The Secret of the Order
For any man that belongs to an elite corps, honour is necessarily founded upon loyalty: such is the very formula of the Saxon Code. Here is the motto embraced by Louis d’Estouteville95 at the time of the Hundred Years’ War: ‘Where honour is to be found and loyalty is encountered, there, and only there, lies the fatherland’. For the members of the Legion, it is ‘honneur et fidélité’;96 for the Marines, ‘Semper Fidelis’; and for the S.S, ‘Meine Ehre heisst Treue’.
‘I am willing to consent to any sacrifice, including my life, always giving the Irgun priority over my own parents, brothers, sisters, and family, until we have established a sovereign Israel or death has severed me from our ranks’, says the Irgun soldier (in the Bible, one could already read the following sentence: ‘If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods”, you must certainly put them to death’ [Deuteronomy 13:6–9]).
Around 1957, general Chesty Puller97 declared: ‘Love for the Marines is stronger than the love of one’s country, one’s self-preservation instinct, or faith in one’s religion’.
‘A soldier belonging to an elite corps never takes off his uniform completely’, says Dominique Venner. He’s an initiate; he has undergone the trials that have turned him into a different man. He has uncovered the secret of the Order and has been entrusted with the Grail.
History always ‘ends badly’. An elite soldier is lucky if he does not end up being court martialled (Matthew McKeon) or detained by the State Security Court (Roger Degueldre). More often than not, however, it is the enemy that settles the matter. Warrior elites live off the memory of their sanguinary feasts rather than that of their victories. The Haganah98 has never forgotten the sacrifice made by the Zealots of Masada. As for the Legion, it still celebrates Camarón.99 Arnhem and Fort Alamo are further examples. In the meantime, one must endure; until the fall.
Throughout his training, a Cadet prepares for his marriage to death. A ‘resolution headband’ adorning his forehead, the Samurai makes sure he stares death straight in the face. A Marines sergeant once blurted out: ‘Death must be magnificent. I have never heard of anyone coming back from the dead and making fun of it’. ‘If death reaped us along the way, we would wish to set a precedent’, the paratroopers are heard to shout.
Hence a kind of romanticism that could be harmful to efficacy: a glorious defeat is preferable to a sad victory. It was Trotsky who once said: ‘A revolutionary’s foremost duty is to survive’. It is thus all a matter of style. Some are live dogs, others dead lions.
An Unfamiliar Rhythm
An elite soldier’s actions occur on the very edge, on the outer border where death and life meet. Indeed, he is equally indifferent when dealing and receiving death. ‘Judah shall rise through fire and blood’, Haganah founders say. And when one shouts ‘Get your job done properly!’ at the Marines, the words have but one meaning: ‘no screw-ups’. It is all the expression of one’s plain and simple love for a specific lifestyle. As Nietzsche says, ‘that which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil’.
No matter how much and how often one presents the elite warrior as a criminal or a brute, our contemporaries cannot repress a certain fascination for him: crowds always applaud the Legion. There is something about it that shines out, emitting a dark and mysterious glimmer. It is akin to a drum whose heavy pounding generates an unfamiliar rhythm.
On the eve of the battle of Okinawa, a young Samurai bade his family farewell. He would meet his fate the next day. In a short poem, he states that ‘life tolerates but one path — that of remaining true to one’s destiny’. Having read these words, his mother proceeded to add a few verses herself: ‘Regardless of your departure and our lingering, you are the one to determine your own path; who are we to complain?’ The father, not to be outdone, pens the following lines: ‘Perish you must, your soul made immortal, and I, for one, must commend you for taking your leave’. With nothing more to add, silence takes over.
Quoted by Mr Erwan Bergot, a paratrooper sub-lieutenant proudly declares: ‘When someone dons a red beret, there is no longer any need to ask themselves questions. If they find themselves unable to evade inner torment, however, they end up working in the Stewardship or Equipment Department’. Such declarations always leave ‘lead arses’ sneering. Indeed, the elite corps domain is one of simple truths, and its morality is not of the utilitarian kind. Does the paratrooper that jumps out of a plane with a fire in his stomach, the fearless Samurai who does not flinch as he presents his neck for a beheading, or the Marine that stares at the horizon while remaining indifferent to his instructor’s insults ever wonder ‘what purpose it all serves’?
