CHAPTER
SIX
The following Thursday
evening Matthew Pearce set off by taxi for Gwen's Chelsea flat, in accordance
with the invitation he had received, a few days previously, to meet a couple of
her friends there - namely Peter and Linda Daniels. Since he hadn't seen Gwen since Monday,
following their joint return from
Arriving at Gwen's address at about seven-thirty, he rang the
bell and was duly admitted by the young lady in person, who seemed pleased to
see him and relieved that he had in fact been able to make it after all,
contrary to his initial misgivings about the evening in question.
"Have your friends arrived yet?" he asked, following
her up the thickly carpeted wooden stairs to her second-floor apartment.
"Just a few minutes ago," she replied, glancing over
her shoulder at the denim-clad ascending figure behind. "Which was pretty good timing on their
part, too."
He was led into the lounge and introduced first to Peter and
then to Linda Daniels, the former extending a rather stiff white hand, the
latter a more flexible black one.
"Glad to meet you," he averred, as he shook hands with
each of the Daniels and briefly scanned their faces - the man's firm and set,
rather hard and aristocratic; the woman's, by contrast, quite fluid and gentle,
pleasantly serene. He took an immediate
liking to her, though the husband repelled him a little and immediately put him
on his guard.
"So you're the artist Gwen has been telling us about,"
Peter Daniels remarked, no sooner than the introductions had run their
customary course.
"Yes, I guess so," said Matthew, smiling.
"Well, I'm a writer myself, of mostly journalistic
tendency, though occasionally a poet and novelist as well," Peter Daniels
declared. "And my wife is a
fellow-teacher at Gwendolyn’s school."
"A physical education teacher if I remember correctly,
isn't it?" Matthew responded, recalling to mind what he had already learnt
from Gwen.
"Yes, unfortunately so," Linda admitted, with a gentle
self-deprecatory sigh.
"I think she would rather be an art teacher actually,"
Gwen opined, for the artist's benefit.
"Is that so?"
"Well, not specifically," Linda admitted. "Though I do have an interest in art,
both ancient and modern."
Peter Daniels frowned enigmatically, or at least that's how it
appeared to Matthew. "I suppose
your interest is chiefly in the modern, is it?" he said to the latter,
who, at Gwen's request, had just sat down in a nearby armchair.
"Well, as a practising artist I guess it has to be,"
he replied. "I'm not one to either
copy or strive to emulate the old masters, you know."
"Ah, so you're anti-representational?" Peter Daniels
conjectured enigmatically.
The inference struck Matthew as a bit odd, but he smiled and
simply said: "Not so much anti-representational as
pro-transcendental."
Peter Daniels raised his brows in acute surprise. "And what exactly is that?" he
asked.
Matthew attempted to explain, using as few words as possible,
the basis of his allegiance to the Holy Ghost and correlative penchant for the superconscious.
However, the journalist transpired not to being particularly impressed
by his explanation, having no prior knowledge of the superconscious
and its role in shaping the arts. To
him, it sounded like a figment of the imagination. And not only that but, worse still, a threat
to his egocentric integrity, with its empirical objectivity. He had no desire to revise his philosophical
viewpoint of Spenglerian pessimism and opposition to
decadence, including, not least of all, its mystical manifestations. He was a champion of Western civilization,
with its scientific rationality, and he lost no time in letting the
transcendentalist know it! Needless to
say, Matthew was somewhat taken-aback, suddenly confronted, as he now was, by a
sense of deja vu in the presence of what seemed to him
like a carbon copy of Gwen's father.
"I don't quite understand you," he confessed.
"Well, whether you realize it or not," Peter Daniels
rejoined, with an air of didactic earnestness, "Western civilization is
seriously threatened by certain destructive elements in contemporary society
whose only desire is to bring about its complete and utter downfall, and so
enable the opponents of civilization to triumph. The decline of the West, as outlined by Spengler in his seminal work of that name, is an
indisputable fact which cannot be denied, no matter how repugnant it may appear
to us or, at any rate, to those of us with an interest in preventing and
perhaps even reversing its decline. It's
an extremely regrettable fact, but there it is!
The enemies of Western civilization, who patently include mystical
transcendentalists of a non-empirical disposition, are slowly but steadily
gaining the ascendancy."
