Confound their Politics – Reginald Reynolds (1940)

From the anarchist publication ‘War Commentary’, March 1940, London, UK. The author, Reginald Reynolds self-identified as a socialist rather than an anarchist, but was in frequent dialogue and collaboration with anarchists, also having married the socialist-turned-anarchist Ethel Mannin in 1938

II.

There is a story about a German baron who was hunting in India. He was bitten by a snake, and his doctor (always in attendance) promptly filled up a syringe with strychnine — I think it was strychnine — and injected it as an antidote. The baron at first showed signs of recovery, but presently showed acute symptoms of strychnine poisoning. With admirable presence of mind the doctor then filled up his syringe with snake venom and injected a second time. Once more temporary recovery was followed by dangerous symptoms, so the doctor filled up with strychnine again and—

Well, this story can go on for a long time. Actually it went on until the supply of snake venom ran out. The baron, being by that time in a state of acute agony, drew his revolver and shot the doctor. After which he recovered.

In my previous article I was discussing political calculations. I said that we must examine first the value of political good intentions, next the value of calculations based upon intentions alleged to be good and thirdly the authority of those who claimed the best intentions together with infallible calculations. In my story the doctor’s intentions are assumed to be good and his calculations are made with truly deadly logic from data far more complete than any politician ever has in his possession, since there were no personal co-efficients and other unknown factors to worry about. And society in the hands of the politicians is considerably more imperilled than was the German baron in the hands of his physician. The best politician operating on the social organism is like a well-meaning and intelligent mechanic trying to cut out your appendix with a rusty bread-saw.

Most of us wouldn’t attempt to do anything so frightful. The characteristic of the politician is that he believes he can and insists on having a try. He is always full of elaborate calculations, based upon the old half-truth that history repeats itself; and the more involved his calculations, the more gratuitous his assumptions — why, the more cock-sure he is of his own nostrum and the more determined to hold your nose and make you swallow it. Last month I took as an example the infallible calculation by which we can prove that everything which makes the Nazis cads and swine can be done by ourselves without loss of moral stature. But the Communists have the same line of reasoning and can justify anything you like. For example, here are two perfect Stalinist syllogisms:

Aggression is a bad thing.

The German invasion of Poland is aggression.

Therefore the German invasion of Poland is a bad thing.

A check to the German invasion of Poland is a good thing.

The Russian invasion of Poland is a check to the German invasion of Poland.

Therefore the Russian invasion of Poland is a good thing.

Now, those two syllogisms are absolutely water-tight. Aristotle and all the Schoolmen couldn’t find anything wrong with them and neither can you. And yet there is something phoney about them, as you can see by examining a third and equally valid syllogism, thus:

The Russian invasion of Poland is a good thing.

The Russian invasion of Poland is aggression.

Therefore some aggression is a good thing.

From which you will observe that we now have a conclusion in contradiction to our original first premise.

Just in case you haven’t spotted where the error creeps in it is in the first premise of the second syllogism : “A check to the German invasion of Poland is a good thing.” The reasoning is perfect — all that’s wrong is that an assumption has slipped into the argument which we have no right to assume. We’ve taken it for granted that because one form of aggression is objectionable any “check” to it is desirable, thereby letting in the possibility of some other form of aggression as the “check.” But this is typical of political reasoning, even when those who argue are honest or want to be. And on such little slips as that millions of lives can be staked. Listen to any group of patriots, Marxists, Fascists, Trotskyists, Stalinists or what-you-will discussing politics and you will hear dozens of little slips like that. No two of them out of a dozen will agree, as like as not, and the more “intellectual” they are the less agreement. But the one thing they all have in common is such a colossal arrogant conceit in their own wisdom that they are each and all prepared individually to offer mankind as a burnt offering to their own particular pet prejudices.

