Reflections of a notorious muddlehead

Today, Georges Sorel is virtually unknown. A century ago, this French political thinker was quite notorious. Shortly after the October Revolution in Russia, a Swiss newspaper accused Sorel of being responsible for it. The aged philosopher took it as a compliment, and wrote an article called "In Defence of Lenin". What Lenin himself thought of the episode is less clear, but in a work published long before the revolution, he called Sorel "a notorious muddlehead". Now, you don't get a reputation like *that* without reason!

Sorel's ideas are difficult to summarize in a short review. Indeed, many scholarly works have been published on the man, who considered himself to be a socialist, while being seen by many as a forerunner of fascism. Sorel claimed to be a Marxist, but his Marxism wasn't the Marxism of Marx, but rather a strange blend of revolutionary syndicalism and ideas adapted from a long range of "bourgeois" sources. While initially a supporter of the left-wing syndicalist CGT, he later collaborated with right-wing monarchists, and seems to have praised both Lenin and Mussolini at the time of his death.

"Reflections on Violence" was originally published in 1906, and later revised and expanded. It remains the most important text by Sorel, and the natural place to start for those interested in his thought. It should be noted at the outset that Sorel's text isn't particularly exciting, all the hype notwithstanding (as in the editorial review at this product page). Lenin and even Trotsky wrote worse things than this, and so did Nietzsche. Nor is Sorel's text an easy read, although it's better than its reputation. Sorel admitted that the text wasn't particularly systematic, and that it was really a collection of notebooks. He does loose the red thread a couple of times, but the main ideas are still easily discernible.

"Reflections" was written during Sorel's left-wing, syndicalist and ostensibly Marxist period. What immediately strikes a reader familiar with socialist texts, is that Sorel's booklet doesn't look very "socialist". There is very little of the rethoric typical of such texts, and Sorel frequently references works by non-socialist authors, including Tocqueville, Renan, Bergson and Cardinal John Henry Newman (!). It's clear that Sorel was an independent thinker, a "Sorelian" if you like.

In the introduction, Sorel explains that he is a historical pessimist. He believes that pessimism is the only truly revolutionary position. Optimists become reformists, in the vain belief that society can be reformed according to their hair-brained schemes, and when they realize that this is impossible, they simply stick to it, accomplishing nothing but corruption and decadence. A pessimist, on the other hand, realizes that society is rotten to the core, and must be revolutionized en toto, at a single stroke. Sorel compares the revolutionary labor movement to ancient Christianity and 16th century Calvinism, two other pessimistic movements. The introduction also deals with Sorel's theory about myths, also mentioned in the main text of "Reflections".

One of the main themes of "Reflections on Violence" is that reformism actually works, and that this is a bad thing! The bourgeoisie, its politicians and the Church have become timid, cowardly and frightened. They no longer want to fight the proletariat. The labor unions and workers' parties can easily scare this cowardly bourgeoisie into making concessions. This benefits the reformist labor leaders and politicians, who will eventually become a corrupted establishment group amongst others. Meanwhile, both the economy and society at large degenerates. The solution to this unhappy state is proletarian violence. At one point, Sorel writes that such violence should be directed in particular against "good", philanthropic employers and other upper-class do-gooders, to show them that the workers are ungrateful. Violence separates the classes, the proletariat from the bourgeoisie, and it will force the bourgeoisie to become more war-like, heroic and dynamic, something Sorel considered a good thing. Curiously, for a very heterodox Marxist, Sorel actually accepted the most "pro-capitalist" part of Marx' thinking: the idea that the capitalists are historically progressive since they develop the productive forces, make the economy more efficient, while simultaneously creating their own grave-diggers (the proletariat). Thus, the revolution simply takes over a productive apparatus perfected by capitalism. Sorel feared that a timid, decadent bourgeoisie wouldn't fulfil this historic mission, and that all of society would decline as a result. He compares this to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Thus, the violence of the workers actually forces the bourgeoisie into completing the task assigned for it by history, a task that will inevitably lead to its destruction. And no, I haven't misinterpreted Sorel. He actually does say all this!

The revolutionary syndicalists in France called for a general strike to usher in socialism. Sorel supports the idea of the general strike, and he seems to suggest that it's a necessary corrective to the errors of traditional Marxism. Sorel admits that society haven't become polarized between two classes, something predicted in "The Communist Manifesto". What economic forces alone haven't accomplished, will be accomplished by the general strike. It will polarize society between workers and employers. Sorel also believes that workers lack a revolutionary impulse, and might be by nature conservative. Once again, the idea of the general strike is intended to cure this. Notoriously, Sorel calls the general strike a "myth". It doesn't really matter to George Sorel whether a general strike is possible or not, or perhaps only partially possible. What matters is the *idea* of a general strike, an idea that energizes and mobilizes the proletariat, turns it into a class of Homeric warriors, and spurs them on to heroic action. In passing, he even seems to admit that his concept of myth borders the religious, but doesn't seem to consider it such a bad thing. Indeed, Sorel seems fascinated by the power religion has over its adherents, Catholicism in particular. Since the myth cannot be rationally analyzed, this particular Sorelian notion has come under much criticism. What if the myth of the general strike is dropped in favour of another myth, say a nationalist one? Was this why Sorel so easily transitioned from the far left to the far right?

Sorel was, if not muddleheaded, at least very contradictory. There are many unresolved tensions in "Reflections on Violence". One is the tension between Sorel's elitism and ouvrierism. On the one hand, he feels nothing but contempt for vulgar, useless people. On the other hand, he eulogizes the workers, especially the poorer ones. He seems to have regarded the working class as potential heroes, while the intellectuals, politicians and philanthropists were worthy of nothing but scorn. Another, more serious, tension is between centralization and decentralization. Sorel admires the captains of industry, large-scale factories, and the industrial revolution, at one point scornfully calling England "medieval". But Sorel also has a libertarian, decentralist streak. He opposes the Jacobins, and believes that the French Revolution simply captured the centralized state apparatus of the ancient regime. (His main source for this analysis is Tocqueville.) Sorel opposes the centralization of the labor unions, since this would make them easier pray for reformist politicians. Indeed, Sorel's ultimate aim is to abolish the State, and it does seem that he wants to accomplish this task more or less immediately after the revolution (no gradual "withering away" here). But if the state is abolished, and the labor unions are decentralized, how can production and distribution still be centralized and large-scale? This is never explained.

But the most obvious tension concerns the view of violence itself. As already noted, Sorel actually opposed Jacobin terror, and hoped that the proletarian revolution would be less bloody than the bourgeois revolutions. Indeed, there is a strong streak of moralism in his text. Sorel clearly felt moral revulsion at the corruption of left-wing politicians who sold out their ideals, partisan patronage in the civil services, the use of police spies even by a "liberal" government, etc. He also believes that the task of the proletariat is to create a new, higher morality (which sounds like an idealized version of old, conservative morality). So where does violence fit in all this? Sorel tried to distinguish between two kinds of violence, the one heroic and Homeric, the other brutal and decadent. The former kind of violence, in combination with myths, gives the proletariat a sense of the sublime, and saves civilization. The second kind of violence is simply destructive. A century after the publication of "Reflections on Violence", it's easy to see the problem: "heroic" violence for a "sublime" "myth" very easily becomes brutality, terror and oppression.