Secret Societies And Subversive Movements Part 30

Question him on his ideas of social transformation, and he will generally express himself in favour of some method by which he will acquire something he has not got; he does not want to see the rich man's motor-car socialized by the State--he wants to drive about in it himself. The revolutionary working man is thus in reality not a Socialist but an Anarchist at heart. Nor in some cases is this unnatural. That the man who enjoys none of the good things of life should wish to s.n.a.t.c.h his share must at least appear comprehensible.

What is not comprehensible is that he should wish to renounce all hope of ever possessing anything. Modern Socialist propagandists are very well aware of this att.i.tude of the working cla.s.ses towards their schemes, and therefore that as long as they explain the real programme they mean to put into operation, which is nothing but the workhouse system on a gigantic scale, they can meet with no success. As a life-long Socialist has frequently observed to me, "Socialism has never been a working-cla.s.s movement; it was always we of the middle or upper cla.s.ses who sought to instil the principles of Socialism into the minds of working men." Mr. Hyndman's candid confessions of the failures to enlist the sympathies even of slum-dwellers in his schemes of social regeneration bear out this testimony.

Less honest Socialist orators as the result of long experience have therefore adopted the more effectual policy of appealing to the predatory instincts of the crowd. From Babeuf onwards, Socialism has only been able to make headway by borrowing the language of Anarchy in order to blast its way to power.

Socialism is thus essentially a system of deception devised by middle-cla.s.s theorists and in no sense a popular creed. Had the revolutionary movement of the past 150 years really proceeded from the people, it would inevitably have followed the line laid down by one of the two sections of the proletariat indicated above, that is to say, it would either have taken the form of a continuous and increasing agitation for social reforms which would have enlisted the sympathy of all right-thinking men and must therefore in the end have proved irresistible, or it would have followed the line of Anarchy, organizing brigandage on a larger and yet larger scale, until, all owners of wealth having been exterminated and their expropriators in their turn exterminated by their fellows, the world would have been reduced to a depopulated desert.

But the world revolution has followed neither of these lines. Always the opponent of sane social reforms which Socialists deride as "melioration"

or as futile attempts to sh.o.r.e up an obsolete system, it has consistently disa.s.sociated itself from such men as Lord Shaftesbury, who did more to better the conditions of the working cla.s.ses than anyone who has ever lived. Anarchy, on the other hand, has been used by them merely as a means to an end; for genuine revolutionary sentiment they have no use at all. In Russia the Anarchists became the first objects of Soviet vengeance. The cynical att.i.tude of Socialists towards the revolutionary proletariat was ill.u.s.trated by Mr. Bernard Shaw, who in December 1919 openly boasted that he had helped to organize the railway strike,[732]

and two years later wrote about the miners' strike in the following terms:

A Socialist State would not tolerate such an attack on the community as a strike for a moment. If a Trade Union attempted such a thing, the old Capitalist law against Trade Unions as conspiracies would be re-enacted within twenty-four hours and put ruthlessly into execution. Such a monstrosity as the recent coal strike, during which the coal-miners spent all their savings in damaging their neighbours and wrecking the national industries, would be impossible under Socialism. It was miserably defeated, as it deserved to be.[733]

Now, if this had been written by the Duke of Northumberland in the _National Review_ instead of by Mr. Bernard Shaw in the _Labour Monthly_, one can imagine the outcry there would have been in the Socialist press. But the leaders of what is called democracy may always use what language they please in speaking of the people. "Our peasants,"

Maxim Gorky openly declared, "are brutal and debased, hardly human. I hate them."[734] It will be noticed that in descriptions of the French Revolution references to the savageries of the people are never resented by the Liberal or Socialist press; the persons of the leaders alone are sacred. It is clearly not the cause of democracy but of demagogy that these champions of "liberty" are out to defend.

The world-revolution is therefore not a popular movement but a conspiracy to impose on the people a system directly opposed to their real demands and aspirations, a system which, moreover, has proved disastrous every time an attempt has been made to put it into practice.

Russia has provided a further example of its futility. The fact that the more responsible leaders in this country do not advocate violence, does not affect the ultimate issue. Whilst Bolshevism sets out to destroy Capitalism at a blow, Socialism prefers a more gradual process. It is the difference between clubbing a man on the head and bleeding him to death--that is all.

