“And so it is with all ideas. The more grandiose the stream of united efforts—that is, the grander and loftier the idea—the weaker and more insignificant the individual in comparison with it, and the more natural it is for him to serve it and subjugate himself to it. It does not matter that people were themselves unaware of why they were happy to struggle and even die for the idea of freedom, for their feelings were clearer and deeper than their thoughts. Man knows no greater happiness than to feel himself a vital part of a mighty, all-encompassing impulse. The idea of freedom was such a universally sensed impulse.”
“In other words, if not for despotism, oppression, and arbitrariness, there would not have been any idea of freedom, because there would have been no unified efforts to overcome these obstacles?”
“Precisely. It would have lacked all vital meaning. What sort of an idea would that have been?”
“I am not going to argue with you; I am only trying to understand you better. The idea of freedom served as a battle cry in history, and it is possible that it arose from the masses. But is your conclusion relevant to other ideas which have not had such a function? It seems to me that it was your choice of example which brought you to your conclusion, and that if you had selected something else instead, the result would have been quite different.”
“All right then, let us take another example. Take your most cherished idea—the plan of the Great Project. It contains much more than is immediately apparent even to you, the author himself. On more than one occasion in the past humanity has felt cramped on the surface of our planet. This happened even when the population was still very small but lacked our present ability to take what nature had to offer; during the past few centuries it has become increasingly difficult to overcome this problem of overcrowding. In its constant striving to expand its field of operations the labor of man has repeatedly ground to a halt at the borders of the great deserts. Countless efforts to push on have been crushed there by the harsh might of the elements, leaving dissatisfaction and dreams in the wake of the struggle. A dream, after all, is merely an effort that has been frustrated in reality and retreated beyond it into the realm of fantasy. Not all attempts, however, were entirely fruitless: in these cases the unrewarded effort did not become a simple dream; rather, as it passed from men of labor to men of science, it assumed a new form as an aspiration to investigate. Daring explorers crossed the deserts from one end to the other, measuring and describing them, expending incalculable amounts of energy. They returned with theoretical knowledge about forever dead sands and plains which was seemingly irrelevant but which in actual fact represented the crystallized effort of these pioneer explorers: knowledge to be used in the future war against the Kingdom of the Inert.
“As time went on, such attempts multiplied, aspirations intensified, investigations became more complete and precise. The suppressed activity of centuries was seeking an outlet. And then a man appeared whose soul was so expansive and profound that it could instinctively unite and fuse within it all these different elements of human striving. As audacious as man’s earlier dream, he was able to embrace the full immensity of the problem, bring all the energy of knowledge accumulated by past research to bear on its solution, and integrate it with all the methods that had been developed by the scientific technology of the Machine Age. Out of these theretofore disparate elements there arose a living, harmonious whole, and this synthesis was the idea of the Great Project. Its concentrated force united a new mass of labor around it, and the work of millions translated it into reality. And thus the goal toward which generation upon generation had been groping was attained.”
“A vivid but strange picture,” Menni remarked thoughtfully.
“It is a correct picture, believe me,” Netti continued. “You probably do not know that about three hundred years ago, during a long and severe agricultural crisis, a certain long-forgotten dreamer envisaged something very similar to your plan in the form of a prophetic social utopia. His book was suggested to me by a young historian who was studying that epoch. Utopias are an expression of aspirations that cannot be realized, of efforts that are not equal to the resistance they encounter. Now these aspirations have grown and assumed the form of systematic labor, which is able to overcome such resistance; for this to happen it was necessary that they fuse into a single idea. This is why to me the victory of unified labor and the victory of the idea are one and the same thing. I could even say ‘your victory’ and not be wrong, for you did not discover or find your idea as you think you did. Rather, you created it out of something that was not yet an idea. Man is a creative being, Menni.”
“Oh, is he? I thought that he was some sort of receptacle of universal exertion,” Menni joked in order to conceal his emotion at hearing such an opinion coming from the ordinarily so reserved Netti.
Netti understood this and did not respond to the joke. There was a short silence which Menni again broke.
“What you are saying, even if it were true, could only apply to practical ideas. But there are also purely theoretical, contemplative ideas—in mathematics, for example, or logic. Your analysis is hardly relevant to them.”
“There are no purely theoretical ideas. Those which seem to be are merely broader and more general than others. Engineering, for example, or even the machine-building industry as a whole, is based on mathematics, is it not? Would your plans and their realization have been possible without hundreds of thousands of mathematical calculations? As for logic, its only vital significance lies in the fact that it enables people to communicate with each other; that is, it allows them effectively to unite their efforts in labor or research.”
“In that case, if every idea can be reduced to a unification of efforts, where is the difference between the truth and error?”