Matthew was virtually thunderstruck. He could scarcely believe his ears! Was this what he had come along
to Gwen's flat to hear - the prejudices of a reactionary bourgeois? He was almost on the point of exploding with
laughter. "But the civilization to
which you allude," he responded, as soon as he could get over the initial
shock of what he had just heard, "is being superseded by that which stands
above it and signifies the next and probably final rung on the ladder of human
evolution. If anything is in decline
it's only the bourgeois world, which cannot last for ever but is destined to be
superseded in due course. Indeed, it has
already been superseded to a large extent, as a cursory glance at the
contemporary world, with its photography and films and pop music, would
adequately confirm."
Peter Daniels seemed not to have heard aright. "Are you seriously trying to tell me
that what's currently happening to our civilization is for the better?" he
objected incredulously.
"Yes, naturally," Matthew maintained. "It may not be for the better as far as
the bourgeoisie are concerned, but it's certainly so for the proletariat, who
have largely superseded them. If
bourgeois civilization didn't decline - and it's no longer in effective
operation anyway - there would be a frightful stasis, a horrible permanence of
egocentric dualism, which it would be impossible to endure. I mean, what could be more absurd and
fundamentally tragic than that? The idea
simply doesn't bear thinking about!
Fortunately, however, life is a perpetual evolution, not a permanent
stasis, so we needn't fear that the changes which are occurring to and in our
society are inevitably for the worse.
We're climbing up higher, not falling down lower."
"Bullshit!" cried Peter Daniels, who had become
flushed from suppressed rage. "How
can so many of the changes which have come over the Western and, in particular,
West European world this century possibly signify progress? Are you seriously trying to tell me that
modern art, for instance, is superior to traditional art - to the
representational art, shall we say, of the 16-19th centuries?"
"Superior in one respect it most certainly is,"
Matthew affirmed, trying to avoid thinking of Mr Evans. "It's not so much balanced between
illusion and truth as distinctly biased on the side of truth, distinctly a
product of the superconscious, with its
non-representational subjectivity. Which
is why I said that, as a product of egocentric tension, Western civilization is
effectively no longer in operation, having been superseded by what stands above
it - the transcendental bias of post-egocentric man."
"Don't you really mean what stands beneath it?" Peter
Daniels protested defiantly.
"On the contrary, what stands beneath it is the
pre-egocentric, in which the balanced dualism to which you evidently subscribe
hadn't yet come properly into existence," Matthew retorted, "the
reason being that, at that stage in his evolution, Western man was distinctly
biased on the side of the subconscious and thus given to an art form which
reflected his sensual predominance and correlative predilection for the
illusory. But modern art generally
reflects the opposite tendency and, consequently, is of a far superior nature. At its best, its most abstract, it tends to
reflect a superior development to both the religious and secular art of the
representational past, which is either sensuously lopsided or balanced between
the sensual and spiritual realms in what amounts to an egocentric
compromise. A spiritualized abstract
canvas is closer to truth, whereas a beautiful representational one,
particularly such as was produced during the cultural heyday of Western
civilization, contains a great deal of illusion - namely the thing or person or
whatever being represented, and the way in which the subject-matter is
handled. Now if these days we, or at
least the more spiritually evolved of us, prefer the sight of an abstract or
monochromatic canvas to a fully representational one, it's largely because
we've lost our taste and capacity for illusion, having evolved to a point which
is so biased in favour of the superconscious ... that
only what intimates of or reflects truth has any real relevance to us. The other, though still intelligible, becomes
something of an anachronism for us."
Peter Daniels grunted his animal disapproval of this radical
statement. "Not for me it
doesn't," he grimly declared.
"I take no pleasure in abstract or monochromatic canvases. And neither, I should imagine, does anyone
with the least degree of sense, taste, or intelligence!"
"I'm bound to say that's a highly presumptuous claim,"
Matthew averred, giving way to a degree of emotional contempt for the
journalist. "The fact is that the
most enlightened people tend to relate more to modern non-representational art
than to any traditional art, great or otherwise."
A smile of undisguised satisfaction passed across Linda Daniels'
attractively oval face at this remark, whereas Gwen's remained rather
stern. The former felt secretly
gratified by it, whereas the latter, conscious of her inability to understand
most of Matthew's art, took it as a personal affront.
