FOREWORD TO NEW ORIENTATION BY M.N. ROY
Philip Spratt
No public man I know of, whether practical politician or mere observer, has been a more consistently correct prophet than M. N. Roy. He has been dealing for twenty-five years with European, Indian, Chinese and world politics, and on hardly any major issue have his analyses and predictions been disproved by events. He is not however merely a writer. Probably many journalists could claim a fairly impressive record of predictions come true—if only because they have written so much that they are bound to make a lucky hit now and then. Roy has always written not as a journalist but as a political strategist concerned to know what is happening so that he can act appropriately. There is therefore nothing journalistic about his writing: no ornamentation, no tub-thumping, no irrelevancies, no evasion. It is functional writing, consistent and responsible; and that such writing should prove to be so unvaryingly right must be almost unique and is certainly noteworthy.
It is strange therefore that in a country so given to hero-worship, Roy should not have become a popular idol. Not that his merits as a political thinker are entirely unrecognised. They are admitted even by some who dislike him—people who would not be found dead with a copy of Independent India yet like to know what Roy is thinking about things. It is rather that the truth hurts, and hurts in particular nearly all those who control public opinion in India.
But there is another factor in this conspiracy to ignore a man who should be among the foremost in public life; and here is perhaps a justification for the present introduction. Roy, as I have said, is not a journalist. He writes for a limited circle who understands his style of thought and his background of ideas, and seems unconcerned whether he is intelligible outside it. The documents which make up this volume were all addressed to the Radical Democratic Party and presuppose its special background. I believe they have an important message for a wider public, but their form is not such as to recommend them immediately to it. As a comparative newcomer to this party and its ideas I may be able to present a slant on them which will be more intelligible and acceptable than they are as they stand.
As Laski has put it, there is everywhere a sense that mankind is on the march, but nobody seems very clear about the direction. It is obvious that we are in the middle of a revolution which embraces the whole world, but it is equally obvious that except in Russia people have not yet decided what is to be done about it. The outcome of a revolution is not laid down completely in advance. More or less total anarchy may persist for quite a long time, and at the end almost any kind of relative stability may be achieved, but unless it fulfils certain conditions that stability will break down again fairly soon and the process will be repeated until a stable state fulfilling the conditions is reached. We have passed through one such false stabilisation and its breakdown. The minimum conditions of stability are all that can be said with certainty about the outcome of a revolution. It would seem obvious that what we have to do is to ascertain these minimum conditions of stability and set about establishing them, but in fact it is not so easy as that. Mankind is still uncertain about its direction not because these conditions are not pretty generally understood, but because, first, even after thirty years of world chaos they are still not easy to fulfill, and second—and this is where this book comes in—they do not give us a very complete guide, and as they stand they are not attractive enough.
The conditions, at least the controversial ones, can be put down as three, corresponding to the main ascertainable causes of the world breakdown. First we have to get rid of the instability arising out of clashing national ambitions, fears, etc., armed with the military power modern technology gives the larger nations. The complete solution is a world state. This is obviously still distant, but we can hope that an interim solution will be found if the other conditions are more or less adequately met. The second condition is that the instability arising from the working of inadequately controlled capitalist enterprise should be curbed. After the great depression of fifteen years ago the necessity of this is not seriously questioned—even in America part of this necessity is admitted—but how it can be done is still strongly disputed. On the world scale it is still a central difficulty. The third condition is that the rising standard of life which the mass of men everywhere have come to expect as a result of technological developments should be realised fairly quickly. People know now that the old gross poverty and inequality are not inevitable, and unless they see progress towards their abolition there is going to be trouble. This is a separate condition from the second, because a remedy for the instability of capitalism might result in a freezing of economic progress. The Gandhian school aims at this. The Nazis would probably have achieved it. Nazism, had it conquered the world, would have been a full solution in the sense that it could have preserved stability for a long period by suppressing all discontent by force. Gandhism proposes to achieve this end by ideological means, i.e. persuading people not to desire a higher standard of life; but since it could not succeed in this, Gandhism in its pure form must be ruled out as a theoretically possible solution. .