“The difference is in the results. The unification of efforts may be such that it leads to the accomplishment of the goal, in which case the idea is true. Or, it may also lead to waste and failure, in which case it is erroneous. The idea of freedom was true because it led mankind to victory, to an enrichment of life that is the ultimate goal of all labor. Mathematical formulas are true because they provide us with a reliable weapon in our battle with the natural elements. An error reveals itself to be an error when the effort behind it results in failure.”
“Well, then, what happens to the truth once the goal has been fully attained? The efforts which were united by it have come to an end . . .”
“And so has the idea. Mankind moves on and sets itself new goals, and the particular truth dies. When crime has completely disappeared the idea of justice will also vanish. When the life and development of man are no longer restricted by oppression, the idea of freedom will also become obsolete. Ideas are born, struggle to live, and die. Often one idea kills another one; thus freedom nullifies authority, scientific thought kills religion, and new theories replace old ones.
“Three hundred years ago a great scientist discovered that matter is eternal. This was a truth, and one of the greatest. In order to master and exploit a given substance, human activity searches for that substance at the point where it disappears from sight and then traces it through all its transformations. This is the significance of this idea, which has yielded innumerable fruitful results in all areas of labor and thought. Yet now, as you know, a new idea is gaining currency according to which matter can be destroyed, meaning that it arises or at some time has arisen out of nothing. When this truth matures it will express the ultimate mastery and power of labor over the inner life of matter. At that time the old idea, having accomplished its task, will die out. And such is the fate of all other ideas, for humanity will never cease developing.”
Menni closed his eyes and reclined against the back of his chair. He thought in silence for a few moments and then said:
“I know that you have studied what you are telling me more than I have, and it is clear to me that you have a good and lucid mind. Your words are all simple and clear, yet your thoughts remain strange and incomp
rehensible to me. It is as if I were separated from them by a dark veil. At moments—only at moments—there are rents in this veil through which I seem to catch a gleam of the distant truth. But then everything plunges back into darkness again. At other times I am suddenly seized by a hostile feeling that you are trying to destroy something that is sacred and dearer than all else to me, but then I quickly realize how unjust that feeling is. On the whole your views impress me as a kind of poetry of labor with which you want to supplement or perhaps even replace rigorous scientific thought. That, of course, is something which I can never accept. I have no desire to argue with you, however, for I realize that it would be useless. You have an answer for everything, although your explanations fail to convince me because they are based on what is to me an alien logic. At the same time, I am greatly interested in everything related to your life and thoughts. Tell me about your childhood, Netti.”
4. Enemies and Allies
For a time Menni’s position seemed unassailable. His enemies had been exposed, and their leader, in his own way a man of genius, had perished. Summoned to power by the workers and public opinion, rehabilitated by a unanimous resolution of Parliament, and supported by his former colleagues and Netti, Menni soon noted extraordinary successes. The gigantic project that had been on the verge of collapse was now resuscitated and running like clockwork. Several billion of the funds that had been embezzled under Feli Rao had already been recovered through confiscations, and the continuing series of investigations and trials would return another considerable share of the remainder. In this way an enormous fund was created for expanding and developing the Project.
All of this notwithstanding, however, there was something strange and vaguely oppressive in the air. It was especially noticeable in the popular democratic press. In the past, when Menni had achieved his first successes, it had enthusiastically welcomed and commented upon each of his victories with warm sympathy. Now, however, it was as if the newspapers had all entered a tacit conspiracy of silence. They reported—but only as much as was absolutely necessary—on events concerning the Great Project and its organization; however, they systematically refrained from offering opinions or even explanations, preferring instead to discuss other matters. Nor was this negligence merely the result of bribes or the influence of the old financiers. No, “public opinion” was in fact dissatisfied. It had no reason to complain about the new course things had taken, yet it did not feel the least inclined to voice approval of those who had brought about and were directing the development. There were important reasons for this.
In the first place, “society,” which at the time meant the upper and middle classes taken together, could not reconcile itself to the role the proletariat had played in the upheaval. Not only had the workers taken the initiative—which society was willing to permit in cases where the conflict was dangerous and there was a risk of bloodshed—but even after the danger was over they refused to subordinate themselves for a single minute to the leadership of the old, established parties. On the contrary, they forced the other parties to acknowledge and satisfy their demands fully. This was something new in the history of the working class, which up until then had sometimes managed to assert itself economically, but had always been a convenient and obedient object of political manipulation.
Secondly, there was something incomprehensible and alarming about Menni’s stubborn refusal to allow a review of his case or accept an amnesty and about his alliance with the notorious revolutionary extremist Netti. The first circumstance was like a moral slap in the face of all of society’s respected institutions, while the second represented a future threat. It was difficult to imagine what other surprises this puzzling alliance might hold, but that very vagueness made it seem all the more alarming to public opinion.
