owards the revolutionary
proletariat was illustrated by Mr. Bernard Shaw, who in December 1919
openly boasted that he had helped to organize the railway strike,[732]
and two years later wrote about the miners' strike in the following
terms:

A Socialist State would not tolerate such an attack on the
community as a strike for a moment. If a Trade Union attempted such
a thing, the old Capitalist law against Trade Unions as
conspiracies would be re-enacted within twenty-four hours and put
ruthlessly into execution. Such a monstrosity as the recent coal
strike, during which the coal-miners spent all their savings in
damaging their neighbours and wrecking the national industries,
would be impossible under Socialism. It was miserably defeated, as
it deserved to be.[733]

Now, if this had been written by the Duke of Northumberland in the
_National Review_ instead of by Mr. Bernard Shaw in the _Labour
Monthly_, one can imagine the outcry there would have been in the
Socialist press. But the leaders of what is called democracy may always
use what language they please in speaking of the people. "Our peasants,"
Maxim Gorky openly declared, "are brutal and debased, hardly human. I
hate them."[734] It will be noticed that in descriptions of the French
Revolution references to the savageries of the people are never resented
by the Liberal or Socialist press; the persons of the leaders alone are
sacred. It is clearly not the cause of democracy but of demagogy that
these champions of "liberty" are out to defend.

The world-revolution is therefore not a popular movement but a
conspiracy to impose on the people a system directly opposed to their
real demands and aspirations, a system which, moreover, has proved
disastrous every time an attempt has been made to put it into practice.

Russia has provided a further example of its futility. The fact that the
more responsible leaders in this country do not advocate violence, does
not affect the ultimate issue. Whilst Bolshevism sets out to destroy
Capitalism at a blow, Socialism prefers a more gradual process. It is
the difference between clubbing a man on the head and bleeding him to
death--that is all.

The fact is that all Socialism leads to Communism in the long run[735]
and therefore to disaster. The Bolshevist regime brought ruin and misery
to Russia not because of the brutality of its methods, but because it
was founded on the gigantic