Georges Sorel

“ The conception of the general strike, engendered by the practice of violent strikes, admits the conception of an irrevocable overthrow. There is something terrifying in this which will appear more and more terrifying as violence takes a greater place in the mind of the proletariat. But, in undertaking a serious, formidable, and sublime work, Socialists raise themselves above our frivolous society and make themselves worthy of pointing out new roads to the world. ”

“ For a long time Socialism was scarcely anything but a Utopia; the Marxists were right in claiming for their master the honour of bringing about a change in this state of things; Socialism has now become the preparation of the masses employed in great industries for the suppression of the State and property; and it is no longer necessary, therefore, to discuss how men must organise themselves in order to enjoy future happiness; everything is reduced to the revolutionary apprenticeship of the proletariat. ”

“ Syndicalism claims to create a real proletarian ideology, and whatever the middle-class professors say of it, historical experience, as proclaimed by the mouth of Renan, tells us that this is quite possible, and that out of it may come the salvation of the world. The syndicalist movement is really being developed underground; the men who devote themselves to it do not make much noise in the world; what a difference between them and the former leaders of democracy, whose sole aim was the conquest of power! ”

“ Before the working class also could accept this dictatorship of incapacity, it must itself become as stupid as the middle class, and must lose all revolutionary energy, at the same time that its masters will have lost all capitalistic energy. Such a future is not impossible; and a great deal of hard work is being done to stupefy the worker for this purpose. The Direction du Travail and the Musée Social are doing their best to carry on this marvellous work of idealistic education, which is decorated with the most pompous names, and which is represented as a means of civilising the proletariat. ”

“ No writer has defined more forcibly than Proudhon the principles of that morality which modern times have in vain sought to realise. "To feel and to assert the dignity of man," he says, "first in everything in connection with ourselves, then in the person of our neighbour, and that without a shadow of egoism, without any consideration either of divine or communal sanction—therein lies Right. To be ready to defend that dignity in every circumstance with energy, and, if necessary, against oneself, that is Justice." ”

“ Rejecting all Utopias, these two founders of modern Socialism renounced all the resources by which their predecessors had rendered the prospect of a great revolution less formidable; but however strong the expressions which they employed might have been, the effects which they produced are still very inferior to those produced by the evocation of the general strike. This conception makes it impossible for us to ignore the fact that a kind of irresistible wave will pass over the old civilisation. ”

“ It is, in fact, certain that a great development of brutality accompanied by much blood-letting is quite unnecessary in order to induce the workers to look upon economic conflicts as the reduced facsimiles of the great battle which will decide the future. If a capitalist class is energetic, it is constantly affirming its determination to defend itself; its frank and consistently reactionary attitude contributes at least as greatly as proletarian violence towards keeping distinct that cleavage between the classes which is the basis of all Socialism. ”

“ We, at the present day, can dispense with religion, because others have it for us. Those who do not believe are carried along by the more or less believing majority; but on the day when the majority lose this impulse, the men of spirit themselves will go feebly to the attack." It is the absence of the sentiment of sublimity which Renan dreaded; like all old people in their days of sadness, he thinks of his childhood, and adds, "Man is of value in proportion to the religious sentiment which he preserves from his first education and which colours his whole life." ”

“ The ideologists hardly trouble themselves at all with this question; they affirm that the decadence will stop on the day that the public Treasury is at their disposal; they are dazzled by the immense reserve of riches which would be delivered up to their pillage; what banquets there would be, what women, and what opportunities for self-display! We, on the other hand, who have no such prospect before our eyes, have to ask whether history can furnish us with any guidance on this subject, which will enable us to guess what would be the result of a revolution accomplished in times of decadence. ”

“ Former militant Socialists provided with modest jobs, middle-class people, educated, frivolous, and eager to be in the public eye, and Stock Exchange speculators imagine that a golden age might spring up for them as the result of a cautious—a very cautious—revolution, which would not seriously disturb the traditional State. Quite naturally, these future masters of the world harbour the thought of reproducing the history of middle-class force, and they are organising themselves so that they may be able to draw the greatest possible profit from this revolution. ”

