From the rule of the masses and the concept of the proletarian revolution we first pass on to the idea of a revolution made and directed by professional agents. The relentless criticism of the State [as an instrument of the ruling class] is then reconciled with the . . . necessary, but provisional, dictatorship of the proletariat, embodied in its leaders. Finally, it is announced that the end of this provisional condition cannot be foreseen and that, what is more, no one has ever presumed to promise that there will be an end. After that it is logical that the autonomy of the Soviets should be contested . . . and the sailors of Kronstadt crushed by the party. . . . From this moment on, the history of the interior struggles of the party, from Lenin to Stalin, is summed up in the struggle between workers’ democracy and military and bureaucratic dictatorship; in other words, between justice and expediency (R, 231, 230).
The Universe of the Trial
We are no longer in limbo. The church militant is on the march. In the manichean confines of this sacred world, there is a truth into which the vanguard party is granted unique insight. There are those who have faith in the revolution and those who do not. Since the goodness of the revolutionary cause is self-evident, those who are not with us must be against us. It is not so much, even, a question of their intent—though a lack of fervor in the historic cause is grounds for suspicion—as it is a matter of “objective culpability.” Failure to commit themselves to the cause, makes them objectively guilty of impeding the movement of history. Whatever their intentions, they are playing into the hands of the enemy.
We are far, it would seem, from Marxism and from Hegel, and even farther from the first rebels. Nevertheless, all purely historical thought leads to the brink of this abyss. To the extent to which Marx predicted the inevitable establishment of the classless city and to the extent to which he thus established the good will of history, every check to the advance of freedom must be imputed to the ill will of mankind. Marx reintroduced crime and punishment into the unchristian world, but only in relation to history. Marxism in one of its aspects is a doctrine of culpability on man’s part and innocence on history’s (R, 241).
If history is on the march to the definitive city, and if we are sure we know the way, how are we to respond to those who seek to block the path? What are we to think of their motives? Or their character? Even more, of the consequences of allowing them and their allies freedom of action? The world is the realm of the manichean struggle of classes. It is war. The forces of good must be at least as well organized as are the forces of evil. And we know that the forces of evil will stop at nothing to defend their privileges. They have tremendous resources, having controlled the state and the economy for so long. Even more, they have controlled the sphere of culture, the production and reproduction of habits and beliefs. In fact, their power and the power of
entrenched habit are so great as to have infected the proletariat. Long subject to the cultural hegemony of the bourgeoisie, workers are continually tempted to go over to the enemy, out of habit and the tradition of subservience. Even they are not to be trusted, must be organized, carefully watched, and, when necessary, subjected to “iron discipline.” We must exterminate not only the bourgeoisie, but the bourgeois elements lurking within the character of the proletariat. This war will continue until the last refuge of the bourgeoisie has been wiped out. Until then, eternal vigilance and the strictest discipline are demanded. Recalcitrance may be taken as a sign of resistance, of the lurking attachment to bourgeois interests. Even if that is not the case, failure to suppress such deviation gives aid and comfort to the enemy.
In this “universe of the trial,” “every man is a criminal who is unaware of being so. . . . His actions he considered subjectively inoffensive, or even advantageous for the future of justice. But it is demonstrated to him that objectively his actions have been harmful to that future.” But who can know for sure what will ultimately benefit human justice? Do the intentions of the individual have no bearing on innocence or guilt?
The concept of objective culpability … is embodied in an interminable subjectivity which is imposed on others as objectivity: and that is the philosophic definition of terror. This type of objectivity has no definable meaning, but power will give it a content by decreeing that everything of which it does not approve is guilty (R, 242).
Nothing is more successful in stamping out revolt than a sense of guilt. Individuals must be made to realize that they are nothing by themselves. No wonder the importance of making pride a
sin. The unquestioning domination of a church requires the institution of such guilt, so that the citizenry will feel in advance that they deserve what they get. The church has long known that. And so does the party.
But what, it might be asked, could ever tempt the free-thinking intelligentsia to adopt such a doctrine? For it is the thought of some of the best and most humane minds in the West whose dreadful itinerary Camus has sought to chart. The movements that took shape at least in part in accord with these ideas were dedicated to the elimination of injustice and oppression. It is therefore to the character as well as the metaphysics of the West that these questions must be posed—and the disease unveiled. Camus directs himself to that task in The Fall, where he seeks out the bad conscience of the bourgeois intellectual. More on that subterranean world later.
The Physics of the Soul
The final point that needs to be made at this time concerns human nature. I have been exploring the logic that leads to the historical effort to carry out a metaphysical revolution. That is what Camus means by the conquest of totality. “Totality is, in effect, nothing other than the ancient dream of unity common to both believers and rebels, but projected horizontally onto an earth deprived of God” (R, 233). Totality is the effort, proceeding from a total vision of a good world, to mold historical experience in accord with the demands of that vision.
But, however noble the intentions, however brilliant the vision, nature and people are not clay that can be molded. To the extent that we are committed to totality, it is difficult not to view recalcitrance as evil. We are thus well down the path toward a holy war. Such an effort presupposes “the infinite malleability of man and the negation of human nature” (R, 237). It is committed to the transformation of the human condition—and declares war on that which resists. “From that point on, traditional human relations have been transformed. These progressive transformations characterize the world of rational terror. . . . Dialogue and personal relations have been replaced by propaganda or polemic, which are two kinds of monologue” (R, 239—40).
“In the kingdom of humanity, men are bound by ties of affection; in the Empire of objects, men are united by mutual accusation” (R, 239). In short, “totality is not unity. The state of siege, even when it is extended to the very boundaries of the earth, is not reconciliation” (R, 240).
The effort to deny transcendent values has involved the rejection of limits to action other than those dictated by expediency. Concern for and respect for human nature, however uncertain our understanding of it, is no longer a limit to action. Rather, human nature becomes an object, like every other natural object, to be molded and shaped to the demands of the task. Here the NKVD pioneered in the development of “the physics of the soul.” No longer a value, the soul has become a means or an impediment. Only human appetite guides actions—in the name of a future that cannot be seen, known, or revealed. But that future can become the object of a faith that will justify whatever those with the power to control both the action and the interpretation insist upon. It is only a matter of finding the enemy’s weakest points.
THE DIALECTIC OF REVOLT AND REVOLUTION
If “every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to being” (R, 105; L’HR, 135), how is it that it has so often given rise to murder and violence? “Is this contradiction inevitable? Does it characterize or betray the value of rebellion?”
I have sought to show how “revolution is only the logical consequence of metaphysical rebellion,” revealing “the same desperate and bloody effort to affirm man in face of what denies him” (R, 105; L’HR, 135). But if “the revolutionary spirit thus undertakes the defense of that part of man which refuses to submit,” trying “to assure him his reign in the realm of time,” how are we to understand the relation of revolution to rebellion? Is revolution a necessary development of rebellion or the consecration of its betrayal? No other issue has been more hotly contested in commentaries on The Rebel than this. In a strange and perhaps revealing convergence, critics of both left and right have seen fit to counterpose revolt and revolution in Camus’s thought. Critics of the left have held this opposition to be proof of Camus’s reactionary turn, claiming that he thus sanctified the impotent outbursts of noble souls and the pure at heart, while condemning all effective protests to the ignominy of inevitable despotism. Most bourgeois commentators, on the other hand, especially in the English-speaking world, have commended Camus’s work as a necessary and just attack on twentieth century revolutions in the name of human rights, democratic liberties, and parliamentary democracy. These commentators have praised his pacifism and welcomed his courageous attack upon revolutionary violence.