These three seem to be the main conditions which will have to be fulfilled by any solution of the world’s problem, any outcome of the world revolution now going on. There will probably be very little dissent; indeed the three conditions are commonplaces of any discussion of the subject. Yet though they are so well understood there is strangely little enthusiasm for them. This is the framework within which the problem of this book is-discussed.
India is part of the world and is involved in the revolution. Few looking at Indian conditions would care to deny this, yet that Roy always has this fact in mind is one of his graver crimes. He thinks in terms which apply first to the world as a whole, and then applies them to India with the necessary modifications, which are often not great. Now this deeply annoys many nationalists, who at bottom do not think of India as part of the world; they think India is unique, that foreign or ‘ western” ideas do not apply to her, and presumably therefore that she happens to be having a private revolution of her own. This of course is but a way of saying that they want to confine the revolution to its nationalist aspect, whereas Roy says that that is merely a small beginning, hardly worth calling a revolution at all. It is good in so far as it removes a mental obstacle to further changes: it satisfies the demand for equality of status among the nations, which has always been a main factor in nationalism; but clearly that does not get us very far.
It is interesting to notice that Roy has been saying this for more than twenty years. (See his speech “Our Future” in this volume). It is really a remarkable prophecy. He was clear on the main ideas years earlier, but the first I remember of it is an article in. The Communist International about 1924, in which he pointed out that after the 1914-18 war and by 1923 the export of British capital to India had fallen to zero. This and other facts led him to infer that in due course a peaceful transfer of political power to Indian hands would take place—not through the magic of soul-force nor out of the democratic convictions ,of the British ruling class, but by virtue of a shift of •economic power. And it followed that as regards the real problems of the revolution that transfer of power would mean nothing. The old order would remain; only the personnel at the top would change.
Now this was not just a brainwave, a bright idea for an article to be forgotten when the next article had to be written. Roy thought about it seriously, discussed it with Lenin (who .disagreed), and finally decided it was true, and stuck to it when probably nobody else in the world accepted it. He made it an essential part of his diagnosis of India’s condition, and it helped to determine his attitude to all subsequent problems. In particular it helped to decide his attitude during the recent war, when after Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940 he saw that the consummation he had prophesied could take place at any time if only the Indian National Congress would adopt a responsible attitude to the war. He saw that Congress opposition to the war was not a principled opposition, but was what betting men call hedging, a provision against the eventuality of ;an Axis victory. He said that in the circumstances it was not merely permissible but obligatory for a sincere opponent of fascism to support the war, and therefore the Government and lie did so. Now that everything he predicted has taken place, and the erstwhile incorruptible revolutionaries are cooperating to the limit, it would be only decent if those who condemned his .cooperation would admit their error. But perhaps that is too much to expect.
India being part of the world and involved in the revolution like the rest of it, we have to consider the same sort of solutions to the problem it sets. One type of solution we can rule out without any doubt. That is the type we call fascist. Fascism is .even theoretically a solution only in the form of the conquest of the world by a single fascist power. Jf two or more major powers went fascist they would fight, and that is no solution. In any case the solution is a highly undesirable one. But though we need not hesitate to reject Fascism, it needs some discussion.
In a sense it was fortunate that the fascist movement .assumed early in its career the grotesquely repulsive form of Nazism. Thereby its natural sympathisers abroad were largely disarmed, every shred of decency left in the world was rallied against it, and its military defeat was rendered possible. For the essential purpose of Fascism can be served by a far more discreet type of reaction. It is perhaps not even necessary to fascist politics that it should produce the armed monopolistic party which was typical in Europe. In Japan nationalism was so strong that this could be dispensed with, and constitutionalism was preserved, though with a fairly severe police terror. O i this point I have come to think that Roy was right again though here he was not alone. He always said that the essential points about Fascism were that it was a reaction against the current decay of capitalism, an attempt to preserve its unequal distribution of property and avoid a socialist revolution, by increasing the power of the national state and subordinating the individual to it; but how these aims were achieved was a secondary matter.