"Even where monochromatic canvases are concerned?"
said Peter Daniels sarcastically.
"Yes, though it's not necessary to dwell on extremes or to
equate the bulk of modern art with such radical experiments," Matthew
objected. "There's a lot more to it
than that, as I think you would realize if you visited any large gallery of
modern art or glanced through the pages of any comprehensively illustrated
encyclopaedia on the subject. Even my
work, at present focusing on certain religious ideals, with particular
reference to the inner light of meditation, is not without a degree of
variety."
"Humph, of a rather simplistic order I should
imagine!" the journalist sneered, to the evident disapproval of his wife,
who immediately reproved him with a curt, emphatic utterance of his Christian
name.
But Matthew remained unperturbed. "As a matter of fact, my work is
generally rather simplistic," he confessed. "For it wouldn't serve my illustrative
purposes to make it otherwise. My basic
adherence to what are termed minimalist techniques is a reflection, in large
measure, of fidelity to the superconscious as opposed
to the ego. Or, to be more precise, of
fidelity to an ego which is more under the sway of the superconscious
than of the subconscious, and accordingly less given to egocentric
embellishments and self-aggrandizing complexities than would otherwise be the
case."
"Bah! that's only to say you'd be incapable of producing
great art, which of necessity demands a high level of complexity," Peter
Daniels exclaimed.
"Yes, I dare say I am incapable of producing the
kind of art that appertains to the egocentric past," Matthew admitted, anticipating
some such objection on the journalist's part, "but that's exactly as it
should be. For I live in an intensely
artificial environment and am the recipient of post-egocentric standards and
predilections. I'm very much a product
of the big city and therefore don't feel qualified to paint or sculpt in a
manner which, strictly speaking, pertains chiefly to a medium-sized town or a
small city, where nature and, needless to say, nature's sensuous influence are
never very far away, and man is accordingly more under the dominion of his
subconscious, with its penchant for the illusory. No, if I were able and qualified to paint in
a style approximating to the representational tradition, I'd be an anachronism,
not a bona
fide contemporary artist."
Peter Daniels snorted contemptuously at what seemed to him like
a narrowly one-sided viewpoint.
"And you regard what you do paint as art rather than anti-art?" he
asked sceptically.
"Yes, most certainly!" Matthew replied. "Only, it's an art centred on truth rather
than balanced between truth and illusion, essence and appearance, the
subjective and the objective. In short,
a sort of superart.... However, the fact that there has been an outpouring of
anti-art this century is something I won't, of course, deny. Yet even that was partly founded on the
delusion that art is essentially a matter of illusion, like religion, rather
than a phenomenon which evolves into truth, as in fact it can do and
subsequently has done. No, I don't concentrate on anti-art, any more
than on the negativity of Spenglerian pessimism
concerning the West, because I prefer to take a positive line and thus accept
the applicability of truth to art, whether in the realm of the spiritual or the
secular, the transcendent or the mundane.
To me, art isn't simply something that comes to an end with the passing
of an egocentric age, in which myth and sensuality play a significant part, but
something that continues on up the ladder of human evolution to the reflection
of a transcendental age, in which truth and spirituality are the leading
factors. Why therefore should I waste
time producing anti-art - which, in any case, has already been produced in
sufficient abundance this century, and seems primarily intended to belittle and
undermine the old representational mode of art - when there's a new art-sense
to consider and much work to be done in consolidating and perfecting it? Gone are the days when it was respectable or,
at any rate, credible to be an anti-artist.
If I knew anyone who was one these days, I shouldn't wish to associate
with him. He'd only bore and confuse
me."
"Which is precisely what you do to me!" snapped Peter
Daniels, to the verbal disapproval, once again, of his wife. "Whether or not it's because I was born
and bred in the country, I don't know.
But, whatever the reason, I can't relate to what you're saying. As a conservative, I find a great deal of
modern art, of whatever tendency, totally unacceptable and completely without
justification. It palls to
insignificance by comparison with the greatest art produced by European
civilization right up to the mid-nineteenth century, which seems to be the
turning-point, the beginning of the rot, the gradual decline in our
significance as a cultural power. One
need only read a work like The Hour of Decision by Oswald Spengler,
to obtain a fair idea of what is happening to us and why we're in decline, not
only as regards the arts but ..."