The fact is that all Socialism leads to Communism in the long run[735]

and therefore to disaster. The Bolshevist regime brought ruin and misery to Russia not because of the brutality of its methods, but because it was founded on the gigantic economic fallacy that industry can be carried on without private enterprise and personal initiative. The same theory applied by const.i.tutional methods would produce precisely the same results. If the Socialists are ever allowed to carry out their full programme, England may be reduced to the state of Russia without the shedding of a drop of blood.

But how are we to explain the fact that in spite of the failure of Socialism in the past, in spite of the gigantic fiasco presented by Russia, in spite, moreover, of the declaration by the Bolsheviks themselves that Communism had failed and must be replaced by "a new economic policy," that is to say by a return to "Capitalism,"[736]

there should still be a large and increasing body of people to proclaim the efficacy of Socialism as the remedy for all social ills? In any other field of human experiment, in medicine or mechanical invention, failure spells oblivion; the prophylactic that does not cure, the machine that cannot be made to work, is speedily relegated to the sc.r.a.p-heap. What indeed should we say of the bacteriologist, who, after killing innumerable patients with a particular serum, were to advertise it as an unqualified success? Should we not brand such a man as an unscrupulous charlatan or at best as a dangerous visionary? If, moreover, we were to find that large bands of agents backed by unlimited funds, were engaged in pressing his remedy upon the public and carefully avoiding all reference to the fatalities it had caused, should we not further conclude that there was "something behind all this"--some powerful company "running" the concern with a view to advancing its own private interests?

Why should not the same reasoning be applied to Socialism? For not only has Socialism never been known to succeed, but all its past failures are carefully kept dark by its exponents. Who, then, stands to gain by advocating it? And further, who provides the vast sums spent on propaganda? If in reality Socialism is a rising of the "have-nots"

against the "haves," how is it that most of the money seems to be on the side of the "have-nots"? For whilst organizations working for law and order are hampered at every turn for funds, no financial considerations ever seem to interfere with the activities of the so-called "Labour movement." Socialism, in fact, appears to be a thoroughly "paying concern," into which a young man enters as he might go into the City, with the reasonable expectation of "doing well." It is only necessary to glance at the history of the past hundred years to realize that "agitation" has provided a pleasant and remunerative career for hundreds of middle-cla.s.s authors, journalists, speakers, organizers, and dilettantes of all kinds who would otherwise have been condemned to pa.s.s their lives on office-stools or at schoolmasters' desks. And when we read the accounts of the delightful treats provided for these "devoted workers" in the cause of the proletariat as given in the records of the First Internationale or the pages of Mrs. Snowden, we begin to understand the attractions of Socialism as a profession.[737]

But again I repeat: _Who provides the funds for this vast campaign_? Do they come out of the pockets of the workers or from some other mysterious reservoir of wealth? We shall return to this point in a later chapter.

How is it possible at any rate to believe in the sincerity of the exponents of equality who themselves adopt a style of living so different from that of the proletariat whose cause they profess to represent? If the doctrinaires of Socialism formed a band of ascetics who had voluntarily renounced luxury and amus.e.m.e.nt in order to lead lives of poverty and self-sacrifice--as countless really devoted men and women _not_ calling themselves Socialists have done--we should still doubt the soundness of their economic theories as applied to society in general, but we should respect their disinterestedness. But with very few exceptions Socialist Intellectuals dine and sup, feast and amuse themselves with as few scruples of conscience as any unregenerate Tories.

With people such as these it is obviously as futile to reason, as it would be to attempt to convince the agent of a quack medicine company that the nostrums he presses on the public will not effect a cure. He is very well aware of that already. Hence the efforts of well-meaning people to set forth in long, well-reasoned arguments the "fallacies of Socialism" produce little or no result. All these so-called "fallacies"

have been exposed repeatedly by able writers and disproved by all experience, so that if based merely on ignorance or error they would long since have ceased to obtain credence. The truth is that they are not fallacies but lies, deliberately devised and circulated by men who do not believe in them for a moment and who can therefore only be described as unscrupulous charlatans exploiting the credulity of the public.