It will be seen that Fascism in this sense is simply an attempt to prevent the realisation of the three conditions we have laid down above for a stable outcome of the current world revolution. It is nationalist, thus contradicting the first condition; it insists on preserving inequality, thereby contradicting the third-and the economic system that results from these is almost bound to be unstable, thus contradicting the second. Fascism is thus the contemporary form of conservatism, or since we are living in a revolution, the contemporary form of counter-revolution.
It is possible for a country to go fascist in this sense—and it is clearly the important sense, since the frills are likely to follow anyway—without displaying in the early stages the sensational illegalities and cruelties of the European fascists, and even under the auspices of relatively sympathetic leaders and ideas. This must be grasped before it is possible to understand Roy’s assertion that in our time all nationalism is potential Fascism, that this is true of Indian nationalism, and that Gandhism is a fascist ideology.
If people will think calmly about Gandhism, they will have to admit that, like the more respectable professions of the European fascists, it is largely a cloak for quite different policies. As a certain Mr. Reid from Madras said at the last conference^ of the British Conservative Party, the Congress is the Conservative Party of India. It may have to let down its landlord supporters—it is still to be seen on what terms it does so—but it is firmly committed to capitalism, and is reconciled to the States. It is nationalist, of course, and is already working for a fully nationalist economic and political policy—an armaments industry, an active export policy, etc. Yet in plain contradiction to al! this it professes Gandhism, and Mahatma Gandhi is still its active leader. It is clear however that his teaching is in its practical effect conservative, though not Conservative: it prevents people from revolting against old-fashioned institutions and against economic and social inequality. It is only recently that he has ceased explicitly to defend landlordism and caste.
Roy was highly critical of Gandhism from the very start, in 1920, and has never altered his opinion. He has of course written much on Gandhism at one time and another, and he-has said many penetrating things about it. Yet it is true, I think, that he has failed to make his criticisms intelligible to the Indian reader. His approach to Gandhism seems that of an outsider, an unsympathetic foreigner. He has never tried to get under the skin of the Mahatma or his admirers and see where that extraordinary power comes from.
If I may digress, I once made such an attempt, though with contrary purpose. Reacting against what seemed academic; criticism of Gandhism by the left wing, I tried to find elements in it which could be used for democratic and socialist purposes. Needless to say, I found plenty, though I ended on a pessimistic note, doubting whether Gandhism would not be more easily .applied to reactionary ends. Some of the Congress Socialists have discussed a socialist ideology and even strategy deriving from Gandhism. But as Roy always thought likely, the Congress Socialists have turned out to be merely nationalists, and that seems the probable fate of any attempt of this sort to give socialism indigenous roots.
My most serious mistake in regard to Gandhism was, I suppose, to overlook the gulf between its theory and its practice. It is extraordinary, beyond almost any other movement in this respect. More often than not, it achieves the opposite of what it professes. The Mahatma’s followers do not take him seriously. They are bored with these lofty principles; they accept them as Christian congregations accept the weekly sermon on loving their neighbour, and go about their business unmoved. And the Mahatma, though in a sense he means most of what he, says, is perfectly well aware that it is largely ignored. Of course in our imperfect world this sort of contradiction is not uncommon. It is notorious in the Anglo-Saxon countries. But I think it is even more pronounced here. It is to be attributed, apart from the will to believe and the fear of non-conformity, to a general character of this ancient priestly culture, which attaches exceptional importance to words—semi-magic mantras, scriptures which must not be altered by a syllable, and the like— which allows freedom of belief, or at least of discussion, at the expense of strict conformity in practice, tends to attach higher moral value to intention than to achievement, arid has evolved an intensely introverted and other-worldly philosophy. Clearly in such a society reaction will find it exceptionally easy to masquerade as progress. And in such a society a man with Roy’s background will find himself very much out of his element. He is accustomed to the atmosphere of continental Europe, where they call a spade a spade and despise Anglo-Saxon cant—and would be astounded by Indian cant if they met it. (I am not passing judgement: cant may very well have its uses too).