And why would any such purpose be necessary? Back in the day, Marines wore a piece of leather to keep their necks stiff. General Vandergrift, who took charge of their defence before the American Congress in 1946, stated: ‘To kneel is not part of the corps’ tradition’. Justifications? None at all; for nobility breeds silence.
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Les samouraï,100 a book by Jean Mabire and Yves Bréhéret, Balland, 354 pages.
Les paras101 by Erwan Bergot, Balland, 317 pages.
Les Marines102 by François d’Orcival, Balland, 375 pages.
La Haganah103 by Thierry Nolin, Balland, 322 pages.
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The Elite Corps volumes have been translated in the UK by Allan Wingate, London, and in Italy by Ciarrapico, Rome. In France, there have been three successive editions: one by Balland editions, one by Club français du livre and one by Livre de poche.
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The Origins of Communism
Gérard Walter,104 a man who, among other works, authored a biography on Lenin105 and a very interesting historical account of the French Communist Party, passed away in the summer of 1974, at a time when he was about to complete a literary work entitled La conjuration du 9 thermidor.106 He had had, however, enough time to review his work titled Les origines du communisme107 (1931), which allowed it to be reedited shortly after his passing.
In this book, where he presents the doctrinal and historical bases of ‘primitive Communism’, Walter makes use of the Bible, the Talmud, apocryphal literature (both Jewish and Christian), the writings of the Church Fathers, and those of Greek and Latin philosophers and poets. This fact has resulted in the inclusion of a considerable number of quotes, all of which are presented with a sobriety that renders them even more convincing.
The ‘defence of the poor and oppressed’, the exaltation of ‘righteous suffering’, the justification of the meek’s struggle against the mighty, and the poor’s strife against the rich are recurring themes in Jewish prophetic literature.
In the Book of Psalms, Gérard Walter detects the first outline of a most powerful myth: that of class struggle.
General Levelling
The author explains that in this literature, the poor are not solely defined as the destitute. While being impoverished, they delight in their own poverty. They are poor and intend to remain so, believing that their condition is the only one to truly please God. In other words, a poor man is declared ‘righteous’ on the sole account of his own poverty, just as the rich are meant to displease God as a result of their wealth.
And yet, while rich people enjoy every possible advantage on earth, the poor consume tear-soaked bread. In order to be tolerated, such a situation must be justifiable. Hence this explanation: ‘The poor bear this blatant injustice thanks to their firm and absolute conviction that the day will come when God shall grant them resplendent compensation’. This compensation will take place in the afterlife. In this regard, the very existence of God serves as a guarantee.
The second book of the Sibylline Oracles makes the following attempt at describing the future Kingdom: ‘Undivided by walls or fences, to all shall life be common and wealth useless. For there shall no longer be poor nor rich, tyrants nor slaves, nor any
great nor small, nor kings nor leaders; all shall be alike in common’.
The prophets unanimously condemn ‘the greats of the Earth’, charging them with all conceivable iniquities. Samuel, regarded by the Acts of the Apostles as ‘the first of all prophets’, develops a violent anti-capitalistic propaganda. It is with him that one encounters the very first criticism of the monarchic regime.
‘This is the social ideal espoused by Jewish prophetism: a sort of general levelling that shall erase all class distinctions and result in the creation of a uniform society from which all privileges have been banished, whatever their kind. This egalitarian sentiment goes hand in hand with a feeling of irreducible animosity towards the rich and the powerful, none of whom will not be admitted into the future kingdom’, Gérard Walter declares.
The Book of Enoch develops the notion that the wicked are to be exterminated, categorising the latter into three groups: those that are kings, those who wield power, and the ones that ‘own land’. ‘Prepare the slaughter of sons because of the iniquity of the fathers’. Jeremiah pictures the future victims as ‘lambs to be slaughtered’ and recommends that the Eternal One prepare his prey ‘for the day of carnage’.