In addition, respectable society was unpleasantly impressed by the persistent and merciless prosecution of those who had participated in the budget swindles with Feli Rao and his accomplices, which resulted in the confiscation of the property of a number of them. It was reasoned that such penalties were excessive, for since the worst culprits had already been punished, nothing was to be gained by shifting the whole burden of reprisals onto the less guilty. Most of these were respected people, reputable leaders of industry and commerce, and in business it is not always so easy and simple to distinguish the boundaries of formal legality. Such arguments were influenced both by the innumerable subtle bonds uniting the members of “society” in their everyday life and by a natural lenience toward deeds whose motive—a drive for enrichment—was so close and understandable to all. Also, the defeat of the former bosses could not but affect the interests of a great many people involved in business with them. Feli Rao’s suicide even came near to causing a stock-market crash. “Society,” like its legitimate representative the stock exchange, values tranquillity and a predictable future above such abstractions as justice or the good of the common cause. Menni and everything around him were regarded as a kind of protest, as something restless, unknown, and menacingly powerful. All the crimes of the other side paled in comparison.
Menni’s known former enemies, however, were hesitant to begin an offensive. Their reputations were too tainted and the motives behind such a move would have been too blatantly obvious, so they were forced to wait to avoid jeopardizing their prospects. The signal to attack would have to be given by someone authoritative and unsullied, someone who was above suspicion. For a long time no such figure could be found.
Absorbed by his work, new impressions, and memories, Menni did not notice the increasing tension in the air. Many people, and not just he alone, however, were stunned when Teo published a harshly critical article on him in the planet’s largest newspaper. A veteran democrat and a universally respected publicist, Teo was one of the few men who had dared to oppose the Council of Syndicates after their victory, and he had even openly branded Menni’s prison sentence “the work of lackeys.” All this made his new move even more sensational. The article was entitled “It is Time to Think!” and was directed as a warning to the parties and to society at large.
“Is all well in our Republic?” he asked, and he answered that it was not: little by little democracy was betraying itself, its principles were being openly undermined, and all this was being tolerated. The way was being paved for the worst sort of political reaction. “Is it permissible in a democracy for one man to have dictatorial power over millions of people and billions in public funds? Twenty years ago, when the plan of the Great Project was first approved, such authority was created for the initiator. That was an enormous mistake. It was forgivable in the beginning, before its consequences had become obvious, but since then we have lived through the epic of Feli Rao. What did Rao actually do? He simply usurped Menni’s power and used it in his own way. We all know what that meant . . . Democracy overthrew Feli Rao—but then? The same dictatorship with the same total immunity was handed back to Menni. Have we learned nothing?
“It will be objected that Menni is not a financier and not a politician, but an honest engineer. He can be trusted, he wants nothing for himself, he is devoted to the cause alone. Is this really so? Democracy must never rely on a single individual; it does not have the right to do so, for it is based on the principle of the majority. Even if Menni really were everything he is claimed to be by the naïve people who have been blinded by the greatness of his services (which we by no means wish to belittle)—even then a violation of the principle of democracy would pose a threat to its future. Rut as a matter of fact, the danger is more imminent.
“Engineer Menni wants nothing for himself. Then why grant him a dictatorship? Or did he not accept it for himself personally?. It will be objected that people must be judged by their intentions and actions. Fine. Let us consider Menni’s actions in relation to democracy. Society, the people, demanded that his case be reviewed. He declined. What is this if not contempt for the will of the people and the institutions of the Republic? He is justified in despising his former judges, w
ho were the instrument of a financial cabal. But not to respect republican justice as such—who has given him that right? And just what is he trying to tell the masses by such a gesture? No serious person is about to sacrifice several years of freedom without some important practical reason. What is the goal that compels him to don at any price the halo of a martyr?
“We all know Menni’s former attitude toward the workers’ organizations—it was undemocratic. Even today he has not explicitly refuted his position. But consider the contradiction! Who do you suppose is his right-hand man and chief assistant? A man who is, if not the acknowledged leader of the trade unions, then certainly their political inspiration: the socialist Netti. What do you make of this? Note that lately the unions have displayed an incomprehensible and groundless distrust of our democratic party, which has always defended their interests. The labor federations do not want to restrict themselves to their professional concerns, but have begun creating their own special political committees. A new workers’ party is turning its back on democracy before our very eyes. This disintegration of the mass base of democracy is dangerous and may even prove fatal to it. And it is proceeding under the direct influence, or more precisely the leadership, of an entire school of revolutionary politicians headed by Netti and his father, the mechanic Arri.
“These are all indisputable facts. When one knows them, is it so very difficult to divine the purpose of the alliance between the engineer-dictator and the socialists? Feli Rao was supported by the corporate syndicates; Menni looks to the workers’ organizations. Feli Rao was satisfied with wealth and economic power. He did not and could not challenge the republican order, for he had the power of money but lacked the power of the masses. Will Menni, who is backed by the working masses, be as modest? He is indifferent to money, that is certain. Consequently, he wants something else. Do you want to know why Menni keeps himself hidden behind prison walls? It is to divert suspicion from himself until his friends on the outside have had time to mobilize a gigantic army of workers.
Red Star Page 28