Whatever it is in theory then, Gandhism in its practical applications is at nearly every point conservative, an attempt to preserve the old world whose breakdown had set us our problem. It is thus to be ruled out as no solution.
The next solution to consider is communism. This is much nearer the mark than Fascism. Indeed it is in principle a complete solution. It does not require the conquest of the world by a single power, as Fascism does. If the major powers went communist they could and probably would cooperate, and we should have peace. The instability of capitalism would certainly be abolished. And there is no reason to doubt that the standard of life would be steadily raised, especially in the more backward countries. Thus all three of our conditions would be fulfilled.
To the extent that he admits that the communists’ aims are right, Roy remains a supporter of the communist solution, and of the Soviet Union, which has shown that the instability of capitalism can be eliminated without economic disaster. What is wrong with this solution is that it has confined itself almost to the theoretical minimum necessary for a stable outcome; it has not gone far enough. The scheme as it has worked out in the Soviet Union has shown most serious defects, centring round the failure to provide individual liberty. It may be that if the communist solution were adopted throughout the world, these defects would be remedied. The problem of peace being solved, the need for militarism would vanish, and a more acceptable regime, providing reasonable liberty and equality, might emerge. Probably many communists expect this. There is however considerable doubt about it. A theory has been elaborated which condemns our idea of liberty as an error and maintains that true freedom is to be found in absorption into the body of society. And the existing illiberal regime in the Soviet Union is maintained by a powerful privileged class which would certainly not give up its dominant position easily.
In any case people judge by results. The fact is that the achievements of the Soviet Union hitherto have not been such as to inspire the rest of the world with a desire to do likewise; in fact they have stirred up a great deal of opposition, so much so that the success of communism on a world scale seems no longer a practical proposition, except possibly after further prolonged conflict. It is very striking that after the recent war, which was expected to touch off a whole series of communist revolutions,, communism has in fact expanded only so far as the Red Army has marched, and it is fairly clear that if the Red Army marches-much further it will provoke another world war.
This criticism of the Soviet Union will perhaps arouse some opposition, but it is not new and is unquestionably well founded. We cannot doubt the predominant opinion of the great number of able and in large part favourably inclined observers who* have reported from first hand on the Soviet Union. For fifteen years past these observers have been pretty consistently critical. Apart from their testimony we have the public facts of Soviet domestic and foreign policy, which together make a picture which is not attractive enough to win the support of normal cultured people abroad. It is not convincing to attribute this coolness to the influence of vested interests or propaganda. The broad truth cannot be hidden, though as Burnham has remarked there is no way to make anyone see who has decided in advance to keep his eyes shut. We have also the unquestionable fact that the Soviet occupation in Europe has been very unpopular. Manual workers are a different matter, but the middle-class people who become active members of the communist movement abroad are few, and it is reasonable to suspect, are in many cases swayed by subjective, often neurotic impulses, while the movement is now relying less on its basic principles than on nationalism and other emotion-rousing, stunts.
Probably the conditions in Russia thirty years ago left the communist leaders no alternative, but it is characteristic of their outlook to attempt by way of change only the minimum which the “objective conditions” made necessary and to overlook what people would be likely to want. Roy makes the interesting, remarks that the ultimate root of this mistaken policy is the underestimation of ideas. The underestimation of ideas is in fact explicitly professed in the post-revolutionary communist philosophy, in what is sometimes declared to be its fundamental Principle, “the unity of theory and practice, with practice-primary”. This principle is clearly a very dangerous one. It amounts to pragmatism, and pragmatism not in its original high-minded form but the caricature into which it was twisted by its critics: the truth is what works; therefore whatever I can make to work will be the truth. That is, might is right. To “unify” theory and practice, with practice coming first, is to justify whatever _ the government does, and to destroy all independent standards of judgment. It judges ideas by their practical effects, not by their truth, and thus justifies the political control of thought. A state in which the official philosophy avows this as its leading principle is bound to be illiberal. It is the opposite error to the Indian one; which elevates ideas and principles so high above the earth that people give up the attempt to adjust their practical conduct to them. And as sometimes happens, extremes show a tendency to meet.
