The Psychology of Revolution Part 6

1. Transformations of Personality.

I have dwelt at length elsewhere upon a certain theory of character, without which it is absolutely impossible to understand divers transformations or inconsistencies of conduct which occur at certain moments, notably in time of revolution. Here are the princ.i.p.al points of this theory:

Every individual possesses, besides his habitual mentality, which, when the environment does not alter, is almost constant, various possibilities of character which may be evoked by pa.s.sing events.

The people who surround us are the creatures of certain circ.u.mstances, but not of all circ.u.mstances. Our ego consists of the a.s.sociation of innumerable cellular egos, the residues of ancestral personalities. By their combination they form an equilibrium which is fairly permanent when the social environment does not vary. As soon as this environment is considerably modified, as in time of insurrection, this equilibrium is broken, and the dissociated elements const.i.tute, by a fresh aggregation, a new personality, which is manifested by ideas, feelings, and actions very different from those formerly observed in the same individual. Thus it is that during the Terror we see honest bourgeois and peaceful magistrates who were noted for their kindness turned into bloodthirsty fanatics.

Under the influence of environment the old personality may therefore give place to one entirely new. For this reason the actors in great religious and political crises often seem of a different essence to ourselves; yet they do not differ from us; the repet.i.tion of the same events would bring back the same men.

Napoleon perfectly understood these possibilities of character when he said, in Saint Helena:-

"It is because I know just how great a part chance plays in our political decisions, that I have always been without prejudices, and very indulgent as to the part men have taken during our disturbances... . In time of revolution one can only say what one has done; it would not be wise to say that one could not have done otherwise... . Men are difficult to understand if we want to be just... . Do they know themselves? Do they account for themselves very clearly? There are virtues and vices of circ.u.mstance."

When the normal personality has been disaggregated under the influence of certain events, how does the new personality form itself? By several means, the most active of which is the acquisition of a strong belief. This orientates all the elements of the understanding, as the magnet collects into regular curves the filings of a magnetic metal.

Thus were formed the personalities observed in times of great crises: the Crusades, the Reformation, the Revolution notably.

At normal times the environment varies little, so that as a rule we see only a single personality in the individuals that surround us. Sometimes, however, it happens that we observe several, which in certain circ.u.mstances may replace one another.

These personalities may be contradictory and even inimical. This phenomenon, exceptional under normal conditions, is considerably accentuated in certain pathological conditions. Morbid psychology has recorded several examples of multiple personality in a single subject, such as the cases cited by Morton Prince and Pierre Janet.

In all these variations of personality it is not the intelligence which is modified, but the feelings, whose a.s.sociation forms the character.

2. Elements of Character Predominant in Time of Revolution.

During revolution we see several sentiments developed which are commonly repressed, but to which the destruction of social constraints gives a free vent.

These constraints, consisting of the law, morality, and tradition, are not always completely broken. Some survive the upheaval and serve to some extent to damp the explosion of dangerous sentiments.

The most powerful of these restraints is the soul of the race. This determines a manner of seeing, feeling, and willing common to the majority of the individuals of the same people; it const.i.tutes a hereditary custom, and nothing is more powerful than the ties of custom.

This racial influence limits the variations of a people and determines its destiny within certain limits in spite of all superficial changes.

For example, to take only the instances of history, it would seem that the mentality of France must have varied enormously during a single century. In a few years it pa.s.sed from the Revolution to Caesarism, returned to the monarchy, effected another Revolution, and then summoned a new Caesar. In reality only the outsides of things had changed.

We cannot insist further here on the limits of national variability, but must now consider the influence of certain affective elements, whose development during revolution contributes to modify individual or collective personalities. In particular I will mention hatred, fear, ambition, jealousy or envy, vanity, and enthusiasm. We observe their influence during several of the upheavals of history, notably during the course of the French Revolution, which will furnish us with most of our examples.

Hatred.-The hatred of persons, inst.i.tutions, and things which animated the men of the Revolution is one of these affective phenomena which are the more striking the more one studies their psychology. They detested, not only their enemies, but the members of their own party. "If one were to accept unreservedly," said a recent writer, "the judgments which they expressed of one another, we should have to conclude that they were all traitors and boasters, all incapable and corrupt, all a.s.sa.s.sins or tyrants." We know with what hatred, scarcely appeased by the death of their enemies, men persecuted the Girondists, Dantonists, Hebertists, Robespierrists, &c.

