Chapter Eight

CHAPTER VIII

Plato Looks at Communism

WAS Plato a Communist? No question is more often or more unprofitably discussed by political philosophers and by students of Plato. On the one hand it is argued that his ruling élite, forbidden to enjoy the pleasures of wealth and marriage, was the first example of a Communist society; on the other hand, that since Plato permitted the vast majority of the population to have property, wife, and children, he can be exonerated from the charge of being the father of Communist theory. Both contentions are equally futile. Plato was a Greek, not a modern European: a citizen of a city-, not a nation-state. The social and economic problems which confronted him were those of a mercantile civilization based on small-scale industries and craft skills, utterly different from the gigantic factories and machine techniques of modern capitalism: and lastly, he was brought up to assume slave labour as an integral part of the economic order.

These three differences make it utterly impossible for Plato to have elaborated a Communist philosophy. Communism, the product of an era of international trade which seemed to link the world into a single economic system, is a universal doctrine and looks forward to a world-order and to the destruction of national states: the product of an era of expanding productivity and wealth, it aims at procuring for the working classes the full fruits of their labours: the product of the exploitation of free labour, it looks to the control by the people of the economic and political system. In each of these three particulars Plato's philosophy differs profoundly from that of Marx; he looks forward not to a world order but a regenerate city-state: he seeks to redeem the working classes not from economic but from political exploitation and, because he accepted slavery, he could never envisage the control of the political system by all 'the workers'. The place of slavery in Greek civilization has often been over-emphasized and misinterpreted. It is simply untrue to suggest that the city-state was based upon cheap slave labour, or that its citizens were a leisured class living off the labour of serfs. There was a working class in Athens, as there is a working class in America; indeed, the position of the slave in the former case was not unlike that of the negro in the latter: he did not drive the citizen from the labour market, but competed with him, forced down his standard of living, and reduced his wages.

We may press the analogy still further. The Greek slave was not entirely without rights: he could bring an action for outrage against his master in the courts, he received pay for his work, he could purchase his liberty, and even be granted citizenship for public services: the negro in America or South Africa is scarcely in a better position. Like the negro, he was generally a 'barbarian' and employed on unskilled or semi-skilled work in factories, in the mines, and, above all, in domestic service: but if he showed intelligence he could advance to positions of considerable responsibility. Lastly, his social degradation was defended, even by thinkers such as Aristotle, in much the same way as the colour bar is defended today [i.e. 1930s in, for instance, the above-mentioned countries - editor's note.].

The effect of slavery on Greek social development was most profound in mercantile cities such as Corinth or Athens, which depended for their food supplies and raw materials on the export trade. Here, from the beginning of the fifth century, industry and production began to flourish. Factories with twenty or thirty hands were not uncommon, and we hear of a shield factory which employed one hundred and twenty slaves. But the free craftsman, the peasant, and even the free labourer, were at first so little threatened that Athens could welcome new citizens and resident foreigners in large numbers. The reason for this is twofold. In the first place, since there was no industrial machinery, mass-production could only be employed on a limited number of products: in the second, the ownership of slaves was only remunerative where demand was constant - free labour can be set off at slack periods, slaves cannot - and it was only open to the rich with capital to invest. For those who could afford it, it was a profitable investment, calculated to bring a return of over 30 per cent.

But although skilled craftsmen could always hold their own, wage-rates were bound to be forced down, and it became clear that the steady increase of the citizen population must be checked. In 451 Pericles limited Athenian citizenship to those of Athenian birth on both sides, and six years later, when an Egyptian prince presented the city with forty-five thousand bushels of corn, he struck five thousand names from the roll before distributing the bounty to the citizen population. From now onwards democracy meant the rule not of the proletariat, but of the citizen proletariat, and citizenship became not a right but a privilege. This privilege was enhanced by payment to jurors (in 451) and to the civic militia, and the State was forced to repair the ill-effects of cheap slave labour by doles and bounties and political payments to the citizens. In 432, at the beginning of the great war, the population of Attica consisted approximately of 172,000 citizens, 30,000 resident foreigners, and 115,000 slaves, and since women had no active political rights, the franchise was enjoyed by one-eighth of the whole people. By 323 the position was still worse. Out of a total population of 258,000, there were 112,000 citizens, 42,000 resident aliens, and 104,000 slaves.