Thus, though for very different reasons, neither Fascism nor communism provides the solution the world is waiting for. There is a third policy worth discussing, social democracy, constitutional or liberal socialism. This could be a theoretically adequate solution, and would compare favourably with communism in regard to individual freedom. Moreover its success would stir up far less opposition, even from outright capitalist America and it would thus avoid the practical difficulty on this score that faces communism. However, there is no likelihood of ‘social democracy achieving the necessary measure of success. Though it has many adherents and a few powerful parties, whose records of practical work are respectable, it is suited only to countries with a strong parliamentary tradition, and even in these has failed rather strikingly to kindle enthusiasm. It is a fair-weather policy, out of its element in our chaotic era. In its competition with communism it tends on the whole to lose ground. In any case it has had no strength hitherto in India.
Thus we seem in India as in most other countries to be left with only two competitors for our support—nationalism, which against its present will, no doubt, but we believe inexorably, will be driven towards fascism; and communism. It is remark-.able how widespread is the opinion that these are the alternatives before us, and to that opinion must be attributed much of the fatalistic pessimism which underlies the nationalist or communalist exuberance we see about us.
Roy however does not accept that opinion. Here he is not only conducting social analysis, he is judging values, and I may say that I regard his judgment of values as no less sound than his judgment of facts. He says that this dilemma is intolerable. As between the two communism is better, doubtless, but its success is most unlikely and it is not good enough. We have seen communism tried out, we can tell where and how it went wrong, and we ought to be able to avoid its worst errors.
Any ultimate solution of the world’s troubles must be socialist or collectivisty. That is inescapable. We can therefore build on the traditions of the socialist movement. But that movement in both its divergent branches has reached a dead end. A policy adequate to meet the world’s needs must avoid the errors of both the traditional socialist parties. It must get away from the lifeless, uninspiring formalism of the social democrats; and the direction in which it can look for remedies is to bring the rank-and-file voter into intimate, permanent contact with the administration, more or less in the way the original Soviets did in Russia. How this may be done is suggested in Roy’s Draft Constitution for India, which should be read together with this book. On the other hand, though it accepts the Soviet it rejects the illiberal doctrines and practices which have caused the communists to be so strongly opposed—their reliance only on the industrial working class and the poorer peasants, and hostility to other classes, their intolerance of all ideas but their own, their repudiation of free elections and of civil liberties, and their demand for a single party dictatorship. The conditions which made this narrow policy plausible thirty years ago have been destroyed by subsequent events, and over large parts of the world a really liberal but dynamic socialism can now appeal confidently to all classes except the few remaining rich. There are indications that the communists are changing their policy in this direction, but how genuine the change is remains to be seen, and even if it is genuine they will have to overcome an immense amount of doubt as to their good faith before they can make it effective.
To sum it up in slogan form, Roy says that to the three objectively necessary factors in a solution set fourth, freedom. (1; Peace; (2) Collectivism; (3) Material well-being; (4) Freedom. His Draft Constitution again suggests the kind of state structure in which these ideals can be realised. All four points could be discussed with advantage. Here I propose to make some remarks only about two of them.
Peace obviously involves some limitation upon nationalism, but how far and in what ways nationalism must be curbed is a big question. The Radical Democratic Party has incurred much defamation by ranging itself against nationalism—not in the sense of opposing the demand for national independence, but of opposing nationalism as an ideology. In this it is following the tradition of the Marxian, and indeed the pre-Marxian, socialist movement.