Gérard Walter also detects ‘communist tendencies’ in the Gospel according to Luke (which he contrasts with the Gospels written by John, Mark and Matthew). Indeed, he highlights the presence of an ‘apology of the poor’ in it, as well as a very particular insistence on social antagonisms. ‘And from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either’ (Luke 6:30).108 ‘Since one can be absolutely certain that the heavenly Father would never allow his beloved children to die of hunger and thirst, it is necessary to relinquish all notion of private property and erase from one’s memory every concept of the difference that separates what is “mine” from what is “yours”’, says Gérard Walter.
The Epistle of James accuses the rich of exploiting artisans and of monopolising capital. It warns them of the fate that awaits them on the ‘day of slaughter’. ‘It is in this manner that the author imagines Judgement Day: a kind of abattoir to which many thousands of well-fed and fattened rich people will be dragged’, remarks Walter.
In the first Christian communities, the principle of joint property was prevalent, as was the abolition of private property (even though people often failed to practice what they preached).
With regard to the issue of private property, the great authors were actually divided. Justin stated that the faithful were, back then, ‘delighted to share their possessions’. As for Basil, he wrote: ‘Whoever loves his neighbour as himself must not possess anything more than he does’. Augustine109 and Cyprian110 both proclaimed universal fraternity and equality. In his Apologeticum, Tertullian111 wrote the following: ‘Let us despise the century’, and ‘We must learn to renounce our earthly belongings in anticipation of celestial ones’. He does, however, add: ‘Indeed, I shall give to whoever asks, but only as an act of charity, not exaction’.
The very opposite position is advocated, quite skilfully too, by Theodoret of Cyrus, Irenaeus, Lactantius, and Clement of Alexandria.112
Two conceptions of faith clash on this level. The first is of a gnostic nature. Originating in some statements made by Jesus Christ, it implies that one must break with the world and relinquish all possessions (it is this tendency that shall prevail with Marcion113 and the Manichaeans).114 The other is founded upon the mind-set encountered in the Old Testament, substituting the Jewish notion of charity with the more radical concept of rejecting a world that is deemed evil.
Gérard Walter does not claim, of course, that ‘primitive Communism’ stems exclusively from the Judeo-Christian doctrine. He does, however, highlight the numerous points of convergence that they share and presents the documents that modern communists can nowadays take advantage of.
From the Middle-Ages onwards, ‘the communistic ideal’ would particularly be advocated by the Gnostics and the founders of Monarchism. The alliance between the throne and the altar, which originated from the ‘Constantinian compromise’ (In hoc signo, vinces!) would temporarily banish egalitarianism into the domain of schisms and heresy. None but the monks of the monasteries would keep the spirit of primitive Christianity alive by giving away all their possessions so as to live in ‘communities’.
The Revolutionaries
In the Graeco-Roman world, egalitarian ‘communist’ tendencies were scarcer. Completely absent from the religious sphere, they hardly ever surfaced anywhere but in literary or philosophical texts. In Greece, the utopias expressed by Phaleas of Chalcedon115 and Hippodamus of Miletus116 were aimed at improving the functioning of the city rather than at establishing a universal and transcendental justice. Among the works that relate to this current, one could mention some of Aristophanes’ comedies, several of Plato’s dialogues, the legend of the Golden Century, Euhemerus’ Sacred Chronicle, and Iambulus’ City of the Sun, which contained the embryonic form of all that would later be encountered in the writings of Thomas More117 and Campanella.118
Despite what people often imagine, the Spartan regime was nothing short of egalitarian: the homoioi (or men of equal standing) formed the free assembly of the best.
When talking about warriors and the guardians of the state, Plato wrote in his Republic: ‘What I want is for none of them to possess anything of their own apart from those things which are absolutely necessary’. He goes on to say that private property must be reserved for third-class citizens, meaning ‘labourers’.
Rousseau, ever an expert on the topic, would then state: ‘Whenever I read Plato’s Laws, I have the impression of traveling into a dream world’.