One of the chief causes of this feeling resided in the fact that these furious sectaries, being apostles in possession of the absolute verity, were unable, like all believers, to tolerate the sight of infidels. A mystic or sentimental cert.i.tude is always accompanied by the need of forcing itself on others, is never convinced, and does not shrink from wholesale slaughter when it has the power to commit it.

If the hatreds that divided the men of the Revolution had been of rational origin they would not have lasted long, but, arising from affective and mystic factors, men could neither forget nor forgive. Their sources being identical in the different parties, they manifested themselves on every hand with identical violence.

It has been proved, by means of doc.u.ments, that the Girondists were no less sanguinary than the Montagnards. They were the first to declare, with Petion, that the vanquished parties should perish. They also, according to M. Aulard, attempted to justify the ma.s.sacres of September. The Terror must not be considered simply as a means of defence, but as the general process of destruction to which triumphant believers have always treated their detested enemies. Men who can put up with the greatest divergence of ideas cannot tolerate differences of belief.

In religious or political warfare the vanquished can hope for no quarter. From Sulla, who cut the throats of two hundred senators and five or six thousand Romans, to the men who suppressed the Commune, and shot down more than twenty thousand after their victory, this b.l.o.o.d.y law has never failed. Proved over and over again in the past, it will doubtless be so in the future.

The hatreds of the Revolution did not arise entirely from divergence of belief. Other sentiments-envy, ambition, and self-love-also engendered them. The rivalry of individuals aspiring to power led the chiefs of the various groups in succession to the scaffold.

We must remember, moreover, that the need of division and the hatred resulting therefrom seem to be const.i.tuent elements of the Latin mind. They cost our Gaulish ancestors their independence, and had already struck Caesar.

"No city," he said, "but was divided into two factions; no canton, no village, no house in which the spirit of party did not breathe. It was very rarely that a year went by without a city taking up arms to attack or repulse its neighbours."

As man has only recently entered upon the age of knowledge, and has always. .h.i.therto been guided by sentiments and beliefs, we may conceive the vast importance of hatred as a factor of his history.

Commandant Colin, professor at the College of War, remarks in the following terms on the importance of this feeling during certain wars:-

"In war more than at any other time there is no better inspiring force than hatred; it was hatred that made Blucher victorious over Napoleon. a.n.a.lyse the most wonderful manoeuvres, the most decisive operations, and if they are not the work of an exceptional man, a Frederick or a Napoleon, you will find they are inspired by pa.s.sion more than by calculation. What would the war of 1870 have been without the hatred which we bore the Germans?"

The writer might have added that the intense hatred of the j.a.panese for the Russians, who had so humiliated them, might be cla.s.sed among the causes of their success. The Russian soldiers, ignorant of the very existence of the j.a.panese, had no animosity against them, which was one of the reasons of their failure.

There was a.s.suredly a good deal of talk of fraternity at the time of the Revolution, and there is even more to-day. Pacificism, humanitarianism, and solidarity have become catchwords of the advanced parties, but we know how profound are the hatreds concealed beneath these terms, and what dangers overhang our modern society.

Fear.-Fear plays almost as large a part in revolutions as hatred. During the French Revolution there were many examples of great individual courage and many exhibitions of collective cowardice.

Facing the scaffold, the men of the Convention were always brave in the extreme; but before the threats of the rioters who invaded the a.s.sembly they constantly exhibited an excessive pusillanimity, obeying the most absurd injunctions, as we shall see if we re-read the history of the revolutionary a.s.semblies.

All the forms of fear were observed at this period. One of the most widespread was the fear of appearing moderate. Members of the a.s.semblies, public prosecutors, representatives "on mission," judges of the revolutionary tribunals, &c., all sought to appear more advanced than their rivals. Fear was one of the princ.i.p.al elements of the crimes committed at this period. If by some miracle it could have been eliminated from the revolutionary a.s.semblies, their conduct would have been quite other than it was, and the Revolution itself would have taken a very different direction.

