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 CHAPTER II

VIOLENCE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES

I

is very difficult to understand proletarian violence as long as we think in terms of the ideas disseminated by middle-class philosophers; according to their philosophy, violence is a relic of barbarism which is bound to disappear under the influence of the progress of enlightenment. It is therefore quite natural that Jaurès, who has been brought up on middle-class ideology, should have a profound contempt for people who favour proletarian violence; he is astonished to see educated Socialists hand in hand with the Syndicalists; he wonders by what miracle men who have proved themselves thinkers can accumulate sophistries in order to give a semblance of reason to the dreams of stupid people who are incapable