[Footnote: I have dealt with Mr. Cole's theory rather than with
the experience of Soviet Russia because, while the testimony is
fragmentary, all competent observers seem to agree that Russia in 1921
does not illustrate a communist state in working order. Russia is in
revolution, and what you can learn from Russia is what a revolution is
like. You can learn very little about what a communist society would
be like. It is, however, immensely significant that, first as
practical revolutionists and then as public officials, the Russian
communists have relied not upon the spontaneous democracy of the
Russian people, but on the discipline, special interest and the
noblesse oblige of a specialized class-the loyal and indoctrinated
members of the Communist party. In the "transition," on which no time
limit has been set, I believe, the cure for class government and the
coercive state is strictly homeopathic.
There is also the question of why I selected Mr. Cole's books rather
than the much more closely reasoned "Constitution for the Socialist
Commonwealth of Great Britain" by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. I admire
that book very much; but I have not been able to convince myself that
it is not an intellectual tour de force. Mr. Cole seems to me far more
authentically in the spirit of the socialist movement, and therefore,
a better witness.]
CHAPTER XX
A NEW IMAGE
1
THE lesson is, I think, a fairly clear one.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322