THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.

 Vigilance and Faith in Democracy

Professor Laski's Warning

"The essential duty of British Socialists at the present time is to work for the conquest of a Parliamentary majority in a straightforward, constitutional way," says Professor Harold Laski, in a special article in the London "Daily Herald."

THE collapse of democratic systems in the post-war world has naturally tended to weaken the faith of all students of politics in both their validity and staying power.

Certainly nothing is gained from concealing from ourselves that they confront a crisis of the gravest magnitude, and that no realistic observer can doubt the profundity of the challenge they encounter.

But it is one thing to admit this; and it is quite a different thing to assume that the case for parliamentary democracy should be allowed to go by default.

Socialists, of all people, have the obligation to recognise the solid advantages it represents over most of its alternatives, and the justification they have for defending it as, so far in our experience, the surest path available to the conquest of political power.

A country which abandons Parliamentarism does so under conditions that involve a revolution either of the Left or of the Right.

In the former circumstance both the approach to and the maintenance of the revolutionary government depend upon conditions unlikely of realisation save in the aftermath of unsuccessful war.

European Examples.

This has been the experience both of Russia and Germany, and the strength of organised government in the Allied countries stands in striking contrast.

It would be folly to throw away the solid prospects we confront for an alternative that might well destroy the prospects of democracy in the next generation.

This, of course, applies not less to the idea of force used on behalf of reaction. The use of it is possible and in that event, no doubt, we should be ruled, in our special English fashion, by a Fascist dictatorship.

But only economic prosperity would justify this adventure to the masses ; and in the ill-will it would encounter we are entitled to doubt whether that prospect is even thinkable.

Major Disasters.

Were it to occur, every Socialist ought to realise from Continental experience that, compared with the habits of a Parliamentary system, this would be a major disaster. It would end trade-union freedom; it would destroy liberty of the press; it would destroy the prospect of any Socialist propaganda save in an obscure and underground form.

Almost certainly the masses would pay the price of its establishment by the loss of all social legislation passed in the last generation.

The whole effort of such a regime, as in Italy and Germany, would be to consolidate the powers of the propertied classes at the expense of the workers.

Experience Teaches.

The experience of Italy and Germany makes it clear:

(i) That this consolidation can, in terms of modern administrative technique, be very rapidly effected, and

(ii) That it can postpone the prospect of successful assault upon itself for a considerable period.

Duty of Socialists.

I believe, therefore, that the essential duty of Socialists at the present time is to work for the conquest of a Parliamentary majority in a straight-forward, constitutional way. Once that majority is obtained, it is their duty to use it for fully Socialist purposes, and if challenged to protect its right to such a use by all the means at its disposal.

It seems to me clear that such an attitude is far more likely to secure the purposes of Socialism than any alternative strategy.

It throws the onus of conflict, if there be a desire for it, on our opponents at a period when they are least likely to be successful in its promotion.

It rallies to the side of a Socialist Government that great body of middle opinion which is habituated to a belief in law and order. It splits, therefore, the ranks of the enemies of Socialism by compelling them, in circumstances where legal authority is hostile to them, to stake their cause upon a gambler's throw.

These, I think, are the circumstances, in which a reaction of violence from the Right has the least chance of obtaining its objectives.

Appeal To Reason.

My argument, up to this point, has been one built essentially upon strategic considerations. But there are other reasons of importance which make the defence of the Democratic system an urgent matter for Socialists.

There is an unfortunate tendency abroad, both on the extreme Right and on the extreme Left, to belittle the importance of reason and persuasion in the settlement of human affairs.

We speak of war as inevitable; the Right to do so on the ground of some alleged need of human nature, the Left as a necessary consequence of a capitalist society. We speak of dictatorship as inevitable; the Right do so because they see no other way of arresting the progress of Socialism, the Communists because they insist that only force can break the will of the opponents of Communism.

False Assumption.

The underlying assumption of this attitude is the futility of any method save that of force in the settlement of human differences.

I do not myself deny that there are occasions in the history of the world when these differences are so final that there is, in fact, no alternative but force to their settlement.

But I do not believe that the use of force is likely to be successful unless its employment is related to a previously widespread conviction of its necessity; and it is then at least a matter for discussion as to whether it will be necessary to employ it.

The enforcement of the Peace of Versailles by the victorious allies is an instance of the use of force to settle a dispute: I do not think it can be called a striking success.

The Case of Hitler.

The regime of Hitler is an example of the forcible imposition of a philosophy upon a population 13 millions of whom at least dissent vehemently from its implications; and it is, I suggest, obvious to most thinking persons that it will provoke its own violent overthrow sooner or later.

Because the use of reason is the high-road to the consolidation of power it seems to me urgent to rely upon it until it has been demonstrated that no attention to, or respect for, its conclusions is likely to be displayed by our opponents.

No Blind Faith.

This does not, in my judgment, imply that the task of the Labor Movement must be founded upon a blind faith in the hypotheses of democracy.

The old maxim that perpetual vigilance is the price of freedom was never so obviously true as in our day.

But it does mean that Socialists, with the example of Italy and Germany before them, have the duty to take freedom seriously, and to recognise that the secret of its persistence is courage in those whose business is its defence.

Democracy the Goal.

The way to lose freedom is to be careless of its importance, to spurn its opportunities, to belittle its significance. There has been a good deal of that temper in the Labor Movement; above all, as in the case of India and the unemployed, an inertia before attacks upon its foundations which has encouraged the reactionaries to go on with their work of destruction.

It is useless to deny that the next years are likely to be a period of momentous challenge to Socialists. They may well have to prove their faith on the battlefield. At least let them remember that the goal at which they aim is a democratic society; they cannot abandon their struggle to secure it while the power remains to keep the flame of reason alight.

Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld.), 13 July 1933 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article183074262