The effect of slavery was threefold. By flooding the market with cheap labour, it retarded technological advance and the introduction of science into industry. By threatening the wages of the free workers, it forced down the birth-rate in the class of free citizens, and thirdly, it hampered the spread of equalitarian philosophies and the formation of working-class and Socialist movements.

We must bear this in mind when we ask ourselves what Plato would think of modern Communism, and what criticisms he would make of our economic system. For Plato was oblivious to the problem of slavery. In the Laws he accepted it as an awkward but necessary fact; in the Republic he refers to it only when he suggests that Greeks should not enslave Greek prisoners of war. Otherwise he blithely disregarded it and built his society on a basis of free citizen labour, with slaves only for domestic use, thereby implying that the ideal State would not be a mercantile city with a great export trade, but an agricultural community, living on its own resources and exporting only its surplus produce. Thus he refused to face the real problem of Greek civilization, whose highest cultural level was always to be found precisely in those mercantile cities whose slave economy he tacitly rejected; and he limited his criticisms and proposals to the reorganization of a privileged citizen body, disregarding the majority of human beings who fell outside this category.

It is already clear that Plato would not be in sympathy with modern Socialism, which is based on the two demands for economic justice and for workers' control. While admitting the obvious fact of the failure of capitalism to achieve its objective - the maximization of wealth - he would argue that Socialists, by concentrating their attack upon economic injustice, have blinded themselves to the real problem, and by demanding workers' control are heading for catastrophe. Workers' control might possibly be no worse than capitalist control, but on the other hand it is not likely to be much better if the worker's ideal is no different from that of the capitalist whom he is to supplant. What object can there be, he would ask, in undergoing the horrors of revolution in order that a new ruling class may gain power whose only motive is material gains and which demands freedom only to enjoy the pleasures of prosperity? Socialism might succeed in distributing wealth more 'fairly': it might even increase productivity, but it could not eradicate the fundamental evil that power is permitted to rest in the hands of 'civilians' whose only aim is worldly happiness. Socialism is the creed of one side in the class-war and for this reason it cannot overcome it. For the fundamental fault lies not in the capitalist system as such, but in the hearts of the individual men and women of whom that system is made up. If their hearts can be changed and their intelligence properly disciplined, then the system will right itself and become not the master whom the statesman must obey, but the servant of the philosopher-king.

For this reason Plato would feel only disgust for the Communist glorification of material and technological advance. The worship of machine power and of natural science would seem to him merely vulgar, and he would laugh at the self-complacency with which Russia asserts that she is outstripping her capitalist rivals. Plato was not an opponent of applied science: he would have encouraged any research which increased man's control over nature and thus contributed to the happiness and security of the civilian population. Believing that it is the purpose of the State to make men happy, he was bound to welcome scientific advances which really contributed to that end. But for him the chief virtue of science was not its practical application: pure science, the disinterested search for truth, was an end in itself, and the real scientist was the man who pursued truth to the exclusion of all other interests. The philosopher must always be a pure scientist in this sense and prefer knowledge to material happiness, whereas the civilian sees only the material benefits which science can give.