“ Existing social conditions favour the production of an infinite number of acts of violence, and there has been no hesitation in urging the workers not to refrain from brutality when this might do them service. ”

“ Socialists must be convinced that the work to which they are devoting themselves is a serious, formidable, and sublime work; it is only on this condition that they will be able to bear the innumerable sacrifices imposed on them by a propaganda, which can procure them neither honours, profits, nor even immediate intellectual satisfaction. Even if the only result of the idea of the general strike was to make the Socialist conception more heroic, it should on that account alone be looked upon as having an incalculable value. ”

“ The introduction of anti-patriotism into the working-class movement is all the more remarkable because it came just when the Government was about to put its theories about the solidarity of the classes into practice. It was in vain that Léon Bourgeois approached the proletariat with particularly amiable airs and graces; in vain that he assured the workers that capitalist society was one great family, and that the poor had a right to share in the general riches ”

“ You know as well as I do that all that is best in the modern mind is derived from this "torment of the infinite"; you are not one of those people who look upon the tricks by means of which readers can be deceived by words, as happy discoveries. That is why you will not condemn me for having attached great worth to a myth which gives to socialism such high moral value and such great sincerity. It is because the theory of myths tends to produce such fine results that so many seek to dispute it. ”

“ The question whether the general strike is a partial reality, or only a product of popular imagination, is of little importance. All that it is necessary to know is, whether the general strike contains everything that the Socialist doctrine expects of the revolutionary proletariat.
To solve this question we are no longer compelled to argue learnedly about the future; we are not obliged to indulge in lofty reflections about philosophy, history, or economics; we are not on the plane of theories, and we can remain on the level of observable facts. ”

“ Capitalism drives the proletariat into revolt, because in daily life the employers use their force in a direction opposed to the desire of their workers; but the future of the proletariat is not entirely dependent on this revolt; the working classes are organised under the influence of other causes, and Socialism, inculcating in them the revolutionary idea, prepares them to suppress the hostile class. Capitalist force is at the base of all this process, and its action is automatic and inevitable. ”

“ It is often urged, in objection to the people who defend the Marxian conception, that it is impossible for them to stop the movement of degeneration which is dragging both the middle class and the proletariat far from the paths assigned to them by Marx's theory. They can doubtless influence the working classes, and it is hardly to be denied that strike violences do keep the revolutionary spirit alive; but how can they hope to give back to the middle class an ardour which is spent? ”

“ It is not the business of the historian to award prizes for virtue, to propose the erection of statues, or to establish any catechism whatever; his business is to understand what is least individual in the course of events; the questions which interest the chroniclers and excite novelists are those which he most willingly leaves on one side. And so I am not at all concerned to justify the perpetrators of violence, but to inquire into the function of violence of the working classes in contemporary Socialism. ”

“ I have, in fact, established that proletarian violence has an entirely different significance from that attributed to it by superficial scholars and by politicians. In the total ruin of institutions and of morals there remains something which is powerful, new, and intact, and it is that which constitutes, properly speaking, the soul of the revolutionary proletariat. ”

“ We have nowadays abandoned all hope of discovering a complete science of nature; the spectacle of modern scientific revolutions is not encouraging for scientists, and has no doubt led many people, naturally enough, to proclaim the bankruptcy of science, and yet we should be mad if we handed the management of industry over to sorcerers, mediums, and wonder-workers. The philosopher who does not seek to make a practical application of his theories may take up the point of view of the future historian of science, and then dispute the absolute character of present-day scientific theses ”

“ In the economic world everybody limits his duty by his unwillingness to give up certain profits. While the employer will be always convinced that he has done the whole of his duty, the worker will be of a contrary opinion, and no argument could possibly settle the matter: the first will believe that he has been heroic, and the second will treat this pretended heroism as shameful exploitation. ”

