. Each, one of them regards himself as an impersonation of a portion of the whole state, and feels that this portion will suffer if the authority of any other portion is impaired. Further, the bureaucrat is apt to imagine that he knows the needs of the masses better than these do themselves, an opinion which may be sound enough in individual instances, but which for the most part is no more than a form of megalomania. Undoubtedly the party official is less exposed than the state official to the danger of becoming fossilized, for in most cases he has work as a public speaker, and in this way he maintains a certain degree of contact with the masses. On the other hand, the applause which he seeks and receives on these occasions cannot fail to stimulate his personal vanity.

When in any organization the oligarchy has attained an advanced stage of development, the leaders begin to identify with themselves, not merely the party institutions, but even the party property, this phenomenon being common both to the party and to the state. In the conflict between the leaders and the rank and file of the German trade unions regarding the right to strike, the leaders have more than once maintained that the decision in this matter is morally and legally reserved for themselves, because it is they who provide the financial resources which enable the workers to remain on strike. This view is no more than the ultimate consequence of that oligarchical mode of thought which inevitably leads to a complete forgetfulness of true democratic principles. In Genoa, one of the labour leaders, whose influence had increased pari passu with the growing strength of the organized proletariat of the city, and who, enjoying the unrestricted confidence of his comrades, had acquired the most various powers and had filled numerous positions' in the party, regarded himself as justified, when as a representative of the workers he made contracts with capitalists and concluded similar affairs, in feathering his own nest in addition to looking after the workers' interests. [176]