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Title: Necessity of the Revolution Author: Bernard Lazare Date: 1896 Language: en Topics: revolution, fiction Source: Retrieved on May 17, 2012 from http://marxists.org/reference/archive/lazare-bernard/1896/necessity.htm Notes: From Almanach socialiste illustrè, 1896. Translated for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor
The Bourgeois — And you believe in the revolution?
Me — I believe in it. Like you, by the way.
Bourgeois — Me? You must be kidding! Is a revolution possible in our
time? The armed forces; the wisdom of the proletarians — resolved to
legally obtain the improvement of their lot; the will of the republicans
— who have already done so much for the workers — to resolutely march on
the path of social reforms: isn’t all of this guarantee enough for you?
Me — No more for me than for you. I know your reasoning, and I know how
much you’d like to believe in it. You’re like the sick men who calculate
their chances to escape an illness and calm their fears by maintaining
hope. You can do what you want, but you won’t be able to avoid a
revolution.
The Bourgeois — But why?
Me — Because it’s the fatal outcome; and because in contemporary
societies everything leads there, everything drives us there. You — a
bourgeois, a shareholder of a big store, a big company — you are one of
the actors in this, like the unionized worker, like the unemployed —
whose number increases as the ranks of owners thins out. The hour is
such that from here on capital, like labor, is an agent of revolution.
The Bourgeois — Don’t you think that intelligent reforms could stop the
movement?
Me — What do you call reforms? What do you call intelligent reforms?
These are words that ministers use at banquets. Do you seriously think
that new fiscal laws, progressive taxes, a new means of taxing
inheritances, retirement laws assuring the exhausted worker 100 francs a
year maximum when he’s 70, could stop our march? You are all imprudent!
You admit that everything isn’t for the best in the best of all possible
worlds. By this admission you justify everything, for the whole world
isn’t obliged to accept your definition of the best. How much stronger
you’d be if you would affirm that the relations between capital and
labor are just and good, and that no others could exist. On the
contrary, you recognize that other relations can be conceived of between
these two powers, and you hope to save yourself by maintaining the
subordination of labor to capital. I feel really sorry for you.
The Bourgeois — We’re not dead yet.
Me — No, but you are sick, and what makes your case worse is that you’re
aware of your illness. Every morning when you rise you look upon the
progress of your jaundice, and you’re powerless to cure it.
The Bourgeois — Do you take us for people incapable of defending
ourselves?
Me — Of course not. You have already given several satisfying examples
of your ferocity. It’s only that — and see to what extent what I say is
true — the day that you defend yourselves, you will give the signal for
the Revolution. And if you don’t defend yourselves, it’s the Revolution
that will come to wake you up. You are caught in a frightening impasse.
If you cede a few things to the poor, you recognize the legitimacy of
their demands, and you encourage them to push things to the extreme. If
you grant nothing, you legitimize all demands and all events. If you
hedge, you’ll find yourself caught in other still difficulties.
The Bourgeois — So we won’t be supported?
Me — Of course! You still have some old fortresses, the army, the
judiciary, the administration , but all of this will quickly collapse at
a certain time. You have machines that seem to work that will
nevertheless stop on their own. The day when the worker will stop
fighting with paper balls, the day he will stop sending to parliament
jokers and the hesitant, the day when he will say to those who claim to
represent him: all or nothing, that day you’ll be in danger.
The Bourgeois — We’ll emigrate
Me — No, because the Revolution will be in Coblentz, too. That’s what’s
serious: the social Revolution will be European. A political revolution
is localized; an economic one becomes generalized.
The Bourgeois — You’re pessimistic.
Me — Pessimistic for you, to be sure, but optimistic for the others.
The Bourgeois — Even so, we’ll always have our good army.
Me — You won’t always have it.
The Bourgeois — Why?
Me — Because what you call the state of armed peace can’t last
indefinitely, and no matter what solution you find to this problem, the
revolution is inevitable. If you persist in preserving permanent armies,
it’s either bankruptcy or revolution. If you make war, it’s revolution
in the defeated country, and it will spread, touching the victorious
nation. Unless, of course, from the moment of the declaration of war the
proletarians of the two countries answer by declaring a general strike,
or destroy on both sides of the lines the railroads, and it’s still
revolution. If you lay-off the permanent armies you will immediately
liberate a few hundred thousand men (sic) workers. You thus will fatally
increase the ever growing mass of the unemployed, but you increase it in
so sudden a way, you so quickly worsen the total misery, you bring on so
imprudently a general lowering of salaries — for you want to profit by
the excess of working arms — that it’s still the revolution.
The Bourgeois — You make me lose hope! Tell me what should be done.
Me — Make the revolution with us.