GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

690 ETHICS AND POLITIC!: THE MODIA HI
"The people", in thort, "are sick of twaddle about liberty
when they have no liberty/' 1 We axe piesented, then,
with a definite antithesis between Democracy and the
shadow of political liberty and Communism and the
substance of economic equality.
RECENT CHANGES IN COMMUNIST THEORY.
On a number of occasions, I have drawn attention to
the closeness of the relation between political theory and
historical circumstance. Theories of politics cannot, I
have urged, 1 be considered apart from their historical
setting, and the emphasis which at different times they
place upon the contentions they embody changes
even the contentions themselves change with the needs
and pressures of the times.
These generalizations receive striking illustration from
the present state of communist theory.
Communist theory is in process of constant change and
development, and it may well be that the considerations
just adduced would be declared by a modern communist
to be already out of date. These considerations were
mainly derived from the classics of communist theory,
from the works of Marx and Engels and Lenin, who
were chiefly concerned to expose the "shams" of bourgeois
democracy.
With the coming of Fascism new needs arise, new
pressures are felt and, inevitably, there is a shift in the
emphasis which is placed upon various aspects of communist
doctrine. Such a shift has in recent years been
perceptible in the communist attitude to political liberty.
Whereas formerly the political liberties of the bourgeois
democracies were derided, to-day they are praised. Per
Fascism, in destroying the structure of the political liberty,
has not only deprived men of a valuable civic amenity,
but has deprived them also of the opportunity of advocating
Communism. The deep-seated hostility ofCommunism
1 Thc Prime Minister in Shmw'i On tht Rocks.
see Chapter XIII, pp. 471, 47*.