This socialist anti-nationalism has of late been subjected to much criticism. It is said that socialists cannot be expected to sacrifice national interests, or refuse to defend their country, or to draw inspiration from its culture; and that if they attempt to do these things they isolate themselves, not only politically but psychologically, and find themselves like a branch cut from the tree, dried up and useless. In practice the social democrats have since 1914 been nationalists, if usually of an apologetic, undemonstrative type. The communists at first denounced them as traitors for this, but latterly have gone one better and almost everywhere have become vehemently nationalistic. This has been justified by pointing out that the bourgeoisie, at one time the leaders of nationalism, showed during the Nazi-Fascist episode that they preferred the solidarity of class and wealth to that of the nation, and that it has, therefore, fallen to the masses to maintain national traditions. The communists, no doubt, seeing in this an easy way to popularity, have taken their cue eagerly, and have so to speak commandeered the national cultures.
All this however is not a complete answer to the socialist case against nationalism. It is possible in some circumstances to make use of nationalism for good ends, but it remains a dangerous tool, and even in proletarian hands will require to be used with discrimination. Technical, economic and political conditions demand world unification, and accordingly the nation as a political unit is obsolete and nationalism is reactionary. Nationalism becomes the emotional core round which gathers the ideology of the past, which a progressive movement must aim to change more or less considerably. There is a distinction between the content of a national culture and its national form. So far as that content is valuable, it is likely to be universal rather than national. When a man is thinking, or investigating, or criticising, or delineating, or expounding, he is unlikely to produce the best work unless he feels that he is pursuing the truth, and in fact most of the best culture is imbued with this universal spirit.
It does not follow that one who believes this need cut himself off psychologically from his nation or refuse to defend it or to participate in its culture, any more than he need cut himself off from his family. His efforts ought to be directed towards harmonising national interests and culture and world interest and culture.
The politics of the matter does not however solve the psychological problem, which for many people remains a serious one. Roy discusses it in one aspect in the speech “Two Psychoses” in this volume. That deals with a special case, but it seems to be generally true that the adoption of what are believed to be rational political opinions which run counter to the general opinion is apt to lead to prickings of conscience and apathy. The only practical remedy is reason. One must explore the rational foundations of one’s beliefs and be sure that they are worthy of one’s acceptance. It is particularly necessary to beware of irresponsible theoretical criticisms and extravagant hostility to common opinion. Such attitudes are often a cover for other motives, and once this attitude is punctured, one is left deflated and apathetic. But with the best possible case it takes strength to stand alone.
It is necessary on the other hand not to be defeatist about nationalism: We hear a great deal of its power as an emotion and a political force, but this may be exaggerated. It is Primarily a defensive attitude. Those who make use of it in the absence of genuine dangers have to work it up with much labour, and fabricate grievances for the purpose. Even when there are genuine dangers and grievances, it is not clear that nationalism is always the emotional centre of the response to them. In the European Resistance to the Nazis, sheer nationalism seems to have been but one factor of several. It was less national hostility to the Germans as such which destroyed their plan of European unification than resentment at their predatory policy and horror at their cruelty. In the same way in India the national movement is not a purely nationalist movement. It has always been concerned with other grievances, and in fact nationalism is to some extent fictitious, created to obscure those grievances. In considerable sections of the people it has even now failed to do so. We need not fear that we are losing an indispensable weapon by refusing to cash in on nationalism.
