class, and promise not to allow the people to give themselves up entirely to their anarchical instincts. They explain to the middle class that they do not by any means dream of suppressing the great State machine, but wise Socialists desire two things: (1) to take possession of this machine so that they may improve its works, and make them run to further their friends' interests as much as possible, and {2) to assure the stability of the Government, which will be very advantageous for all business men. Tocqueville had observed that, since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the administrative institutions of France having changed very little, revolutions had no longer produced any very great upheavals.[1] Socialist financiers have not read Tocqueville, but they understand instinctively that the preservation of a highly centralised, very authoritative and very democratic State puts immense resources at their disposal, and protects them from proletarian revolution. The transformations which their friends, the Parliamentary Socialists, may carry out will always be of a very limited scope, and it will always be possible, thanks to the State, to correct any imprudences they may commit.
The general strike of the Syndicalists drives away from Socialism all financiers in quest of adventures; the political strike rather pleases these gentlemen, because it would be carried out in circumstances favourable to the power of politicians, and consequently to the operations of their financial allies.[2]
- ↑ Tocqueville, L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, p. 297.
- ↑ In the Avant-Garde of October 29, 1905, may be read the report of Lucien Rolland to the National Council of the Unified Socialist Party on the election at Florac of Louis Dreyfus, a speculator in grain and shareholder of L'Humanité. "I was greatly pained," says Rolland, "to hear one of the rois de l'époque (kings of the time) speak in the name of our Internationale, of our red flag, of our principles, and cry, 'Long live the social republic!'" Those whose only knowledge of this election has been gained from the official report published in the Socialiste of October 28, 1905, will have gained a singularly false idea of it.