“ They cannot apply to it the commonplaces which generally serve them when they speak about force, and they look with terror on movements which may result in the ruin of the institutions by which they live. If revolutionary syndicalism triumphs, there will be no more brilliant speeches on immanent Justice, and the parliamentary regime, so dear to the intellectuals, will be finished with—it is the abomination of desolation! We must not be astonished, then, that they speak about violence with so much anger. ”

“ But then what remains of the Revolution when we have taken away the epic of the wars against the coalition, and of that of the victories of the populace? What remains is not very savoury: police operations, proscriptions, and sittings of servile courts of law. The employment of the force of the State against the vanquished shocks us all the more because so many of the coryphées of the Revolution were soon to be distinguished among the servants of Napoleon, and to employ the same police zeal on behalf of the Emperor as they did on behalf of the Terror. ”

“ If, on the contrary, the middle class, led astray by the chatter of the preachers of ethics and sociology, return to an ideal of conservative mediocrity, seek to correct the abuses of economics, and wish to break with the barbarism of their predecessors, then one part of the forces which were to further the development of capitalism is employed in hindering it, an arbitrary and irrational element is introduced, and the future of the world becomes completely indeterminate. ”

“ We are perfectly well aware that the historians of the future are bound to discover that we laboured under many illusions, because they will see behind them a finished world. We, on the other hand, must act, and nobody can tell us to-day what these historians will know; nobody can furnish us with the means of modifying our motor images in such a way as to avoid their criticisms.
Our situation resembles somewhat that of the physicists who work at huge calculations based on theories which are not destined to endure for ever. ”

“ We have the right to conclude from the preceding analysis that Syndicalist violence, perpetrated in the course of strikes by proletarians who desire the overthrow of the State, must not be confused with those acts of savagery which the superstition of the State suggested to the revolutionaries of '93, when they had power in their hands and were able to oppress the conquered—following the principles which they had received from the Church and from the Monarchy. ”

“ Socialism is necessarily very obscure, since it deals with production, i.e. with the most mysterious part of human activity, and since it proposes to bring about a radical transformation of that region which it is impossible to describe with the clearness that is to be found in more superficial regions. No effort of thought, no progress of knowledge, no rational induction will ever dispel the mystery which envelops Socialism; and it is because the philosophy of Marx recognised fully this feature of Socialism that it acquired the right to serve as the starting-point of Socialist inquiry. ”

“ This juridical faith ... this science of right and duty, which we seek everywhere in vain, that the Church has never possessed, and without which it is impossible for us to live, I say that the Revolution created all its principles; that these principles, unknown to us, rule and uphold us, but while at the bottom of our hearts affirming them, we shrink from them through prejudice, and it is this infidelity to ourselves that makes our moral poverty and servitude. ”

“ If I were more vain about my literary efforts than I am, I should like to imagine that he was thinking of me when he said in the Senate, on November 16, 1906, that "one must not mistake a fanatic for a party, nor rash statements for a system of doctrine." There is only one pleasure greater than that of being appreciated by intelligent people, and that is the pleasure of not being understood by blunderheads, who are only capable of expressing in a kind of jargon what serves them in the place of thought. ”

“ The political general strike concentrates the whole of this conception into one easily understood picture: it shows us how the State would lose nothing of its strength, how the transmission of power from one privileged class to another would take place, and how the mass of the producers would merely change masters. These new masters would very probably be less able than those of to-day; they would make more flowery speeches than the capitalists, but there is every evidence that they would be much harder and much more insolent than their predecessors. ”

“ Instead of bribing some influential person the employers raise their workmen's wages; from their point of view there is no difference. As for the Government, it becomes the benefactor of the people, and hopes that it will do well in the elections; to the politician, the electoral advantages which result from a successful conciliation are worth more than a very large bribe.
It is easy to understand now why all politicians have so great an admiration for arbitration; it is because an enterprise conducted without bribery is inconceivable to them. ”