Plato would not therefore object to the Communist's belief in science as such, but to his stress on its utilitarian aspect. He would be pleased to see the possibilities of material happiness steadily increasing under the Five Year Plan, but he would ask why the ruling class seemed as pleased as their subjects with these advances. It is not, he would argue, the function of government to make men rich, but to make them good, and it is therefore no proof of the excellence of Communism that it can outdo capitalism in the production of wealth. Wealth is as great an evil as poverty, and a Government which encourages people to think in terms of wealth is sowing the seeds of a new class-war. Granted that Russia grows really wealthy, how can a people taught to regard material success as the highest end, fail to be divided against itself and to break up into factions each claiming a larger share of the booty? How can it fail to become imperialist and seek to exploit the natural resources of others? And lastly, how can its rulers, who extol material success, avoid the corruption of their own motives and the secret pursuit of personal gain?

We shall return later to this criticism of Communist ideals, but already we can observe that Plato would consider Russian Communism as an attempt to impose the standards of Western civilization on a barbarian country, arguing that, for all their differences of political organization, Russia and America are linked by the tie of a common aim. They are societies dominated by the acquisitive instinct. Their ideals are those of the technicians and craftsmen and bankers, whom he had relegated to his third class; their philosophy of life is materialistic and anti-religious, suppressing the spirit of true philosophy - the search for the eternal principles of human conduct - and enslaving reason to material progress. Giving the highest place to natural science and the conquest of nature, they put power into the hands of men who have not duly considered the ends for which power should be used. Just as Americanism is the philosophy of a privileged nation enjoying all the benefits of the industrial revolution, so Communism is the creed of the outcasts and exploited, who claim their share of the wealth. Both of them are products of the acquisitive instinct.

The difference between Western democracy and the Communist State lies therefore not in their ends, but in their methods, and Plato might well suggest that, whereas the former cannot obtain permanent success, the latter can, since it is the wholehearted and scientific application of reason to the maximization of wealth. Russia and America are both devoted to this end, but Communism, because it has articulated its principles and become fully self-conscious of its nature, will succeed where America will fail. If material progress is accepted as the only end of man - and this is the underlying assumption not only of Marxism but of capitalist democracy - then, in a society based on free labour and not on slavery, the Communist State is the only proper form of political and economic organization. Any other system will lead to slumps and economic disturbances which will hinder the march of material progress. Communism therefore is Liberalism purified of its inconsistencies and sentimentalities - the theology of collective wealth - and as such it is the fiercest enemy of true philosophy.

But in spite of condemning its ideals, Plato would be passionately interested in the Russian experiment, just because it is a self-conscious attempt to plan human society in accordance with a clear philosophy of life. Communist philosophy may be wrong, but it is a philosophy; and the rulers of Russia are indeed philosopher-kings who have organized their State on clear-cut philosophical principles. For this reason Plato would find much to praise in the political and social structure of the USSR [formerly Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - editor's note.].

Above all, he would admire the organization of the Communist Party, an élite trained for public service, subjected to military discipline, and schooled to accept without question the philosophy and the policy of its leaders. The party member is the political soldier of Communism, who sees to it that throughout the length and breadth of the land the plans of the philosopher-kings are carried out by the subject classes. His task demands two qualities, courage and obedience - the willingness to die for beliefs accepted on trust from the few who know. Plato in the Academy had sought to train 'administrators' of this sort, and the programme for their education which he sketched in the Republic [The reference is to Books II-IV. The education of philosophers in Books VI-VII must be sharply distinguished. Here, of course, there is no analogy with Soviet methods.] could be accepted without demur by any Russian educationalist. He, too, had seen that the heroic self-sacrifice and asceticism which such public service demands, can only be found in a select and highly trained élite, inspired by a great idea, for the sake of which they are glad to sacrifice their own lives, as well as the lives of others. In Communist Russia he would have seen the tyranny of just such an idea and it would have confirmed his own belief that real civil courage is only granted to the fanatic who is so convinced of the rightness of his plan that he cares more for the idea of human happiness and justice than for actual happiness and actual justice. For the sake of the Five Year Plan, the Communist is willing to impose hardship and even death upon his fellow-workers. His eyes are fixed on their future happiness, so he can cheerfully neglect their present sufferings.