Ambition, Envy, Vanity, &c.-In normal times the influence of these various affective elements is forcibly contained by social necessities. Ambition, for instance, is necessarily limited in a hierarchical form of society. Although the soldier does sometimes become a general, it is only after a long term of service. In time of revolution, on the other hand, there is no need to wait. Every one may reach the upper ranks almost immediately, so that all ambitions are violently aroused. The humblest man believes himself fitted for the highest employments, and by this very fact his vanity grows out of all measure.

All the pa.s.sions being more or less aroused, including ambition and vanity, we see the development of jealousy and envy of those who have succeeded more quickly than others.

The effect of jealousy, always important in times of revolution, was especially so during the great French Revolution. Jealousy of the n.o.bility const.i.tuted one of its most important factors. The middle cla.s.ses had increased in capacity and wealth, to the point of surpa.s.sing the n.o.bility. Although they mingled with the n.o.bles more and more, they felt, none the less, that they were held at a distance, and this they keenly resented. This frame of mind had unconsciously made the bourgeoisie keen supporters of the philosophic doctrine of equality.

Wounded self-love and jealousy were thus the causes of hatreds that we can scarcely conceive today, when the social influence of the n.o.bility is so small. Many members of the Convention-Carrier, Marat, and others-remembered with anger that they had once occupied subordinate positions in the establishments of great n.o.bles. Mme. Roland was never able to forget that, when she and her mother were invited to the house of a great lady under the ancien regime, they had been sent to dine in the servants' quarters.

The philosopher Rivarol has very well described in the following pa.s.sage, already cited by Taine, the influence of wounded self- love and jealousy upon the revolutionary hatreds:-

"It is not," he writes, "the taxes, nor the lettres de cachet, nor any of the other abuses of authority; it is not the sins of the intendants, nor the long and ruinous delays of justice, that has most angered the nation; it is the prejudices of the n.o.bility for which it has exhibited the greatest hatred. What proves this clearly is the fact that it is the bourgeois, the men of letters, the men of money, in fact all those who are jealous of the n.o.bility, who have raised the poorer inhabitants of the cities against them, and the peasants in the country districts."

This very true statement partly justifies the saying of Napoleon:

"Vanity made the Revolution; liberty was only the pretext."

Enthusiasm.-The enthusiasm of the founders of the Revolution equalled that of the apostles of the faith of Mohammed. And it was really a religion that the bourgeois of the first a.s.sembly thought to found. They thought to have destroyed an old world, and to have built a new one upon its ruins. Never did illusion more seductive fire the hearts of men. Equality and fraternity, proclaimed by the new dogmas, were to bring the reign of eternal happiness to all the peoples. Man had broken for ever with a past of barbarity and darkness. The regenerated world would in future be illuminated by the lucid radiance of pure reason. On all hands the most brilliant oratorical formulae saluted the expected dawn.

That this enthusiasm was so soon replaced by violence was due to the fact that the awakening was speedy and terrible. One can readily conceive the indignant fury with which the apostles of the Revolution attacked the daily obstacles opposed to the realisation of their dreams. They had sought to reject the past, to forget tradition, to make man over again. But the past reappeared incessantly, and men refused to change. The reformers, checked in their onward march, would not give in. They sought to impose by force a dictatorship which speedily made men regret the system abolished, and finally led to its return.

It is to be remarked that although the enthusiasm of the first days did not last in the revolutionary a.s.semblies, it survived very much longer in the armies, and const.i.tuted their chief strength. To tell the truth, the armies of the Revolution were republican long before France became so, and remained republican long after France had ceased to be so.

The variations of character considered in this chapter, being conditioned by certain common aspirations and identical changes of environment, finally became concrete in a small number of fairly h.o.m.ogeneous mentalities. Speaking only of the more characteristic, we may refer them to four types: the Jacobin, mystic, revolutionary, and criminal mentalities.

CHAPTER II

THE MYSTIC MENTALITY AND THE JACOBIN MENTALITY

1. Cla.s.sification of Mentalities predominant in Time of Revolution.