131214840-Carl-Schmitt

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tradition and from all the moral and educational notions with which Marx and Engels
themselves still quite obviously lived. The theory of a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is
today officially accepted by the Marxist parties, would certainly be a good example of the
fact that a rationalism conscious of its own historical development clamors for the use of
force; and numerous parallels between the Jacobin dictatorship of 1793 and the Soviet
system can be pointed to in the attitudes, in the arguments, in organizational and
administrative application. The entire organization of teaching and education created by the
Soviet government for its so-called Proletkult is an excellent example of a radical
educational dictatorship. 2 But that does not explain why the idea of the industrial proletariat
in the modern great city should have achieved such dominance precisely in Russia. The
explanation can be found in the presence of a new irrationalist motive for the use of force
that was also active there: This is not a rationalism that transforms itself through a radical
exaggeration into its own opposite and fantasizes utopias, but finally a new evaluation of
rational thought, a new belief in instinct and intuition that lays to rest every belief in
discussion and would also reject the possibility that mankind could be made ready for
discussion through an educational dictatorship.
Of those writings which are of interest here, only Enrico Ferri's "revolutionary method" is
known in Germany, thanks to its translation by Robert Michels (in Grünberger's collection of
the principal works of socialism). 3 The following exposition is based on Georges Sorel's
Réflexions sur la violence, which allows the historical connection between these ideas to be
recognized most clearly. 4 This book has in addition the advantage of many original historical
and philosophical perceptions and acknowledges openly its intellectual debt to Proudhon,
Bakunin, and Bergson. Its influence is noticeably greater than one can grasp at first glance,
and it is certainly not refuted by the fact that Bergson has become passé. 5 Benedetto Croce
believes that Sorel has given the Marxist dream a new form, but that the idea of democracy
has triumphed among the working classes once and for all. 6 After the
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