"Fortunately I have no use for neo-royalist solutions to the
apparent dilemma which confronts us," Matthew interposed, on the crest of
another wave of contempt which had built-up inside him at the mention of Spengler again.
"And no sympathy for the book to which you refer, which, in my
honest opinion, is one of the most depressing, if not reactionary, works ever
written."
Peter Daniels flinched sharply, as though from a sudden blow to
the face. "I can hardly agree with that statement!" he
ejaculated, patently shocked and offended.
"Oh, so you're a neo-royalist, are you?" Matthew
deduced.
"No, damn it, a conservative, as I told you a moment
ago!"
"Ah yes, a democratic royalist," the artist concluded
inferentially.
There was a period of strained silence before, with an obvious
air of constraint, Peter Daniels confessed: "I'm afraid I don't quite
follow you."
"It simply means that you're not as extreme as your
authoritarian counterparts," Matthew calmly remarked. "As a royalist, you can only be one of
three principal types, viz. a genuine royalist, a democratic royalist, or a
neo-royalist."
"I fail to appreciate the distinction between a genuine
royalist and a neo-royalist," said Peter Daniels with a thinly ironic
smile on his lips.
"So do a lot of people," Matthew retorted, "but
that's only because they're ignorant."
"How dare you!"
The journalist had got to his feet and was staring down at Matthew in a
highly threatening manner, his fists tightly clenched at his sides.
"Peter!" Linda
Daniels had also got to her feet and put a restraining hand on her husband's
nearest arm. "Are you going to
behave reasonably, or must we leave the room?"
"It would be better if we left this place altogether,"
rasped Peter Daniels, still staring down at the seated artist.
"Please, I'd rather you didn't," pleaded Gwen, stepping
up to his other side. "I have some
dinner on at the moment, after all."
The mention of dinner appeared to calm Peter Daniels down a
little and induced him to return to his seat, accompanied by the faithful and
ever-persevering presence of his wife.
Gwen sighed her relief and excused herself on the pretext of having to
return to the kitchen. There was an
uneasy silence in the room, disturbed only by the heavy ticking of an
old-fashioned wall clock. It was
Matthew, however, who first broke it or, rather, broke out of it.
"I didn't intend to offend you personally," he
averred, speaking directly to the journalist, "but was simply trying to
point out a fact. And if you're still
interested in hearing my notion, erroneous or not, of the distinction between royalism and a neo-royalism, I'll
give it to you."
Peter Daniels emitted a fulsome sigh of regret. "Very well, what is it?" he rasped.
"Essentially the difference between a Henry VIII or a Louis
XIV and a Franco or a Mussolini," replied Matthew, blushing slightly in
response to what he basically knew to be an unorthodox viewpoint, but one which
circumstances had launched him into without proper preparation or indeed
complete conviction. "The
difference, in other words, between a genuine aristocratic dictatorship and a
dictatorship which is anything but aristocratic. Genuine royalism
pertains to an epoch in which the aristocracy govern, an epoch preceding the
bourgeois one of royalist/socialist compromise.
Neo-royalism, or fascism, is only possible in
an age like our own, which is in transition to a proletarian one and
consequently subject to confusions and extreme reactionary tendencies. It's a species of authoritarianism which may
triumph for a time but never for very long, since the current of evolution is
against it and, in the end, it must succumb to the prevailing Zeitgeist, which,
especially these days, is decidedly socialistic. Not being a genuine article but a bogus,
anachronistic, plebeianized form of royalism, it is doomed to extinction and failure, even if,
for a while, it has the appearance of strength.
No, the legitimate epoch for royalism is one
in which man hasn't yet attained to a balance between the subconscious and superconscious minds but is under the dominion of the
former, and thus given to the perpetuation of a society which upholds the
sovereignty of the sensual and materialistic over the spiritual and
idealistic. Royalism
is an elitist phenomenon, and therefore it emphasizes differences between men,
as between the nobility and the commonality.
