Marxism Unmasked from Delusion to Destruction.pdf 7471KB

NATIONALISM. SOCIALISM. AND VIOLENT REVOLUTION
:"^,^"^! ''l^.r"^ "^^ ^*^-^' b"t also on other authors. Georges
Sorcl (1847-19221—not to be confUsed with Albert Sorel [1842-19061-
an .mporum hmorun, developed a philosophy in many respects different
from the Marxian phUosophy. And it influenced poHtical action and
phUowphic thinking. Sorel was a timid bourgeois inteUectual, an engineer
He rrorcd to discuss these things with his friends at a bookshop owned by
Charie* Peguy |1873-1914]. a revolutionary socialist. In the course of the
years. Peguy changed his opinions and at the end of his Ufe he was a very
ardent C:aihoIic author. Peguy had serious conflicts with his family Peguy
was remarkable for his intercourse with Sorel. Peguy was a man of action;
he died in acuon in 1914 in the first weeks of the war.
SorrI belonged psychologically to the group of people who dream of
at tion but never act; he didn't fight. As a writer, however, Sorel was very
aggressive. He praised cruelty and deplored the fact that cruelty is more
and more disappearing fmm our life. In one of his books. Reflections on
I lolrtur, he considered it a manifestation of decay that Marxian parties,
calling themselves revolutionary, had degenerated into parliamentary
parties. Where is the revolution if you are in Parhament? He also didn't Hke
labor unions. He thought the labor unions should abandon the hopeless
venture of seeking higher wage rates and should adopt, instead of this
conservative pattern, the revolutionary process.
Sorel saw clearly the contradiction in the system of Marx who spoke
of revolution on the one hand and then said, "The coming of socialism
I* inevitable, and you cannot accelerate its coming because socialism
cannot come before the material productive forces have achieved all that
IS possible within the frame of the old society." Sorel saw that this idea
of inevitability was contradictory to the idea of revolution. This is the
contradiction all socialists ask themselves about—Kautsky, for one. Sorel
completely adopted the idea of revolution.
Sorel asked of the labor unions a new tactic, action directs—amck,
destroy, sabotage. He considered these aggressive policies only preliminary
to the great day when the unions would declare a "general strike." That
is the day when the unions will declare "Now we don't work at all.
We want to destroy the life of the nation completely." General strike is
only a synonym for the live revolution. The idea of action directe is
called "syndicalism."
Syndicalism can mean ownership of the industry by the workers.
Socialists mean bv this term ownership by the state and operation for the
account of the people. Sorel wanted to attain this by revolution. He didn't
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