Internationalism is in the tradition of the socialist movement, but freedom, the fourth condition as I have put it, which Roy proposes should be made a fundamental guide and criterion of our politics, is in a more doubtful position. As Max Eastman has pointed out, the socialist movement is animated by contradictory impulses. In some of its adherents the urge to freedom predominates; but in others it is a revolt against the atomisation of bourgeois society, a desire for comradeship, fraternity; while in still others it is a revolt against the chaos and waste and inefficiency of capitalism, a demand for organisation. Whatever the rank and file have felt, in socialism as a political trend these latter collectivistic and totalitarian impulses have predominated. In Marx the urge to freedom was strong, but he rather took it for granted as an ideal and thought little about it, and he helped greatly to discredit it by identifying bourgeois freedom with free trade. The Fabians, having been brought up in bourgeois freedom, rather reacted against it, and certainly helped to discredit it. J.B. Priestley and George Orwell have both recently drawn attention to the adulation of dictators to be found throughout Bernard Shaw’s work. Though less consistently, H.G. Wells also was guilty of encouraging dictatorial ideas. The social democrats however have usually favoured freedom, if in their usual lukewarm way. It is the communists who have been the most consistent and ardent opponents of freedom, not indeed as an ultimate ideal, but here and now, in theory and in practice. For if they have used the word freedom to describe the condition of a loyal participant in the communist enterprise, they have criticised and deprecated the liberal type of freedom, and have concentrated their efforts on achieving the other two ideals, fraternity and organisation. And in this they have been moving with the times. For industrialisation and the more highly integrated society it brings inevitably increase the regimentation to which the individual is subjected; and the socialist form of industrialism, by largely destroying private property, the basis of freedom hitherto, carries the process much further still.
Is it then of any use to kick against the pricks? In an industrialised, and more especially in a socialised society, is not the eclipse of liberty inevitable?
Not if we really want liberty and organise for it and are willing to pay for it. We cannot ensure it of course by abstract declarations. It will require careful working out and patient education. But that is true of almost any good which is to be enjoyed by a modern society. The constitution, the rights it guarantees, the legal system, can all be so ordered as to help freedom and hamper tyranny. The right, for example, to a minimum living wage whether one works or idles, would go far to deprive the state of its power to coerce the individual. It would be expensive, but to a libertarian it would be worth it. Similarly genuine freedom of association could largely replace private property as the basis of effective freedom for unorthodox and sectional opinions and their expression. There is no absolute need for a socialised society to monopolise the press, broadcasting, the cinema and education. If we really want liberty we can so arrange that within quite wide limits minorities and even cliques and cranks have effective access to these means of expressing themselves. Indeed we must so arrange, for that what freedom means.
It has always been the socialist view that in spite of superficial appearances industrialism makes for freedom as well as against it. A small illustration comes from Nazi Germany, where least of all places did they deliberately plan for freedom. There they inaugurated something approching the freedom to travel. Of course they did not make it free, but they sent many poor people, who otherwise might never have left their home town, to see the Norwegian fiords and the sun above the horizon at midnight. Subsidised travel all over the world, organised to be genuinely free, would be a valuable freedom.
This is all very well, but is freedom really practical politics? Nobody proposes to dispense with the criminal law, nor with a constitution, or political and economic leadership, or other inducements to cooperative behaviour. The trouble in India is likely to be less any exuberant kicking over the traces than a timid clinging to old ways and a refusal to exercise the creative ability that people possess though they so often do not know it. For the people of India are well prepared for liberty in this sense, that their chains are very largely internal, forged by themselves, and they are accustomed to a considerable degree of external theoretical liberty. A people restrained by external force will fall into anarchy when that force is relaxed. A people restrained by their own inhibitions will grow into freedom without many excesses. The problem of India is to induce people to be free, to overcome their fear of it. This can be done by combining with freedom as high a degree of material security as possible, by breaking down cultural isolation, which ties people to their roots, and by providing opportunity.
It is a big experiment, an act of faith in human nature, but what we know of human nature is not discouraging, and it is doubtful if there is any other way. One of the greatest authorities on human nature, Freud, said in a discussion of Soviet Russia, “People who are going to produce liberty some time in the future are just the same for me as people who are going to have it ready for you in the celestial paradise.” If we really want freedom we must go for it now.
One more doubt. Granted that we can be free if we want to, do we want to? Is it not a rather too aristocratic ideal? Is freedom as a political objective popular enough to provide the urge to a mass movement so strong as to dissipate the deadlock between capitalist nationalism and Communism?
