The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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242 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. Herzen we can perceive better than anywhere else the nexus of ideas that leads to Nihilism. Before 1848, after escaping from Russia, he was intoxicated with aspirations after equality. When the revolution of February, which had seemed about to realize his aspirations, also became as bourgeois as that of 1830, he raised a cry of rage against Society in a writing entitled Aprh la tempête. “Perish the old world! Welcome Chaos and Destruction. Give place to the future.” * In another publication, also dating from the close of 1848, “ The Republic One and Indivisible,” he shows that the new form of government is “ the last dream of the old world,” and that it will do nothing towards realizing the grand principle of social justice, namely, that the labourer ought not and cannot work for another. “ The end of cannibalism is at hand. What delays it is that the working man is not conscious of his strength, and the peasant is still more behindhand. But when peasant and working man join hands, then good-bye to your luxury, to your civilization; then the exploitation of the masses for the profit of the few shall have seen its last days. Already now the exploitation of man by man is drawing to a close, for nobody any longer believes it just” He hoped then that, as in the palingenesis, on the ruins of the condemned social structure a new humanity would arise free and happy. “ The s¡)ring-time will come. A fresh young life will grow on the tombs of the dead generations, the victims of iniquity. Peoples full of energy, incoherent indeed, but healthy, will arise, and a new volume of the world’s history will be opened.” Towards the close of his life, Herzen understood that it was not enough to destroy institutions or reduce the monuments of the past to ashes, but that it was men’s sentiments that must be changed. In the last letter that he wrote to Bakunin, he disputed the formula which they had both formerly believed true. Die zerstö rende Lust ist eine schaffende Lust (“ The spirit of destruction is the spirit of reconstruction”). “We dash forward,” he said, “ foi' * The bitter contrast to be met with in Paris between the expansion of wealth and the sufferings of poverty inspired Hegesippe Moreau, as early as 1833, with a paroxysm of savage hatred, which made him desire to see the great capital given over to the flames. See his poem entitled L'lltveff (See also an article by M. Mangin, Econ. Français, 22nd of April, 1882.)

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