But if this description may be legitimately applied to the brains behind Socialism and to certain of its leading doctrinaires, there are doubtless thousands of honest visionaries to be found in the movement. A system that professes to cure all the ills of life inevitably appeals to generous minds that feel but do not reason. In reality many of these people, did they but know it, are simply social reformers at heart and not Socialists at all, and their ignorance of what Socialism really means leads them to range themselves under the banner of a party that claims a monopoly of ideals. Others again, particularly amongst the young intelligentsia, take up Socialism in the same spirit as they would adopt a fas.h.i.+on in ties or waistcoats, for fear of being regarded as "reactionaries." That in reality, far from being "advanced," the profession of Socialism is as retrogressive as would be a return to the side-whiskers and plaid trousers of the last century, does not occur to them. The great triumph of Mussolini was to make the youth of Italy realize that to be a Communist was to be a "back number," and that progress consisted in marching forward to new ideas and aspirations. The young men of Cabet's settlement discovered this sixty years ago when they formed themselves into a band of "Progressives" in opposition to the old men who still clung to the obsolete doctrine of Communism.

Socialism at the present moment is in reality less a creed than a cult, founded not on practical experience but on unreal theory. It is here we find a connexion with secret societies. M. Augustin Cochin in his brilliant essays on the French Revolution[738] has described that "World of the Clouds" of which the Grand Orient was the capital, peopled by the precursors of the French Revolution. "Whilst in the real world the criterion of all thought lies in putting it to the test," there in the World of the Clouds the criterion is opinion. "They are there to talk, not to do; all this intellectual agitation, this immense traffic in speeches, writings, correspondence, leads not to the slightest beginning of work, of real effort." We should be wrong to judge them harshly; their theories on the perfectibility of human nature, on the advantages of savagery, which appear to us "dangerous chimeras," were never intended to apply to real life, only to the World of the Clouds, where they present no danger but become, on the contrary, "the most fecund truths."

The revolutionary explosion might well have finally shattered these illusions but for the Grand Orient. We have already seen the ident.i.ty of theory between French Masonry and French Socialism in the nineteenth century. It was thus that, although in France one experiment after another demonstrated the unreality of Socialist Utopias, the lodges were always there to reconstruct the mirage and lead humanity on again across the burning desert sands towards the same phantom palm-trees and illusory pools of water.

Whatever the manner in which these ideas penetrated to this country--whether through the Radicals of the last century, adorers of the Encyclopaedist Masons of France, or through the British disciples of German Social Democrats from the time of the First Internationale onwards--it is impossible to ignore the resemblance between the theories not only of French but of modern British Socialism and the doctrines of illuminized Freemasonry. Thus the idea running through Freemasonry of a Golden Age before the Fall, when man was free and happy, and which through the application of masonic principles is to return once more, finds an exact counterpart in the Socialist conception of a past halcyon era of Liberty and Equality, which is to return not merely in the form of a regenerated social order, but as a complete Millennium from which all the ills of human life have been eliminated. This idea has always haunted the imagination of Socialist writers from Rousseau to William Morris, and leads directly up to the further theory--the necessity for destroying civilization.

I cannot find in Mr. Lothrop Stoddart's conception of the revolutionary movement as the revolt of the "Under Man" against civilization, the origin of this campaign. In reality the leaders of world-revolution have not been "Under Men," victims of oppression or of adverse fate, nor could they be ranged in this category on account of physical or mental inferiority. It is true that most revolutionary agitators have been in some way abnormal and that the revolutionary army has largely been recruited from the unfit, but the real inspirers of the movement have frequently been men in prosperous circ.u.mstances and of brilliant intellect who might have distinguished themselves on other lines had they not chosen to devote their talents to subversion. To call Weishaupt, for example, an "Under Man" would be absurd. But let us see what is the idea on which the plan of destroying civilization is ostensibly founded.

It will be remembered that Rousseau like Weishaupt held that the Golden Age of felicity did not end in the garden of Eden, as is popularly supposed, but was prolonged into tribal and nomadic life. Up to this moment Communism was the happy disposition under which the human race existed and which vanished with the introduction of civilization.

Civilization is therefore the _fons et origo mali_ and should be done away with. Let no one exclaim that this theory died out either with Rousseau or with Weishaupt; the idea that "civilization is all wrong"

runs all through the writings and speeches of our Intellectual Socialists to-day. I have referred elsewhere to Mr. H.G. Wells's prediction that mankind will more and more revert to the nomadic life, and Mr. Snowden has recently referred in tones of evident nostalgia to that productive era when man "lived under a system of tribal Communism."[739] The children who attend the Socialist Schools are also taught in the "Red Catechism" the advantages of savagery, thus:

Question. Do savages starve in the midst of plenty?