In 486 BC, Roman consul Spurius Cassius embraced the advocacy of a land reform which anticipated the plain and simple expropriation of certain great patricians. His attempt would fail: condemned to capital punishment, Spurius Cassius would be hurled from the top of the Tarpeian rock, without there being a single member of the people who would speak out against the sentence.
During the 2nd century BC, The Gracchus brothers, Caius and Tiberius, would also fall prey to their own delusions and be put to death (drawing inspiration from Plutarch, the democratic tradition would weave their lives into a cautionary tale).
At the end of the day, the first revolutionary uprisings were hardly anything more than the work of slaves: the revolt of Eunus and Salvius in Sicily, and the war of the gladiators (with Spartacus) from 73 to 71 BC.
Spartacus, who would end up embodying one of Karl Marx’s favourite heroic figures, was originally Thracian. A prisoner of war, a slave, a soldier, a deserter, a notorious outlaw and, last but not least, a gladiator, he managed to raise an army of slaves and various men who had lost their social status, an army that ended up comprising up to 70,000 men and plunged Rome into a perilous situation whose gravity was described by Sallustius. Having failed to organise himself properly, he died in battle, defeated by Licinius Crassus (‘the richest of all Romans’),
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Les origines du communisme119 by Gérard Walter, Payot, 359 pages.
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The Theory of Democracy
Montesquieu once said: ‘Democracy has two excesses to avoid — the spirit of inequality, which leads to aristocracy or monarchy, and the spirit of extreme equality, which leads to despotic power’ (The Spirit of the Laws, VIII, 2). Mr Giovanni Sartori, the fifty-three-year-old director of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Florence, quotes these words and adopts them as his own.
A former professor at the universities of Harvard and Yale, Mr Sartori also runs the Italian Magazine of Political Science. Published in 1957, his Theory of Democracy (Democrazia e definizioni) is already considered a classic in the field of modern political science.
What ‘People’ Are We Referring To?
Having initially seen the light of day with Herodotus, who used it in connection to the notion of isonomia (equality before the law), the word ‘democracy’ is a term that has fallen into history�
�s captivity. From the old Germanic ‘aristodemocracy’ to China’s current ‘popular democracy’, its diverse meanings abound. Just like Lenin, George Washington intended to establish a democracy. While the Chinese speak of a ‘popular democracy’, the Americans talk about ‘social democracy’. As for Fabian socialists, their focus is on an ‘industrial democracy’.
Unlike socialism, which led to the birth of the Marxist ideology, democracy has never identified with any specific line of thought. ‘It is rather a sub-product that stemmed from the entire development of Western civilisation’, Mr Sartori wrote. It designates an ideal rather than a reality.
Hence the following words, expressed by Mr Bertrand de Jouvenel: ‘All discussions regarding democracy are void, for there are none who understand what is being discussed’ (in Du Pouvoir).120
In theory, the democratic principle is, above all else, a principle of legitimacy. Power is declared legitimate when it originates from the authority of the people and is founded upon the latter’s consent.
Soon enough, however, ambiguities surface: what ‘people’ are we referring to? Does the term relate to a simple plurality (Anglo-Saxon people) or to a collective organic entity (the Italian popolo, the German Volk, etc.)? Or perhaps to a privileged faction of the population (only popular classes)?
From a solely descriptive viewpoint, no democracy could ever be a genuine ‘power of the people’: a very weak majority could indeed crush a very strong minority.
Under the best possible hypothesis, democracies are ‘polyarchies’ (societies with multiple centres of power), even ‘polyoligarchies’ at times.
As far as popular ‘consent’ is concerned, furthermore, one must distinguish presumed consent (where the people consents as long as its members do not express their disapproval) from verified consent, which implies some sort of consultation. It is furthermore necessary to determine the various modalities of this consultation. According to many, there is actually nothing democratic about the consent expressed by means of a plebiscite. Moreover, owing to its very existence, every social structure tends to encourage certain kinds of political behaviour while simultaneously curbing others. Under such conditions, the democratic game is bound to find itself distorted.
Systems and Debates Page 5
