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

79* ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
it is possible to be highly sceptical of its validity. For
what precisely does it involve? That after a revolution-
ary government has during a period of years made the
suppression of liberty part of its policy, it will, at a given
point in time, deliberately reverse this policy and restore
the liberty which has hitherto been withheld, with the
result that views distasteful to the government will suddenly
obtain publicity, and those who have been hitherto immune
from criticism will suddenly find themselves assailed.
Is this likely? Does history afford a single example which
would permit us to regard it as likely? Have those who
have won power by violence ever been known voluntarily
to relinquish power, those who have been above criticism
voluntarily to permit criticism? Yet communist theory
requires us to believe that those whom power has placed
above criticism will, by their voluntary and deliberate act,
suddenly permit the criticism which relinquishznent
may lead to their
of power.
The study of history suggests that dictatorships from their
very nature become, as they grow older, not less, but more
extreme; not less, but more sensitive to and impatient of
criticism. Developments in the contemporary world sup-
port this view. 2 Yet the theory of Communism postulates
precisely the reverse of what history teaches, and maintains
that at a given moment a dictatorial government will be
willing to reverse the engines, to relinquish power, and,
having denied liberty, to concede it. Neither history nor
psychology affords any warrant for this conclusion.
The Challenge to End Economic Injustice. The
purpose of the immediately foregoing criticisms is to
suggest a doubt as to the wisdom, in existing circumstances,
of the communist technique of revolution, and a
further doubt as to its likelihood of achieving the ends
which are desired. Upon the desirability of these ends,
however, they cast no reflection. It is Plato, not the author,
* Consider in this connection the Bgnutcuioc of the quotation given
in the footnote to Chapter XVI, p. 6a6.