Answer. No; when there is plenty of food they all rejoice, feast, and make merry.[740]

That when there is not plenty of food they occasionally eat each other is not mentioned.

Here, then, is the theory on which this yearning for a return to nature is based. For it is quite probable that if a Golden Age ever existed it was Communistic; it is also true that certain primitive tribes have found it possible to continue the same system, for the simple reason that when and where the earth was very thinly populated it brought forth, without the artificial aid of agriculture, more than enough to supply each man's needs. There was therefore no need for laws to protect property, since every man could help himself freely to all that he required. If at the present time a dozen people were s.h.i.+pwrecked on a fertile island some miles in area, the inst.i.tution of property would be equally superfluous; if, however, several hundred were to share the same fate, it would at once become necessary to inst.i.tute some system of cultivation which in its turn would necessitate either the inst.i.tution of property, by which each man would depend on his own plot of land for his existence, or a communal system, by which all would be obliged to work for the common good and force applied to those who refused to do their allotted share.

Peaceful Communism is thus simply a matter of population; the conditions under which men can sit in the sun and enjoy the fruits of the earth with little effort must be transformed with the multiplication of the human species into a system which recognizes private property, or a communal State which enforces compulsory labour by means of overseers with whips. It was perhaps an appreciation of this truth that impelled the practical exponents of Rousseau's doctrines, the Terrorists of 1793, to embark on their "plan of depopulation" by way of establis.h.i.+ng Communism on a peaceful basis.

But our Intellectual Socialists deny this necessity on the ground that under the benign regime of Socialism all men would be good and happy and would work joyfully for the welfare of the community. The fact that this has not proved the case even in voluntary Communist settlements does not daunt them, because, as has been said, their creed is founded not on practical experiment, but on theory, and it is here that we again find the inspiration of Grand Orient Freemasonry. The a.s.sumption that under an ideal social order all human failings would vanish derives directly from the two masonic doctrines which the Grand Orient, under the influence of Illuminism, has brought to a _reductio ad absurdum_--the perfectibility of human nature and universal brotherhood. The whole philosophy of Socialism is built upon these false premises.

Indeed the actual phraseology of illuminized Freemasonry has now pa.s.sed into the language of Socialism; thus the old formulae of "the United States of Europe" and "the Universal Republic" have been adopted not only by Mrs. Besant and her followers[741] as the last word in modern thought, but have also reappeared as a brilliant inspiration under the pen of Mr. H.G. Wells in the slightly varied form of the "World State."

It would be amusing, for anyone who had the time, to discover how many of the ideas of our so-called advanced thinkers might be found almost verbatim in the writings of Weishaupt, the _Republique Universelle_ of Anacharsis Clootz, and in the speeches of Grand Orient orators during the last century.

Moreover, the world-revolution is not only founded on the doctrines of illuminized Freemasonry, but has adopted the same method of organization. Thus, after the plan of the secret societies, from the Batinis onward, we shall find the forces of revolution divided into successive grades--the lowest consisting of the revolutionary proletariat, the _chair a revolution_ as Marx expressed it, knowing nothing of the theory of Socialism, still less of the real aims of the leaders; above this the semi-initiates, the doctrinaires of Socialism, comprising doubtless many sincere enthusiasts; but above these again further grades leading up to the real initiates, who alone know whither the whole movement is tending.

For the final goal of world-revolution is not Socialism or even Communism, it is not a change in the existing economic system, it is not the destruction of civilization in a material sense; the revolution desired by the leaders is a moral and spiritual revolution, an anarchy of ideas by which all standards set up throughout nineteen centuries shall be reversed, all honoured traditions trampled under foot, and above all the Christian ideal finally obliterated.

It is true that a certain section of the Socialist movement proclaims itself Christian. The Illuminati made the same profession, so have the modern Theosophists and Rosicrucians. But, as in the case of these secret societies, we should ask of so-called Christian Socialists: What do they means by Christ? What do they mean by Christianity? On examination it will be found that their Christ is a being of their own inventing, that their Christianity is a perversion of Christ's real teaching.

The Christ of Socialism invoked in the interests of Pacifism as the opponent of force and in the interests of cla.s.s warfare as a Socialist, a revolutionary, or even an "agitator," bears no resemblance to the real Christ. Christ was not a Pacifist when He told His disciples to arm themselves with swords, when He made a scourge of cords and drove the money-changers from the Temple. He did not tell men to forgive the enemies of their country or of their religion, but only their private enemies. Christ was not a Socialist when He declared that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth."