Or take Finland. Finland wasn’t being invaded by Hitler and wasn’t invading anybody else, so the logic that did for the Poles wouldn’t work in the Baltic. But that’s no problem for men of mettle. If Finland wasn’t invading Russia, she was just going to. Unlikely as it might seem, the Western Powers (which for twenty years had ignored this glorious opportunity) were about to choose the auspicious moment when they were at war with Germany to use Finland for an attack on Russia. Indeed, there was, if you remember (see War Commentary, No. 2) a little natural confusion in Communist circles as to whether it was Britain and France or Italy or Germany or the United States which had hatched this plot, or all of them together, or Sweden, as Claud Cockburn darkly hinted in The Week. But there it was, with the anxiety of the British and French governments over the fate of Finland to prove it — not to mention the righteous indignation of Mussolini, defender of the rights and liberties of small nations. Well, you could take your choice. On the one hand the sight of Il Duce in the arms of Geneva, like the portentious reconciliation of Herod and Pontius Pilate, will provide you with as good a proof of Finland’s guilt as any Communist would want or ever expect to see. On the other hand are the facts which must be forgotten to make this argument work without squeaking badly.

For example, Italy’s territorial ambitions in the Balkans, which would have conflicted with those of Russia even if the Romanovs were still sitting in Petrograd. And the Franco-British foreign policy, directed against any extension of German influence in the Baltic and (by implication) against the extending influence of a German ally. Note that any fear of Russian “socialism” had so evaporated that imperialist France trusted for years to an alliance with “socialist” Russia against her capitalist enemy, Germany. Note that responsible British capitalist politicians such as Churchill and Duff Cooper and all the Liberals wanted Britain to do the same. Note that up till the invasion of Finland all Government references to Russia were carefully toned down. The enemy was capitalist Germany; for “socialist” Russia we had only fair words or the most circumspect criticisms in a minor key. Was not Arthur Greenwood asked at that time to moderate his language on the subject — asked by a Tory Government ? Not till Russia took steps that made her dangerous from a territorial standpoint did the tone change. Then the Russians became “Reds” again, because the old fear of “Bolshevism” could still frighten the old ladies and make them buy Defence Loans; and the fouler the deeds of Moscow the more it paid to attribute them to “socialism” or “communism,” thereby discrediting still further two honourable names already besmirched enough by the politicians who wear them.

But I digress — though there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. The point is that you may regard the interest of European capitalism in the Finnish war either as the cause of that war, the evidence of the plot which Stalin nipped in the bud; or you may regard it as the effect of that war, bringing out new rivalries. You may see in it the basic rivalry of capitalism and Russia’s “socialism” (though God knows why, in that case, the capitalist world doesn’t unite in face of the common foe and why it is even now more important to fight our capitalist rivals than to join against Red Revolution). Or you may see only new imperialist rivalries with Russia as one of the imperialist states. My point is that the first point of view is quite tenable if you make a few convenient assumptions. And, once these are made, infallible calculations point like the finger of Cato: Delenda est Helsinki! The wicked Finns are going to attack us. Anyway they might be going to. Therefore we must attack them. The perfect, classical justification of every act of aggression that has ever taken place. “C’est le lapin qui a commencé.” Or if he didn’t he was just going to.

Here, then, is the reductio ad absurdum of political calculations; for if humanity can he sacrificed on such grounds as these no tyrant will ever want an excuse. The doctor in my story gave strychnine as an antidote to snake venom. But the politicians go one better — they give you strychnine as an antidote to the theoretical venom of a hypothetical snake. And who are you to say that there are no snakes except the politicians themselves and their kind ?

(To he continued)

R.F. Magón on Reform

“Reform is not a medicine which produces health, but rather a sedative that delays it. The politicians are like quack doctors. Rather than use a medicine that will quickly return the patient to health, they apply sedatives in order to exploit for the longest time possible the ill health of the patient.”

Ricardo Flores Magón, Revolutionary Progress, Regeneración, Feb.12, 1916, Los Angeles