It is fundamentally dark, cruel, evil, illusory - in a word, pagan. And its upholders are generally men of
action, which, in any case, is what every genuine aristocracy should be. Only after they've been dethroned by the
bourgeoisie do the aristocracy - or such of them as are left - begin to
cultivate a more studious and contemplative mode of life. Yet the more they feel obliged to do this,
the less genuinely aristocratic they become, with a result that, after
centuries of progressive atrophying of the truly aristocratic instincts, one
arrives at the equivalent of the poor wretch whom Huysmans
delineates in his classic novel Against Nature through the character of
Des Esseintes - a sickly dilettante and dandy, the
degenerate consequence of bourgeois rule.
Of that race of proud and ruthless predators from which he was
descended, scarcely a trace remains. The
fact is you can't be a genuine aristocrat, and hence royalist, after the
termination of your governing epoch. You
become progressively spurious to the point where, if you have any fight left in
you, you may well be prepared to clutch at any fascist straw which the wind of
reactionary conservatism may blow your way."
"Well, fortunately for me, I happen to be middle
class," Daniels responded, "so I can't pretend it bothers me all that
much if the aristocracy are not what they used to be. And my politics are neither royalist nor
neo-royalist and/or fascist, as you define it, but conservative."
"Yes, democratic royalist," Matthew repeated,
"because the bourgeois is ever a compromise animal, indisposed to the
authoritarian. Appertaining to the
middle, or second, stage of human evolution in between the aristocracy and the
proletariat, you divide into two main camps - one camp with closer ties to the
dethroned aristocracy, the other with closer ties to the ascending
proletariat. Thus arises the prolonged
parliamentary struggle between the right-wing conservative bourgeoisie and
their left-wing liberal counterparts, with the former growing steadily weaker
as the latter grow stronger, the political pendulum gradually swinging from the
Right to the Left, even given all the relatively minor election oscillations
coming in-between, as can be verified, I believe, by the increasing radicalism
which the parliamentary progression from Whig and Liberal to Labour governments
implies."
"Humph, you make it all sound too philosophically neat and
simple!" Peter Daniels objected.
"Maybe
that's because I happen to look down on it all from a higher vantage-point,"
Matthew declared.
"What, democratic socialist?" the journalist scoffed,
turning briefly towards Linda Daniels for support.
"Totalitarian, if you please," came the instant
rejoinder.
"What, you a communist?" Peter Daniels was almost on the verge of
getting to his feet again, so taken-aback was he by the artist's complacent
admission.
"Yes, in a manner of speaking," Matthew admitted,
blushing slightly in spite of himself, for he was aware now that part of what
he said was not so much him speaking as an argumentative persona which the
debate had conjured up from the nether depths of his psyche like some kind of
demented demon of wilful intent.
"Which is to say, to the extent," he rejoined, "that I
perceive totalitarian socialism as a means to social democracy and thus to the
achievement of real political power by the proletariat."
"But you're an educated and well-spoken man, you're not a
proletarian!" Peter Daniels hotly protested, exhaling what might have been
dragon's breath towards his obdurate interlocutor.
"As a matter of fact, whether I'm educated and well-spoken
or the converse has absolutely nothing to do with it," Matthew rejoined,
unmoved. "The fact remains that I
can understand the development of evolution away from a royalist/socialist
dualism towards what transcends it and accordingly stands at the opposite pole
to royalism, being the dictatorship of the
proletariat rather than of the aristocracy.
Now whether or not I'm a genuine socialist is another matter, seeing
that, just as one cannot be a genuine royalist when the aristocracy are no
longer in power but have been superseded by the bourgeoisie, so, it seems to
me, one cannot be a genuine socialist when the proletariat have not yet
attained to power, through the agency of totalitarian socialism, but are still
subject to the control, no matter how tenuously, of the bourgeois status quo,
with its capitalist base. Democratic
socialists, on the other hand, are no closer to being genuine socialists ...
than democratic royalists, or conservatives, to being genuine royalists or,
rather, neo-royalists and, hence, fascists.
They are tainted by the bourgeois brush of dualistic compromise, they're
part of the parliamentary tension between royalism
and socialism and, as such, they pertain to a parliamentary epoch, even if and
when that epoch is drawing towards a close.
