The Ugly Urge of Socialism? The Power to Destroy.

The first chapter of Malcolm Muggeridge’s Winter in Moscow, his remarkable novel about the irrationally godless and extremely cruel state of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, begins with this quotation from the 19th Century historian Hippolyte Taine writing about the French Revolution: “From the beginning, Danton understood the final object and definitive effect of the Revolution, that is to say, the dictatorship of the violent minority.”

Muggeridge then proceeds to paint vivid pictures of the well-heeled but clueless socialists of the West who came to applaud the new order. Previously, they had only played with class warfare and spouted nihilistic slogans in the comfort of intellectual salons. But here, in the brutal Communism of the Soviet Union, here in the evolutionary stage that couldn’t help but break a few eggs in its effort to make an omelet, these socialist tourists were thrilled by Stalin’s “intoxicating power to destroy, power that like fire would scorch up his enemies and make their world a wilderness.” They swooned over government’s control over repression of the Church and tradition, speech and assembly. They embraced the “naturalness” of press censorship, price fixing, and even the “disappearance” of opposition figures.

One such woman was Mrs. Earley-Wheatsheaf, a minor British politician, one of the many privileged socialists who had fallen head over heels for the dreamy propaganda of the Soviets. She couldn’t help but admire the Communists for actualizing what her ego secretly desired. “How agreeable, she thought…if Alderman Butterfield, who had publicly called her an incompetent, sentimental busybody, could be made to disappear! How agreeable to command his disappearance! How agreeable, instead of writing and talking, to be able to act; to give orders; yes, and to destroy; to purify all the institutions of the State, and, more important, their personnel. Mrs. Earley-Wheatsheaf’s chest swelled under her brown woolen jumper; and her eyes glowed. Like Benoit, she saw as in a vision, the illimitable possibilities of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.”

Taine’s description of the French Revolution’s Danton is truly (and tragically) descriptive of the Communist Revolution as well. The final object and definitive effect of both was the dictatorship of the violent minority.

(The illustration above recalls Stalin's ordered “hit” on former friend and colleague, Leon Trotsky, who had unsuccessfully fled to Mexico to escape assassination. It’s from the Mary Evans Picture Library/Global Look Press)