Freedom is loved best by those who are most completely deprived of it. The nineteenth-century Europeans fleeing from their quasi-serfdom or their ghettos to the New World, or the twentieth century Europeans under the Nazi conquest, these knew the meaning of tyranny and developed a passionate urge to freedom. We have not been deprived of freedom to quite that extent, but we have experienced external compulsion enough to make freedom the most popular national objective.
The demand for freedom, if not of the fiercest intensity, is very widespread. Every party subscribes to it. The restrictions upon freedom in Russia have caused a strong reaction against communism. It can almost be said that the popular cry of the moment is libertarian socialism. The Gandhists base their objection to both capitalism and socialism mainly upon the supposed tendency of both to destroy freedom, and correspondingly put forward its ability to safeguard freedom as a principal claim in support of their village plan. Various other religious groups are demanding recognition as the third way between capitalism and communism on the strength of their adhesion to freedom.
The sentiment in favour of freedom exists. It will be strengthened as experience reveals that despite the good intentions of the planners planned capitalism does not yield freedom but the opposite, and that in the sphere of public policy allotted to it Gandhism is coercive and restrictive through and through. However, as I have said, our chains are for the most part of our own forging, and that will still be true in the Utopia our Gandhists and national capitalists are planning between them. But as the ideas which enchain our minds become more plainly unsuited to our situation, the process by which they are imposed on us will be more clearly felt as coercion. Freedom implies the right to err, but when the great majority hold ideas which impel them to profitless and disastrous quarrels, and lead them to prefer ruinous to useful economic policies, they will begin to feel that they are not effectively free. This is the unfreedom from which India is suffering now, and surely it is painful enough to inspire strong demand and struggle to be free, if we can show people how they are enslaved.
Freedom is not only an objective, it is a method. This is implied in Freud’s remark. If we want to achieve ‘freedom we must work for it in a free way. There will then be room for those with definite political ideas, and those with but gue aspirations, those with religious beliefs and those without—for the aim of freedom is the guarantee that none will find himself deprived of the fruits of victory. There is only one for whom there is no room: the totalitarian, open or disguised, and the method of freedom is such that as we go along he will expose himself.
Finally, I may revert to Max Eastman. He distinguished three impulses behind the socialist movement—for freedom, for fraternity and for order. Roy points out a fourth which is conspicuously present in all the -socialist movements and thinkers—the moral motive, the demand for a better order. It is sometimes expressed as demand for equality, but it is broader than that. It shows itself in the protests of Wells against the patent medicine racket, of Morel against the Congo scandal, best of all perhaps in the work of Upton Sinclair. People want socialism because they see that moral corruption is an essential part of capitalism, the system cannot work without lying, cheating, profiteering, cruelty and unfairness, and they hope that socialism will get rid of these things. It is a moral motive, independent of the other motives, and is a strong one. It may be regarded indeed as the fundamental motive of the socialist movement. And one of the things which it demands is freedom. If it finds that socialism has to be enforced by a police terror, it will conclude that socialism is a mistake. The fundamental inspiration of progressive humanity is behind the demand for freedom.
Bangalore P. SPRATT
- Philip Spratt (26th September 1902 – 8th March 1971) was British writer and intellectual. He was sent by British arm of the Communist International (Comintern) based in Moscow, to spread Communism in India. Later on he became a friend and colleague of M.N. Roy. Along with him he founded the Communist Party in Mexico and India. He was one of the chief accused in the Meerut Conspiracy Case and was arrested on 20th March 1929 and imprisoned. During the same period Roy was made an accused in the Kanpur Conspiracy Case and jailed for 6 years. Spratt was also released from jail in 1936 like M.N. Roy, and settled in India. He also became an active member of the Radical Democratic Party founded by Roy in 1940. Like Roy, he was also disillusioned with Marxism and was attracted towards Radical Humanism championed by Roy. He wrote several article, books and pamphlets and translated many books in French, German, Tamil, Sanskrit and Hindi into English.