A genuine socialist, however, could only look down on them from the
idealistic vantage-point of one who has evolved beyond the middle, or twilight,
stage of the political spectrum, with its capitalist exploitation. Standing in the light of proletarian triumph,
he would not care for the relative darkness appertaining to the epoch of
bourgeois democracy. But I don't stand
in such a light, not even in the inceptive context of communist
authoritarianism, when the proletariat, having wrenched power from the
bourgeoisie through a revolutionary elite, have yet to come into their own
political maturity and are accordingly subject to the paternalistic control of
the Communist Party, like a child dependent on the guidance of a stern
parent. No, I simply realize that such a
light is one day destined to materialize, and that it's therefore impossible to
regard democratic socialism as an end-in-itself, with nothing higher above or
beyond it. Thanks to my knowledge and
insight, I'm obliged to live as an outsider, unable to commit myself to the
compromise integrity of democratic socialism, which is Welfare State socialism
coupled to state capitalism, but simultaneously unable to enter into the true
spirit of genuine socialism, and for the simple reason that such a spirit
doesn't yet exist, the proletariat not having officially come to power, since
still living under the economic heel of bourgeois capitalism."
Peter Daniels could hardly believe his ears! It was as though the fact that he found
himself in close proximity to a man who belittled and contradicted all his own
views and standards was too much to take, too difficult to comprehend. He had never been politically face-to-face
with 'the enemy' before, with a person so unequivocally and radically left
wing, and now it appeared that he was in fact face-to-face with such a person
he found it strangely unreal, as though he were simply the hapless victim of a bad
dream. It was really quite different
from what he had imagined it would be, and largely because he was no longer as
confident as before about the virtues of parliamentary democracy. He almost felt humiliated! And not only on account of Matthew Pearce
but, no less evidently, also on account his wife, who, although sitting next to
him, seemed spiritually far removed from him, drawn to the substance of the
artist's remarks, wrapped-up in an attentive silence which somehow only served
to emphasize the temperamental and ideological incompatibility which he knew to
exist between them but did his best to minimize or ignore. There seemed to be a conspiracy against him
in the air.
But he would not be humiliated, least of all by a frigging
advocate of totalitarian socialism! His
middle-class dignity rebelled against the prospect. He would speak out, defend the cause and
reality of parliamentary freedom if it was the last thing he did! And Matthew Pearce, socialist or no
socialist, would have to listen, irrespective of how abhorrent he found
it. Maybe there was a chance that he
could be reformed, made to see sense while the opportunity prevailed,
encouraged to grow up and put his wishful and largely over-simplistic thinking
behind him.
Thus Peter Daniels responded to the challenge in the only way he
knew how - with a wholehearted defence of parliamentary democracy, a defence
designed to remind Matthew Pearce that, although such democracy was not without
its faults, it was still a damn sight better than the chaos and tyranny which
inevitably accompanied socialist revolutions.
The artist listened patiently but, even with a consciousness of
his own ideological shortcomings, remained unimpressed. He had heard such arguments before,
accompanied by the usual welter of platitudes concerning the virtues of
capitalist freedom and the superiority of liberal over totalitarian
systems. It was what one had to expect
from a bourgeois, that man of the compromise stage of evolution. To him, dictatorships of whatever description
were equally objectionable. And
why? Because they deprived him of his power, took away his freedom to exploit as
he thought fit. Royalist autocracies
kept economic power in the hands of the aristocracy. Communist autocracies would share power
amongst the proletariat once they came of age and could be more democratically
entrusted with its management themselves.
No wonder he feared and hated them!
Either way - with the possible exception of a fascist regime partial to
the monied interests of the conservative bourgeoisie
- a regression to feudalism or a progression to socialism signalled the end of
his capitalist power. Consequently he
had no option but to uphold the parliamentary system, that compromise of the
bourgeois world. Four years of a
democratic-socialist government, with its state capitalism, would be easier or
less hard to bear, depending on one's viewpoint, than an indefinite period of
totalitarian socialism which, if it didn't do away with one as an individual,
would almost certainly put an end to one's economic exploitation. For after those four years had elapsed, there
was at least a chance, indeed a very good chance, a more than even chance, that
the party closer to his own heart and economic interests would be returned to
power, and matters accordingly take a turn for the better. It was a compromise worth putting-up with!
But not for any socialist, any genuine socialist, that is. Oh, no!
