Totalitarianism
The respective legacies of the American, French and European revolutions have shaped democratic development on a global scale, directly or indirectly. The American revolution attained limited advance and similar, mildly progressive reforms were later established in the UK selectively abstracted from among the demands of Chartist common sense (e.g. excluding the right to bear arms) and granted with the benefit of hindsight by wily liberal conservatism once British radical teeth had been successfully drawn. Premised by its failure to properly grasp and incorporate the achievements of American radicalism in regard to common sense the main legacy of the French revolution has been the proposition that force should be used pre-emptively or offensively, that is to say beyond the defensive parameters of common sense and natural law, to resolve conflict between what a factional elite decide are the ideals of social progress, and the given viewpoint of the ignorant masses. This revolutionary tenet was first alluded to by Machiavelli, practised by Cromwell, theorised vaguely by Rousseau, and given its first clear expression in regard to democracy by Babeuf.
Democracy in general was for Babeuf a noble goal, but 'democracy according to the French revolution' in which a vanguard would exercise dictatorial powers until reactionary forces had been completely defeated was a practical necessity when confronted by a monarchy resolved to oppose the transition to government by consent. In this way the failings of French radicalism in matters of constitutional reform and the excessive use of force associated with this approach began to be theorised as somehow inevitable and, indeed, historically necessary.
Accordingly in Europe English philosophical realism, despite the efforts of British working class leaders such as Paine and Hodgskin, took second place to the vague but seemingly more revolutionary inclinations of Rousseau and, with the onset of Marxist influence, German Idealism turned on its head. Blanqui's commonsensical invocation of elective dictatorship as a tactical device was overtaken by Marx's much more historically grand concept of a 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' denoting a fairly indefinite stage of economic determinist development in which men could be forced to be free over a much more prolonged period. Such conclusions however were based on false premises in regard to the status and lessons of both the American and French revolutions. Guizot, despite Marx's objections, was almost certainly more correct in his appraisal in this regard: the chief difference between French and Anglo-American radicalism was not that the former was of greater general significance, but rather that the latter had shown greater skill in achieving its objectives.
English philosophical realism, sortition and correspondingly democracy itself were consequently never fully understood by European intellectuals at any stage in the development of socialist thought. After the defeat of 1848 radical extremism, certainly in its most obscurantist, German form, threw out the democratic baby it had never understood with the masonically polluted Anglo-American bathwater: dialectics are superior to common sense, and democracy, Engels confidently concluded, is a 'chimera.' Dictatorship, that is to say, tyranny, was now to be the strategic aim of the working class, not 'bourgeois democracy.' Throughout the nineteenth century such inverted reasoning continued to permeate leftist ideology in Europe, more especially in Russia, but also entering the American body politic after Lincoln's murder and the transfer of the First International to the United States.
Common sense, extremism and opportunism intermingled unevenly in this process, interspersed with the debilitating effects of long terms of imprisonment, exemplified by that of Blanqui. Lenin established the organisational principles of Bolshevism which in their authentic form comprise probably the most optimal combination of aristocratic and democratic principles possible for a revolutionary movement. Nevertheless eventually, succumbing to the self selecting temptation to exercise state censorship of Lenin's unflattering character references during the Bolshevik leadership succession of 1924, totalitarianism emerged as the dominant trend on the Left, assuming complete hegemony in 1943, with closure of the Comintern formalising de jure what de facto had already taken place - the takeover of the communist party by its conspiratorial wing. This literally sealed the antidemocratic, dogmatic fate of radical militancy in the twentieth century, because freedom of criticism on the Left as a determinant of policy and leadership selection effectively ceased from this point.
As President Bush has noted, the self selecting nature of leadership through a revolutionary vanguard has comprised a general organisational feature of totalitarianism in both its communist and islamobolshevik forms. Actually, as shown above, it has also comprised a more discreet organisational feature of representative democracy, especially when given a helping masonic handshake. Nevertheless the overwhelmingly self selecting nature of totalitarian leadership is of course the least acceptable form of aristocracy, which, unmoderated by democratic power, has a greater natural affinity with heredity aristocracy than the natural aristocracy of virtue and talent Jefferson had upheld as a necessary component of government by consent (or indeed, Lenin's advanced workers). For these reasons hereditary factors now exert discernible influence in leadership selection on the Left, both in disguised ways, such as in the democracies, and with unabashed clarity, as in North Korea.
These are the basic preconditions and course of events which help explain why conservatism and radicalism swapped greatcoats on a general basis in regard to the nature and purpose of the relation between democracy and aristocracy, and why their respective standpoints on fundamental questions of human rights became inverted during the century following the American revolution. The ideology of European socialism is presupposed by the errors of radicalism in this regard. Equipped with a narrow and misconceived understanding of the relation between common sense and democracy leftism adopted an accordingly narrow and misconceived programme of reform based on one macroeconomic option alone - an untested, idealised socioeconomic hypothesis that social ownership of the means of production would be more efficient than private ownership.
