Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/190

 176 We must not allow ourselves, therefore, to be too much dazzled by certain descriptions, and Ch. Bonnier was right when, in the Socialiste of November 18, 1905, he cast doubt on the truth of the account which had been given of the course of events in Russia; he had always been an irreconcilable opponent of the general strike, and he pointed out that there was no resemblance at all between what had happened in Russia and what the "genuine Syndicalists in France" look forward to. In his opinion, the strike in Russia had merely been the consummation of a very complex process, one method out of the many employed, which had succeeded owing to the exceptionally favourable circumstances in which it had developed.

We have here, then, a criterion which will serve to distinguish two kinds of movement generally designated by the same name. We have studied a proletarian general strike, which is one undivided whole; now we have to consider the general political strike, which combines the incidents of economic revolt with many other elements depending on systems foreign to the industrial system. In the first case, no detail ought to be considered by itself; in the second, everything depends on the art with which heterogeneous details are combined. In this case the parts must be considered separately, their importance estimated, and an attempt made to harmonise them. One would think that such a task ought to be looked upon as purely Utopian (or even quite absurd) by the people who are in the habit of bringing forward so many practical objections to the proletarian general strike; but if the proletariat, left to itself, can do nothing, politicians are equal to anything. Is it not one of the dogmas of democracy that the genius of demagogues can overcome all obstacles?

I will not stop here to discuss what chances of success