C. In Socialist literature the question of a future dictatorship of the proletariat is constantly cropping up, but nobody likes to explain it; sometimes this formula is improved and the epithet impersonal is added to the substantive dictatorships though this addition does not throw much light on the question. Bernstein pointed out a few years ago that this dictatorship would probably be that "of club orators and of literary men,"[1] and he was of opinion that the Socialists of 1848, when speaking of this dictatorship, had had in view an imitation of 1793, "a central, dictatorial and revolutionary authority, upheld by the terrorist dictatorship of the revolutionary clubs"; he was alarmed by this outlook, and he asserted that all the working men with whom he had had an opportunity of conversing were very mistrustful of the future.[2] Hence he concluded that it would be better to base Socialist policy and propaganda on a conception of modern society more in accordance with the idea of evolution. His analysis seems to me to be inadequate.
In the dictatorship of the proletariat we may first of all notice a reminiscence of the Old Régime. Socialists have for a long time been dominated by the idea that capitalist society must be likened to the feudal system; I scarcely know any idea more false and more dangerous. They imagine that the new feudalism would disappear beneath the influence of forces analogous to those which
- ↑ Bernstein evidently had in mind here a well-known article by Proudhon, from which, moreover, he quotes a fragment on page 47 of his book. This article closes with imprecations against the Intellectuals: "Then you will know what a revolution is, that has been set going by lawyers, accomplished by artists, and conducted by novelists and poets. Nero was an artist, a lyric and dramatic artist, a passionate lover of the ideal, a worshipper of the antique, a collector of medals, a tourist, a poet, an orator, a swordsman, a sophist, a Don Juan, a Lovelace, a nobleman full of wit, fancy, and fellow-feeling, overflowing with love of life and love of pleasure. That is why he was Nero" (Représentant du peuple, April 29, 1848).
- ↑ Bernstein, Socialisme thorique et social-démocratie pratique, pp. 298 and 226.