This economic determinist hypothesis was thereafter invested with a status of certainty which it did not merit according to the most basic principles of scientific method. The self evident truths of common sense in regard to democracy do not, as shown, include socialism, or at least socialism understood in its European meaning, which is itself presupposed by a failure to understand democracy comprehensively and to properly distinguish those truths which are self evident to common sense from those which, through experiment, can be derived from them.
This is accordingly also the essential background to the fact that modern democracy has been locked in a state of rigid, chronic factional polarisation between left and right for generations. Having conceded the narrow parameters of representative government to appease the demand for universal suffrage, liberal conservatism has, in the greatest of all historical ironies, increasingly adopted a posture in defence of the right to free speech against radical extremism, and at the same time linked this defence to the single macroeconomic option of capitalism. Increasingly self selecting leftist leaders have peddled theory immune from and in defiance of the judgement of common sense and the experimental principle of progress through trial and error, and on these fraudulent ideological grounds largely narrowed the radical platform of reform to a single macroeconomic option as ordained by European historicist method within, at best, a factionally suborned representative system.
The evolution of European radical strategy from the errors and confusion of the French revolutionary experience to the dogmas of economic determinism (in both its reformist guise, as advocated by Blanc, and its revolutionary guise, as advocated by Marx) and totalitarianism was subject to various twists and turns, in which attempts to resist or correct this descent were made. Hodgskin recognised in 1825 the possible need to take account of market forces in radical strategy, and in this way his followers dissented from Owen's tendency to minimise this consideration; Blanqui rejected grand theory and attempts to write utopian blueprints for the future socialist society and emphasised instead the ongoing nature of democratic process in that regard; Tkachev flatly opposed Marxism and attempted to develop a more commonsensical approach based on a combination of Rousseau and Huxley's evolutionary theory. Lenin's insights in regard to party organisation sought to elevate the role of common sense understanding and judgement in both theory and strategy.
A century ago radicalism despite its weaknesses and errors was still concerned with issues of truth, open debate and honest convictions and could have eventually corrected the mistaken assumptions of economic determinism and the French revolutionary tradition. Totalitarianism, which dates on a practical basis from 1924, has closed off most of these possibilities. The chief impediment to democratic progress today is that its heirs in both the west and the communist states are conjointly set on an essentially opportunist project of forcing men to be free. In this regard Lenin's point that the main enemy is not the 'bourgeoisie' but opportunism remains just as valid. Totalitarian careerism is presupposed by the willingness of leftist advocates to act along the line of least resistance, which is determined by parameters of party dogma which preclude freedom of criticism. Given that economic determinism has proved wanting in practice, their chief concern must therefore incline to the priority that they remain in control and as immune as possible from criticism. To do this they are committed to upholding an essentially purely Machiavellian strategy aimed, openly or by stealth, at the partial, or if necessary total abolition of free speech to contain or destroy opposition to their rule. All means can be employed to this purpose, including wearing the slave power greatcoat in regard to the right to bear arms, and plagiarism.
These considerations comprise much of the background against which Winston Churchill made his 1946 Iron Curtain address, claiming, correctly and without the slightest trace of sarcasm, that against the totalitarian rule of compact oligarchies and political police 'we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence. All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind.'
Eighty three Labour MPs, among them James Callaghan, attempted to pass a motion of censure against this speech, an initiative which remains probably the most important expression of the seemingly improbable but nevertheless undeniable swapping of left and right greatcoats that came about in the century following the American revolution. These considerations determine the present state of affairs in political life, with the proviso that radical extremism has developed greatly increased skills and power in usurping the established parameters of representative government by deployment of what Churchill recognised to be its fifth column forces. The tactics of stealth, supported by the vast potential for deconstructive intrigue, disruption and intimidation at the disposal of totalitarian state power, are far more developed than in previous eras, so much so that it can now be conjectured that conservatism may be unable to preserve democratic freedoms against the encroachments of leftist strategy.
This is the context in which political participation in the west is falling to crisis levels and in which the 'Third Way,' graced with the participating patronage of at least one member of the Rothschild dynasty (Lynn Forester), was adopted as the chief platform of electoral policy for the Left on a world scale.
Duplicity, spin, infiltration and black propaganda assumed central significance in leftist strategy long ago, such that the narrow parameters of party politics can no longer provide a reliable vehicle for the expression of honestly held political convictions. Whether David Cameron is a genuine conservative or some sort of 'Pol Pot' cannot be known, but it is clear that hegemony can be established not merely by the popularity of any given set of policies, but also by the absence of any coherent alternative. This is the context in which no UK political party is prepared to properly defend the right to a secret ballot. Unimaginative tactics which play fast and loose with the integrity of the electoral system, including the use of postal ballots on demand, are rooted ultimately in totalitarian factional subversion of democratic process within the Left, reducing it to a merely cosmetic affair aimed at disguising what is in effect a process of self selection by those in power of fellow sycophants. This tends to engender incompetence: it is therefore unsurprising that electoral strategists who derive their powers from such process should be tempted to rely on fraudulent methods to succeed.