Here, then, Plato would find a resemblance between his own ideal State and Communist Russia. Both are attempts to make life conform to a strictly rational pattern, which the philosopher believes essential for human happiness; and to impose this pattern of life, government is placed in the hands of an élite trained to obey the philosophers' commands. But the resemblance does not stop there. Plato would have agreed with the Communist that it is quite useless to entrust the lives of men and women to the care of any picked body of rulers, however pure their motives, if you allow any vested interests to flourish unchecked. No combination of citizens intent on their own economic ends must be allowed to threaten or cajole the Government, whether it be a company anxious to increase its profits or a trade union formed to protect the standard of living of the poorer classes. Every vested interest is a danger to good government, and there is no way of preventing them from unduly influencing the Government except to abolish them altogether. Plato and Lenin were both prepared to do this.

There is, indeed, a deep similarity between the temper of the two philosophers. They both held that philosophy and science cannot be permitted to stand aside from life and contemplate the scene. Philosophy must leave the Academy and capture power if human happiness is to be achieved. Plato believed the philosopher must become king: Lenin achieved it. It was the belief in the practicability of philosophy which made both of them so ruthless in the use of force. Those qualities in Communism which shock us most, its suppression of the opposition, its sacrifice of the individual life to the great plan, its hostility to all rival creeds, are the qualities which Plato would have most admired. They are qualities of a philosophy which knows exactly what life should be, and regards as bigoted superstitions all religions and philosophies which differ from it. Neither Plato nor Lenin would have hesitated to order the death penalty for heresy and deviations: and their inhumanity was due to their complete certainty of the righteousness of their cause and the truth of their philosophy. Both claimed that merciless austerity would in the long run prove itself merciful. If surgery is needed, it is not mercy but fear which prompts us to put aside the knife.

Two objections will be raised to this analogy between Plato and Lenin. In the first place, it seems blatantly to contradict an earlier assertion that, on Plato's view, Communism is essentially a materialist and acquisitive philosophy; and in the second place, it is at variance with Lenin's own doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The answers to these objections will perhaps clarify the Platonic attitude to Communism.

Let us begin with the second. The philosophy of Marx and Lenin was based on their observed fact of class-conflict and class-domination, and the theoretical conclusion that the dictatorship of the proletariat will in the end abolish class-conflict. Communism holds that the class-war will develop until either the proletariat seizes power or civilization break down, and it therefore asserts that the dictatorship of the proletariat means not that each proletarian should be his own king and govern himself as he did at Athens, but that the Government should serve the interests of the proletariat and suppress their oppressors. For this to be achieved, government must be in the hands of the 'philosophers' with an administrative staff (the Communist Party) and the proletariat must be subjected to a new dictatorship, or ruling class.

On this point there is no real difference between the views of Plato and Lenin. Plato also believed that the Government should serve the interest of 'the civilians' and be freed from the corrupting influence of 'vested interests'. But he was philosopher enough to avoid so ambiguous a phrase as the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat', and to admit that in a totalitarian State there are no dictators except the few who control the military and administrative machine.

Where Plato and Lenin would part company is in the selection of the ruling class. Lenin made his appeal to the industrial workers and to intellectuals who had thrown in their lot with them, and the Communist leaders were chiefly drawn from these classes. Seeing that a gigantic lever was needed to overthrow the existing order, he appealed to the discontent of the industrial masses on whose work the system depends. Proletarian solidarity was the means he employed for making a revolution and giving power to the Communist philosophers, and picked proletarians were members of his administrative élite. But Plato was convinced that the working classes, like everyone else engaged in industry or trade, were incapable of political wisdom. His rulers were to be drawn from the nobility and the landed gentry, and though he did leave room for the promotion of a worker, he considered such cases so unimportant that he made no proper provision for it. He really wanted a hereditary ruling caste, and for this reason he condemned general education as destructive of political discipline.