Socialism teaches that a man must never rest content as long as another man possesses that which he has not. Christ did not believe in equality of payment when He told the parable of the ten talents and the unprofitable servant. Socialism would reduce all labour to the pace of the slowest. Above all, Christ was not a Socialist when He bade the young man who had great possessions sell all that he had and give it to the poor. _What School of Socialism has ever issued such a command?_ On the contrary, Socialists are enjoined by their leaders not to give their money away in charity lest they should help by this means to prolong the existence of the present social system. The truth is that, as I showed in connexion with the fallacy of representing Christ as an Essene, there is no evidence to show that He or His disciples practised even the purest form of Communism. Christ did not advocate any economic or political system; He preached a spirit which if applied to any system would lead to peace among men. It is true that He enjoined His disciples to despise riches and that He denounced many of the rich men with whom He came into contact, but it must not be forgotten that His immediate mission was to a race that had always glorified riches, that had wors.h.i.+pped the golden calf, and by which wealth was regarded as the natural reward of G.o.dliness.[742] Christ came to teach men not to look for present reward in the form of increased material welfare, but to do good out of love to G.o.d and one's neighbour.

I do not doubt that in the past such men as Kingsley and J.F.D. Maurice sincerely imagined that they were following in the footsteps of the Master by describing themselves as Christian Socialists, but that the present leaders of Socialism in England are Christians at heart is impossible to believe in view of their att.i.tude towards the campaign against Christianity in Russia. Never once have they or their allies, the Quakers, officially denounced the persecution not only of the priests but of all who profess the Christian faith in Russia.[743] Listen to this voice from the abyss of Russia:

We very much ask for prayer for the Church of Russia; it is pa.s.sing through great tribulation and it is a question whether spiritual or earthly power will triumph. Many are being executed for not denying G.o.d.... Those placed by G.o.d at the helm need all the prayer and help of Christians all over the earth, because their fate is partly theirs too, for it is a question of faith triumphing over atheism, and it is a tug-of-war between those two principles.[744]

And again:

I look upon the persecution of the Russian Church as an effort to overthrow Christianity in general, for we are governed just now by the power of darkness, and all that we consider sinful seems to get the upper hand and to prosper.[744]

Yet it is for this power that the Socialist Party of Great Britain have for years been demanding recognition. Even the appeals for help from their fellow-Socialists in Russia have left them cold. "We would suggest," ran one such appeal--

1. That the British Labour Party issue an official protest against the Soviet Government's inhuman treatment of its political opponents in general and the political prisoners in particular.

2. That meetings of protest should be organized in the industrial towns of Great Britain.

3. That the British Labour Party make an official representation to the Soviet Government directly, urging the latter to put a stop to the persecutions of the Socialists in Russia.[745]

And it was of this regime that Mr. Lansbury wrote:

Whatever their faults, the Communist leaders of Russia have hitched their wagon to a star--the star of love, brotherhood, comrades.h.i.+p.[746]

The callous indifference displayed by British Socialists, with the honourable exception of the Social Democratic Federation,[747] towards the crimes of the Bolsheviks offers indeed a painful contrast to the att.i.tude of the other Socialists of Europe. At the conference of the Labour and Socialist International at Hamburg in May 1923, a resolution was pa.s.sed condemning the persecution by the Soviet Government. When the resolution was put to the congress, 196 voted for, 2 against it, and 39, including the 30 British delegates, abstained.

I ask, then: Why should the Socialists of Great Britain be differentiated from the Bolsheviks of Russia? In every question of importance they have always lent them their support. In the great war on Christianity they have acted as the advance guard by the inst.i.tution of Socialist Sunday-schools, from which all religious teaching is excluded.

Socialists are very anxious to disa.s.sociate these from the "Proletarian"

Sunday-schools which teach atheism. But from ignoring the existence of G.o.d to denying it is but a step; moreover, it will be noticed that the Socialists have never issued any protests against the blasphemies of the Proletarian schools. The real att.i.tude of the Socialist Party towards religion may perhaps be gauged by the notice, reproduced on page 341, which once appeared in its official organ the _Daily Herald_, of which Mr. Lansbury, widely advertised as a fervent Christian, was once editor and is now managing director.