Such a person had no patience with the government, intermittent or
otherwise, of a party in the pay of, and thus sympathetic to, the capitalistic
interests of the bourgeoisie, particularly the grand-bourgeoisie. He wanted their party done away with, so that
the road would be clear for socialism.
And with the end of the democratic royalists would come the demise of
the democratic socialists who, although left wing, were insufficiently extreme
to function in the guise of genuine socialism.
With the demise of parliamentary democracy, an undiluted socialist party
would prevail, to signal the beginnings of a new era of political development
in which, eventually, the proletariat would take over from Big Daddy the
economic, political, and judicial management of their affairs. That was what every progressive proletarian
wanted to see and, unless a catastrophe of unimaginable horror or disaster
overtook the world in the near future, it would surely happen, evolutionary
progress continuing along the path opened-up by the growth of urban
civilization.
Yet it was impossible for Matthew to say all this to Peter
Daniels, who probably wouldn't have understood or appreciated it. Instead, he contented himself with words to
the effect that he had no use or respect for the type of freedom, so dear to
the bourgeois heart, which enabled capitalist exploiters to amass private
fortunes at the proletariat's expense, growing ever more corrupt the richer
they became.
"Yes, but really," the journalist rejoined, his voice
strained with self-righteous emotion, "surely you must realize that
dictatorial regimes are essentially evil and cruel. I mean, just look at the examples the world
has seen this century, Stalin's most especially, not to mention those currently
still in existence."
"Of course, I strongly object to fascist regimes,"
Matthew countered, "since they're against the grain of evolution and a
scourge to the most progressive people.
When I think of the number of socialists killed or tortured by Hitler's
accomplices, my blood positively boils with anger at the magnitude of the
reactionary tyranny unleashed at the time.
But there's one hell of a difference between a neo-feudal regime and a
socialist regime, and that's a fact which you parliamentary people don't always
appreciate. You cite Stalin as an
example of communist tyranny, and no-one would doubt that Stalin was
effectively a cold-blooded autocrat who ruled the Soviet Union with a tyrannous
hand. Yet Stalin was still a progressive
revolutionary and not a regressive reactionary, like Hitler. He was virtually an angel compared to Hitler,
even if a somewhat fallen one."
"Oh, come now!" Peter Daniels protested, becoming red
in the face with suppressed rage.
"I would hesitate to describe someone responsible for the
butchering of some twenty million people in quite such euphemistic terms!"
"Yes, but one must remember that Stalin was under a
considerable amount of internal pressure from rival factions and consequently
felt obliged to take extremely stringent measures to safeguard his
regime," Matthew averred. "As
to the full facts of the matter, I'm not of course sufficiently well-informed,
since that is something for the historian or politician. But I do know that I'd rather hear about the
erection of concentration camps by a Stalin than by a Hitler, or any other
fascist dictator for that matter."
"Even with the murder of several million people?"
queried Peter Daniels incredulously.
"Even then."
"You mean you're not against the mass murder of millions of
innocent people?" gasped Peter Daniels, patently astounded.
Matthew was about to reply in the negative, but then wisely
hesitated on the verge of speaking. No,
he wasn't going to be duped by bourgeois humanism. "As to the mass murder of millions of
innocent people, I would most certainly object, and in the strongest possible
terms!" he averred. "But not
to the liquidation - an altogether more pertinent term - of millions of guilty people, or people, in
other words, whom it's necessary for one to remove in order to further and
safeguard the new society. I strongly
object to the indiscriminate murder of millions of innocent people, such as was
sanctioned by Hitler's regime on chiefly racial grounds. For such cold-blooded genocide is patently
criminal. It leads to the elimination of
millions of the best as well as the worst, socialists as well as capitalists,
the oppressed as well as their class oppressors. It doesn't hit the nail on the head, so to
speak, and these days more than ever it's precisely the head which needs
hitting - namely the bourgeois one!"
"You mean you wouldn't object to a purge of the bourgeoisie
by any prospective socialist regime which came to power in the near
future?" exclaimed Peter Daniels, his strained tone-of-voice indicating a
mixture of horror and accusation.