But the difference between Plato and Lenin is not simply a difference of opinion about the political capacities of the working classes. Even if Plato went to Russia today and saw that self-educated working-class people like Stalin can become rulers of one-sixth of the world, he would still have maintained that these were exceptions, and that most people, whatever class they come from, are incapable of political responsibility. He might have been quite willing to draw his ruling caste from the working classes, but he would still have maintained a rigid separation of ruler and subject, and excluded the mass of the people from any share in framing policy. On this point he would have found himself in disagreement with orthodox Communism which denies that the party is a ruling caste and tries to make it a flexible voluntary organization open to anyone with correct views and enthusiasm for public service. Communist theory believes in general education and the participation of every citizen in government, and urges that the Soviet system is specially constructed to attain this end. It denounces the idea of a ruling class and looks forward to a time when all will be fit to govern.

Plato would not, however, pay much attention to the theorist, and would treat him in much the same way as he treated the educationalist in an earlier chapter. 'I am content,' he would say, 'to see the facts as they are. In Russia today [Plato's visit took place in the 1930s.] you have an able statesman in control. He has built up a political machine which is able to crush all rivals, and of the theorists and idealists who once collaborated with him the majority are now dead or in exile. I have every sympathy with Stalin, and I consider that on his principles he is fully justified in all that he has done. Seeing that the 'noble lie' of democracy and proletarian freedom was necessary to unite the people and to overthrow the Government, he used it at the proper time. Now that it has served its purpose he sees clearly that it must be suppressed and that those innocents who mistook myth for reality must be quietly put away. He knows that government is an affair of the few, and that an efficient bureaucracy is incompatible with popular control. And so, preferring the wealth of the people to all else, and seeing that it can only be obtained by the iron discipline of reason, he rightly denounces as heretical those who seek to introduce discussion and debate into his ordered kingdom, and to raise among his subjects the banner of true democracy and popular control. For consider what would happen if the people were to be given any voice in the affairs of State. Faction and strife would grow, autonomy would be demanded here, expansion there, and worst of all, the Communist Party, now the obedient and united instrument of government, would become a vulgar centre of debate and discussion. Stalin is indeed wise. If I understand him aright, he will see to it that education is used to promote not criticism and creative thought, but efficiency and obedience. Where he finds revolt, he will ruthlessly crush it: when myths become awkward he will discard them and substitute new ones. For he, like Marx and myself, is imbued with a profound contempt for the stupidity of the common man, and an equal certainty that he and his chosen friends alone are in possession of the knowledge which can bring happiness to men.

'Most of all I admire his mastery of propaganda and the sly humour of his employment of the "noble lie". Deciding that the time has come to crush all opposition, he first publishes a new and democratic constitution, and then shoots the advocates of freedom. Thus he accomplishes two ends, both establishing a democratic constitution and ensuring that there will be no-one to make use of it. In this he shows modesty as well, and that readiness to learn from his enemies which is the mark of a true statesman. Observing the ease with which the ruler of Germany conducts plebiscites and elections and yet ensures that the voting is always correct, he has resolved even to outbid Hitler and to build up the full machinery of representative institutions. He knows that the façade will at once satisfy the people's craving for power, and decently veil from public curiosity the working of actual government. For he observed that, where a people is disciplined and has learnt to respect authority, there democracy can safely be allowed, since no-one will abuse it without general disapproval; and he has seen how in England a strong social tradition can ensure the position of a ruling class more firmly than force of arms or threats of violence of even a ministry of propaganda. With these examples before him he has decided that the time is ripe for Russia to enter the ranks of the conservative nations which have evolved a stable order of society and a proper dislike of equalitarian sentiment. He will maintain his secret police and his machinery of internal power for some time to come, but I have no doubt that Russia will soon become an industrial nation, richer than all others, less tinged with Radicalism and Liberal licence, and therefore more able to assert her imperial designs against a divided and distracted world.

