France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Causes; Revolutions; Social psychology
This increase of the Jacobin spirit has resulted in the fact that
political conceptions, institutions, and laws tend to impose
themselves by force. Syndicalism, peaceful enough in other
countries, immediately assumed in France an uncompromising and
anarchical aspect, which betrayed itself in the shape of riots,
sabotage, and incendiarism.
Not to be repressed by timid Governments, the Jacobin spirit
produces melancholy ravages in minds of mediocre capacity. At a
recent congress of railway men a third of the delegates voted
approval of sabotage, and one of the secretaries of the
Congress began his speech by saying: ``I send all saboteurs my
fraternal greeting and all my admiration.''
This general mentality engenders an increasing anarchy. That
France is not in a permanent state of anarchy is, as I have
already remarked, due to the fact that the parties by which she
is divided produce something like equilibrium. They are animated
by a mortal hatred for one another, but none of them is strong
enough to enslave its rivals.
This Jacobin intolerance is spreading to such an extent that the
rulers themselves employ without scruple the most revolutionary
tactics with regard to their enemies, violently persecuting any
party that offers the least resistance, and even despoiling it of
its property. Our rulers to-day behave as the ancient conquerors
used; the vanquished have nothing to hope from the victors.
Far from being peculiar to the lower orders, intolerance is
equally prominent among the ruling classes. Michelet remarked
long ago that the violence of the cultivated classes is often
greater than that of the people. It is true that they do not
break the street lamps, but they are ready enough to cause heads
to be broken. The worst violence of the revolution was the work
of cultivated bourgeoisie--professors, lawyers, &c., possessors
of that classical education which is supposed to soften the
manners. It has not done so in these days, any more than it did
of old. One can make sure of this by reading the advanced
journals, whose contributors and editors are recruited chiefly
from among the professors of the University.
Their books are as violent as their articles, and one wonders how
such favourites of fortune can have secreted such stores of
hatred.
One would find it hard to credit them did they assure us that
they were consumed by an intense passion for altruism. One
might more readily admit that apart from a narrow religious
mentality the hope of being remarked by the mighty ones of the
day, or of creating a profitable popularity, is the only
possible explanation of the violence recommended in their
written propaganda.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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