“Exactly.
Even then the possessing classes only suffer relatively.
They put down their cars or close their country houses, thus adding to unemployment, but not greatly inconveniencing themselves.
But the people starve.
Then they will listen to you when you tell them they have nothing to lose but their chains, and when you dangle before them the bait of other people’s property the greed, the envy, which they’ve had to repress because they had no means of gratifying them, are let loose.
With liberty and equality as your watchwords you can lead them to the attack.
The history of the last five-and-twenty years shows that they’re bound to win.
The possessing classes are enervated by their possessions, they’re humanitarian and sentimental, they have neither the will nor the courage to defend themselves; their counsels are divided, and when their only chance is in immediate and ruthless action they waste their time in recrimination.
But the mob, which is the instrument of the revolutionary leaders, is a thing not of reason but of instinct, it is amenable to hypnotic suggestion and you can rouse it to frenzy by catchwords; it is an entity, and so is indifferent to the death in its ranks of such as fall; it knows neither pity nor mercy.
It rejoices in destruction because in destruction it becomes conscious of its own power.
“I suppose you wouldn’t deny that that entails the killing of thousands of inoffensive people and the destruction of institutions that have taken hundreds of years to build up.”
“There’s bound to be destruction in a revolution and there’s bound to be killing.
Engels said years ago that the possessing classes must be expected to resist suppression by every means in their power.
It’s a fight to the death.
Democracy has attached an absurd importance to human life.
Morally man is worthless and it’s no loss to suppress him.
Biologically he’s of no consequence; there’s no more reason why it should shock you to kill a man than to swat a fly.”
“I begin to see why you were interested in Robert Berger.”
“I was interested in him because he killed, not for any sordid motive, not for money, nor jealousy, but to prove himself and affirm his power.”
“Of course it remains to be proved that communism is practicable.”
“Communism?
Who talked of communism?
Everyone knows now that communism is a wash-out.
It was the dream of impractical idealists who knew nothing of the realities of life.
Communism is the lure you offer to the working classes to rouse them to revolt just as the cry of liberty and equality is the slogan with which you fire them to dare.
Throughout the history of the world there have always been exploiters and exploited.
There always will be.
And it’s right that it should be so because the great mass of men are made by nature to be slaves; they are unfit to control themselves, and for their own good need masters.”
“That’s rather a startling assertion.”
“It’s not mine, old boy,” Simon answered ironically.
“It’s Plato’s, but the history of the world since he made it has amply demonstrated its truth.
What has been the result of the revolutions we’ve seen in our own lifetime?
The people haven’t lost their masters, they’ve only changed them, and nowhere has authority been wielded with a more iron hand than under communism.”
“Then the people are duped?”
“Of course.
Why not?
They’re fools, and they deserve to be.
What does it matter?
Their gain is substantial.
They’re not asked to think for themselves any more; they’re told what to do, and so long as they’re obedient they have the security they’ve always hankered after.
The dictators of our own day have made mistakes and we can learn by their errors.
They’ve forgotten Machiavelli’s dictum that you can enslave the people politically if you leave their private lives free.
I should give the people the illusion of liberty by allowing them as much personal freedom as is compatible with the safety of the state.
I would socialize industry as widely as the idiosyncrasy of the human animal permits and so give men the illusion of equality.
And since they would all be brothers under one yoke they would even have the illusion of fraternity.
Remember that a dictator can do all sorts of things for the benefit of the people that democracy is prevented from doing because it has to consider vested interests, jealousies and personal ambitions, and so he has an unparalleled opportunity to alleviate the lot of the masses.
I went to a great communist meeting the other day and on banner after banner I read the words Peace, Work and Weil-Being.
Could any claims be more natural?
And yet here man is after a hundred years of democracy still making them.
A dictator can satisfy them by a stroke of the pen.”