Between the Bullet and the Lie by Williams Kristian;

Author:Williams, Kristian;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AK Press
Published: 2017-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven: “Meanwhile, What About Socialism?”

Why the Left Fails

“Meanwhile,” Orwell begins the eleventh chapter of The Road to Wigan Pier, “what about Socialism?”1

The question comes after more than a hundred pages detailing the conditions of English miners and after a fifty-page autobiographical interlude meditating on the differences between the lower and the middle classes (from the perspective of the latter). The fact that Socialism makes its appearance abruptly, and in a question, is signifi­cant. Socialism is not a logical consequence of what has come before; it is not a foregone conclusion. It is one possibility among many, and, while Orwell considers it the best system available, he does not take that judgment for granted. Though he feels that the essence of Socialism—“the idea that we must all co-operate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of work and gets his fair share of the provisions”—is “elementary common sense,” he nevertheless recognizes that “Socialism is not establishing itself,” that “Socialists almost everywhere are in retreat,” and “[the] average thinking person … is actively hostile to Socialism.” Orwell then, contemplates the reasons for this state of affairs, looking at the question from the perspective of “the ordinary objector to Socialism,” and taking seriously “the kind of thing … [such a person] always starts by saying when you tax him on the subject.”2

First Impressions

Of the problems Orwell identifies, the first—and perhaps the hardest to correct—is the character of the Socialists themselves: “As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.”3

In Coming Up for Air, Orwell did his best to picture what the Left must look like to an unusually observant but otherwise typical member of the sinking middle classes. George Bowling, a ­middle-aged insurance salesman, visits a meeting of the Left Book Club. The evening’s lecture is titled “The Menace of Fascism,” and the presenter is introduced as a “‘well-known anti-Fascist,’ very much as you might call somebody ‘the well-known pianist.’”4 The talk itself is a bore—“Democracy, Fascism, Democracy”—and Bowling barely bothers to listen. “But somehow it interested me to watch him. A rather mean little man, with a white face and a bald head, standing on a platform, shooting out slogans. What’s he doing? Quite deliberately, and quite openly, he’s stirring up hatred. Doing his damnedest to make you hate certain foreigners called Fascists.”5 Bowling closes his eyes for a moment and, blocking out the words, concentrates simply on the man’s voice, on its pitch and timbre. He tries to put himself in the mind of a person who would speak in such a way.

For about a second I was inside him.… I saw the vision that he was seeing.… What he’s saying is merely that Hitler’s after us and we must all get together and have a good hate. Doesn’t go into details. Leaves it all respectable. But what he’s seeing is something quite different. It’s a picture of himself smashing people’s faces in with a spanner.… Smash! Right in the middle! The bones

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