Is Democracy Possible?

THE MACHIAVELLIANS--James Burnham --John Day ($2.50).

THE HERO IN HISTORY--Sidney Hook --John Day ($2.50).

Soviet Russia today is a far cry from Communism--that is, Communism according to Karl Marx. Joseph Stalin's iron personal dictatorship (with its capitalistic features so reassuring to many) makes most old-line Marxists hold their heads and wonder what happened. Whatever became of the Marxist dream of an egalitarian society? The Kremlin (like the U.S. Communist Party) still uses Marx as a sort of ikon and devises rationalizations to make its actions square with Marx's teachings. But most genuine Marxists have been driven, by the failure of the Bolshevist Revolution to lead to a Marxist society, to re-examine history. They want to discover, if possible, just where their prophet was wrong, through what loopholes in the Marxian theory Joseph Stalin got in.

Two U.S. citizens most learned in Marxism and most concerned about its failures to date are Professors James Burnham and Sidney Hook, colleagues in philosophy at New York University. Now that Marxist efforts toward a society of free and equal men seem to have been sidetracked, both men are concerned with the question of whether democracy, in the sense of government by the people, is possible at all.

Democracy Is Impossible. Burnham takes the black view that it is impossible. Member of an intellectual Roman Catholic family,* he was for years an outstanding U.S. Trotskyite, but a few years ago he abruptly abandoned leftist politics and Karl Marx. In The Managerial Revolution (TIME, May 19, 1941) he developed the large but rather fuzzy thesis that whatever political terms are used to describe the societies of the future, they will really be governed by a managerial elite consisting of specialists, technicians, etc.

Burnham now produces additional arguments for the inevitability of a governing elite (if not necessarily his elite). The few genuine political realists, he feels, belong to the school of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). Its cardinal principles:

> An objective science of politics is possible.

> Politics is the struggle for power.

> Logical action is only a bit player on the political stage. > The chief players are the elite and the non-elite--the Lions (plus the Foxes) and the Rabbits. > The majority are incapable of self-rule. > The object of every elite is to maintain its power.

>The rule of the elite is based upon force and fraud--whether called democracy, fascism, socialism or whatever. > Society is a mixture of political formula and myth.

>The rule of Lions and Foxes must coincide to some degree with the interests of the Rabbits.

Burnham discusses at length the leading modern followers of Machiavelli:

>Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) thought the Rabbits were a good deal more aggressive than Machiavelli did. Mosca found "the struggle for pre-eminence is far more conspicuous . . . than the struggle for existence."

> Georges Sorel (1847-1922) developed the idea of the social myth--the idea that most peoples have fabulous notions of their potential greatness and importance. Such beliefs, Sorel insisted, must be reckoned with by the politician, who should not imagine that the Rabbits follow reasonable paths.

> Robert Michels (1876-1936) argued that all democracy tends to grow into what he called "Bonapartism"--a government in which parliament continues to exist but is entirely "subordinate to the Bonapartist leader, for only he completely expresses the popular will."

> Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) believed that society consists of an elite and a mass, the society's health depending on what he termed "The circulation of the elites." The elite must be "open"--must be able to expel Lions when Foxes are needed, must be able to smell out Foxes among the Rabbits and assimilate them into the elite. Such free circulation is a condition of intelligent government.

Democracy Is Difficult. Professor Sidney Hook, unlike Professor Burnham, has not turned his back on Marxism.

He thinks that Marxism should be revised and extended, not abandoned. And he thinks that democracy is not impossible, but difficult.

To Hook, the Machiavellian position is unsound. Says he: "Behind the facade of logical argument in the writings of Mosca, Pareto and Michels, are two significant assumptions . . . that human na ture has a fixed and unalterable charac ter . . . that the amount of freedom and democracy in a society is determined by a law already known. Both assumptions are false." History, insists Hook, is made by men.

Theologians deny this, try to "trace the finger of God in all historical events." Some economists deny it too, talk about "forces." But, says Hook, with a nod at Thomas Carlyle, the investigator of his tory, instead of arriving at "forces" finds some single individual like bearded old Karl Marx.

The single, dominant man, the "hero," absorbs Hook. He should not be confused with the simply eventful man such as Columbus. "Most historians would be ready to admit that, even if his ships had foundered, the new world would have been discovered . . . the whole period was one of enterprise and discovery. . . ." The hero, the event-making man, does not simply find "a fork in the historical road" --he helps create the fork. He is unique, irreplaceable. Event-making men: Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon.

Hook's most recent example of the event-making man is the Marxist hero, Nikolay Lenin. Hook disagrees with historians who read the Bolshevik Revolution into history as inevitable. What insured the successful culmination of the revolution was the fact that the individual hero, Lenin, was present. The evidence: Lenin returned to Russia on April 3, presented his thesis on April 4, called for the overthrow of the Provisional Government by armed insurrection. He demanded immediate cessation of the war against Germany. He cried "turn the imperialist war into a civil war." A bombshell, Lenin's opinions outraged all groups, all members of his own party.

Yet before the month was out he had armed his party with a complete set of objectives, new, undreamed-of. During the June days, Bolshevik leaders wanted an all-out attack on Kerensky. Lenin restrained them by force of will, warned them that the uprising would be abortive. In October he felt it was then or never, but his party had slowed down to a snail's pace. He debated and won them to his position. Concludes Hook: "If Lenin had not been on the scene, not a single revolutionary leader could have substituted for him."

Democracy, says Hook in effect, is possible if the general social tendency and the event-makers (if any) favor it. A democratic state must follow the leader, but should also be vigilant against his autocratic tendencies. Like Burnham, Hook recognizes the persistent power of the elite. But he thinks that democratic forces may overcome a ruling class. In Burnham's view, man is a long shot and history is doom. In Hook's view, man has the odds. For Burnham, Machiavelli is an aid to pessimism. For Hook, the concept of the hero bolsters optimism.

*His brother Philip (now in the Army Air Forces) is an editor of the Catholic Commonweal.

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