"No, of course not!" Matthew admitted. "For it's pretty obvious that the
bourgeoisie would be somewhat incompatible with the socialistic requirements of
such a regime. They would be far from
enthusiastic about sacrificing their competitiveness for the sake of a
uniformly co-operative framework within the context of public ownership, and
for the simple reason that such a sacrifice would run contrary to their
material interests as capitalist exploiters and free-market predators. One couldn't expect them to suddenly become
proletarians, as though by the wave of a magic wand. You can't simply slip out of one soul and
into another, out of a private domain which has done a Faustian pact with the
Devil and into a public one which repudiates any such pact. No, they'd have to be interned, and not
simply because they were adjudged incompatible with the socialistic
requirements of a truly co-operative society, but also as retribution for their
capitalist crimes and exploitative past.
The proletariat would have to be avenged on their historical
oppressors!"
"And who exactly would those oppressors be?" Peter
Daniels wanted to know, a mildly ironic humour replacing his previous sombre
response to the artist's apocalyptic revelations. For it was as though the tragedy of what he
had just heard had suddenly been transmuted into farce, albeit of a slightly
sinister order. He wasn't prepared to
accept the guilt of the bourgeoisie, since bourgeois blood ran in his
veins. He knew that, historically, the bourgeoisie
were justified, even if he wasn't prepared to admit to the fact that their
justification was transitory.
"Obviously a great number of them would be
businessmen," Matthew obliged, after a few seconds thoughtful deliberation
during which time he cleared his throat with guttural relish, as though in
preparation for an arduous task.
"And, most especially, those businessmen, in particular, who had
oppressed the workers the most and reaped the biggest dividends from the
capitalist system. The largest sharks
above all! But also a number of smaller
ones, staunch believers in free enterprise, i.e. the right of private
entrepreneurs to pursue their capitalist interests irrespective of the moral
and spiritual cost to society in general, and with a view to becoming rich and
powerful, like their more successful exemplars.
Then, of course, a number of professionals, including private doctors,
private dentists, and public-school teachers - in short, those professionals
who weren't salaried employees of the State but distinctly independent. And, needless to say, fascists and conservative
politicians, artists and writers of a reactionary or conservative turn-of-mind,
royals and peers, reactionary priests, especially those who had belonged to the
Established Church and thus recognized the monarch as head of the Church - a
thing which no genuine Christian would ever do, since alpha and omega, power
and peace, are quite incommensurate, and the Church is supposed to be on the
side of ecclesiastic truth and not, as would appear to be the case with the
Church of England, on the side of monarchic strength! Such a paradoxical Church, which has the
embodiment of autocratic power as its head and a long tradition of invasive
imperialism behind it, could only be incompatible with socialist
requirements."
"I see," sighed Peter Daniels, following a short but
anguished pause during which he mopped his brow with a linen handkerchief. "And presumably this hypothetical
socialist regime would liquidate, if that's the correct word, journalists like
myself, who profess to distinctly conservative viewpoints."
"Naturally," Matthew rejoined. "It would intern anyone who was in any
way opposed to its policies of socialist progress and either incapable of or
unwilling to contemplate reform."
"Well, thank goodness it doesn't exist at present, and that
a certain amount of sanity and decency still prevail in the world, especially
the Western half of it!" cried Peter Daniels triumphantly. "I very much doubt that such a
godforsaken regime will ever exist, and not only because we, the right-thinking
individuals of society, wouldn't allow it to, but, no less probably, because
the catastrophe that would most likely precipitate such a horrible
state-of-affairs - namely a third world war - would more than likely result in
the wholesale destruction of life on this planet and consequently in the
elimination of all political parties,
whether Right, Left, or Centre, moderate or extreme, and not in what I suspect
you would hope to be a socialist victory!"
"Oh, let's not drag Armageddon into it!" protested
Linda Daniels, breaking the long silence she had patiently kept while the two
men waged their own verbal war in front of her - an ideological one which she
had tactfully preferred to keep out of.
"A third world war would be too unspeakably vile, too unspeakably
horrendous! Let's hope it will never
come about, and that some sense and decency will accordingly continue to
prevail. We want life, not death!"
As though that were a signal for a fresh beginning, Gwen
suddenly returned to the room and announced, rather to everyone's relief, that
dinner was ready. Accordingly, Matthew
followed the others out through the open door and into the dining-room across
the hallway.