'But much though I admire Stalin, I must confess that I regard him as the greatest enemy of truth and knowledge. Not only has he false ideals, but he has developed a philosophy to justify them as perverted as it is persuasive. Denying the existence of God and the hope of a future life, he preaches the pursuit of the things of this world, and sees in the freedom to enjoy wealth and honour and power the highest pleasures of man. For him, man is an object the source of whose movements can be found in natural causes, whose ideas are the product of necessity, and whose every action is predictable by scientific law. And so he regards reason as the natural servant of animal desire, and seeks to control nature only to subject it once more to the tyranny of human appetite and greed. Denying the existence of the rational soul, he cannot himself contemplate the reality behind the worldly appearances, or pursue a happiness not of this world but of the next. Through this ignorance of true philosophy he has raised science, which should be the servant of reason, to the throne of reason itself and has proclaimed as the ultimate reality the transient process of history which comes to be and passes away, a chaos of meaningless events.

'The foolish and short-sighted will laugh at my observations and remark that a false philosophy can harm no-one; and this will be true as long as philosophy is merely the recreation of the young or the hobby of the old - as it is in England. But Stalin has harnessed a nation to the realization of his philosophy on earth, and now there are millions of human beings who will carry out his will. At present they are pacific and friendly, for Russia has far to go before it has exploited its natural wealth to the full, but the time will come when the lust for power and the greed to subject all men to their plan will grow strong in the rulers. When that time comes only the influence of true philosophy and self-control can restrain the unruly passions. But philosophy will be long since dead and, as in the days of Pericles, the revolutionary cry for bread and justice will become the imperial demand for power.

'Such is my verdict upon Stalin and upon the future of Russia. But as for the young men and women in your country who become converted to Communism, not because of its materialist ideas or the hope it offers of future prosperity, but owing to a spirit of dissatisfaction with the existing order, and a longing to free their countrymen from bondage and misery - to them I should say: Beware of harnessing your fine ideals to a doctrine which exalts material prosperity and whips up the hatred and greed of an oppressed class. Your ideals will not harmonize with the passions of those whom you would help: and when you have liberated the oppressed, you will find that they in turn become the oppressors. Be clear then in your own minds that in any revolution, political power must be retained by you and your like, if any social improvement is to be gained; and that it will be your first duty to throw into new bondage those whom you have freed, and ruthlessly to suppress the prophets of materialism and hate. Surrender then your illusion that dictatorship is only a step on the way to freedom, and dream no longer that a time will come when the seeds of class-conflict will die and the State can wither away. The common man will always need the discipline of the few and will always abuse political power; because the reason which is within him is not strong, he can never submit himself voluntarily to the rule of law, or enjoy true freedom.

'Your instinct and the teaching of your Churches makes you reluctant to admit this fact, which is confirmed daily by common experience. And so you preach the equality of man and dream of a time when the human race will live at peace, each man proceeding upon his appointed way as effortlessly as the divine planets move in their perfect orbits, never crossing one another's paths or failing in their duty, a starry system of rational beings.

'My young friends, that is a noble ideal which I myself share, but do not expect that you will see it here on earth. Perhaps in heaven you will contemplate reality: in this world you must attempt to give to sluggish and reluctant matter a semblance of order and form. You cannot legislate for rational beings, but must be content to compel a stupid race to avoid the worst consequences of its stupidities. For statesmanship, unlike philosophy, is the art of the second best. It aims, not at perfecting man, but at preventing his further deterioration: and the prudent statesman will be content if he can leave his countrymen no worse off than he found them. One of your teachers once said: "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you". He was a wise man and he surely meant that perfection can be contemplated by the mind's eye but can never be given earthly form. If you neglect this saying and, believing that man on earth can live the life of gods, encourage your fellow-men in this false hope, you will end - for all your religious ideals and good intentions - by destroying what little beauty and order we possess.

