Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

176 Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion
ery of a trustworthy anthropometric method” (“Revolutionist’s Handbook”
2:782). Our habits of mind lead us to believe that this means finding
those who ought to have natural rights of possession over the rest of us;
Shaw had in mind the discovery of his natural aristocracy of service.
Belief in a natural aristocracy of service does little to explain Shaw’s
pronouncements on the disturbing political events in Europe between the
world wars. The topics that people find most upsetting in Shaw’s writings
are, understandably, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and the Holocaust. He was
wrong about all of them, but how and why he was wrong is important.
Stalin fooled Shaw into believing that he was exactly the sort of ruler
Shaw most admired: pragmatic about means and realistic about ends (Collected
Letters 4:269). Shaw knew we are all, however perceptive, blinded by
our biases; everyone is an “idiot” about something. “I do not know what I
am an idiot about or I should not be an idiot about it; but no doubt I share
the common lot” (Collected Letters 3:839). He was an idiot about Stalin.
He was not the only one, as Stalin was immensely successful in deceiving
even those close to him (Pipes 14), but those who admire Shaw in other
respects would expect greater perception from him. Probably nothing has
done more to damage Shaw’s reputation than his wholehearted endorsement
of Stalin. He even goes so far as to defend Stalin’s “liquidation” policies
in the preface to On the Rocks, where he justifies “extermination” as
not only necessary but inevitable. Much of that essay, despite the deliberately
provocative word used, is in harmony with what he says with less
inflammatory rhetoric elsewhere. He uses the word “exterminate” to
mean both killing and more benign methods of elimination. Socialism
would “exterminate” both the poor and the idle rich but not necessarily by
killing them. He does make it clear that he views killing as appropriate if
other means fail. All societies, he argues, make distinctions between the
tolerable and the intolerable. A new society with a socialist ethic could not
tolerate individuals who insist on engaging in what that society deems
“theft.” Such a society must “exterminate” such individuals or be itself
exterminated. It is—at least from our perspective—astounding that Shaw
imagined that was the full extent of Stalin’s activities. He actually believed
that Stalin was his kind of “realist”: a pragmatist with lofty socialist goals.
He imagined that the Soviet leadership was the new “priesthood”: those
drawn to serve the public by the prompting of an inner vocation. He was
not horrified by the impromptu executions by police, apparently believing
that no one would do such things unless public safety and the survival of
the new order demanded it. In a way, this also is characteristic of his think-