'Be content then with smaller hopes, separating clearly from one another your religious ideals and your practical aims, and recognizing that perfection is not of this world, but of the next. And at all costs avoid that heresy which teaches that in the history of the human race we may trace a progress from imperfection towards perfection. Your Communism is the product of an age of eager hopes and aspirations which falsely interpreted the discoveries of natural science as signs that the world was evolving towards the good, and that a spirit must in the end prevail and that the workings of historical necessity would finally produce the earthly millennium. This belief is an empty delusion which mistakes material progress for spiritual betterment, and increased wealth for an improvement of manners. When I observe you and compare you with my countrymen, I notice many distinctions of convention and habit, and a difference in the importance attached to particular virtues. We prized courage, ingenuity, good taste, and independence of spirit: you Englishmen seem to prefer kindness and honesty. In this you are different but not better than us, and your differences are the result not of your actions but of conditions for the most part outside your control, such as your greater wealth and your mastery of nature. These "blessings" have softened the struggle for survival and so enabled you to afford a gentle and humanitarian sentiment, and other such luxuries which in our epoch were not permitted. It is no true virtue to live according to the standards of your age and to fulfil the obligations of your social code. Anybody equipped with intellect and a little self-interest would do that! The truly virtuous man is he who has raised himself above habit and convention and by his knowledge has criticized and changed the manners of his fellow-citizens. The history of our race is the sombre take of how a few good men from time to time have seen a little further than their fellows and rescued them from their misery. But no such improvements are permanent, always the world slips back into self-assertion and greed, reverting from the truth it fears to the half-truths and hypocrisies which are natural to it.

'I lived in a time when the circle of time was moving from good to bad, from order to disorder, from beauty to chaos. The civilization which our forefathers had built was slipping back into barbarism and anarchy. Art was degenerating into prettiness and the old civic virtues were disappearing. A few of us, among them Socrates, understood. We had no illusions that in some distant future man would be perfect and the State would wither away: we only hoped to stop the collapse, seeing that as things grew worse, not less but more force would be necessary to maintain law and order and social security. So I planned my ideal State as a brake on the wheel of time, not as a stage in the progress of man: and when I wished to gaze on perfection, I fixed my eyes on the eternal realities which do not change, and the beauties which cannot fade because they are not of this world, knowing that here at least in pure philosophy I had a friend incorruptible by the inevitable process of change and decay.

'When I look on your civilization and observe the rifts which are apparent in it, the uncertainty of its economic order, the dangers of war, and the breakdown of religion and morality, I do not feel a stranger. For you too are born into an epoch of dissolution, and can no longer look forward to the unconquerable march of progress. Try though you may, you cannot believe that next year will show a splendid advance on last, that Providence is on your side, and that you need only lend assistance to the powers of good which by their own propulsion are pressing on towards perfection. And therefore the philosophy of Progress to which you cling is out of date, and you no longer believe that mankind is on the march towards freedom. You repeat the slogans and the catchwords and the ideals of Progress, but they sound hollow and insincere, because you have begun to suspect they can never be realized in this world. Be content, then, to see your fellow-men as they are, and to foresee that they will degenerate unless you prevent it: concern yourselves as politicians with the one question - how can we save a little of our civilization from the collapse which threatens it, and renounce all allies whose ideal is either freedom or material prosperity? Do not count on progress or providence to do your work for you, but recognize yourselves as a tiny company of individuals on whose actions the happiness of your country depends, and by whose philosophy the rightness of these actions is in turn determined.

'I read the other day a poem by one of your few great prophets and it seemed to express perfectly the spirit of your age and the problems you must face.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head off a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? [W.B. Yeats, COLLECTED POEMS, pp.210-11.]

I would advise you to consider this prophecy and, bearing it in mind, to give up your Utopias and your reckless belief in the common man. Judge Russia not by theory, but by fact, and study Stalin the ruler, not Marx the publicist. When you have done so, I am sure that you will resolve to impose on your country a dictatorship as severe and as permanent as the Russian, and to drive out the philosophy of materialism as ruthlessly as Stalin has banished the spirit of true philosophy and the belief in the immortal soul.'