ABSTRACT
The most important change introduced by Communism is not merely an economic change, nor yet a political one (though the system of government by Soviets represents another original and valuable 71experiment). More fundamental than the economic change, and what makes the latter possible, is the change in values represented by the replacing of the motive of acquisition by that of service. At the bottom of this, and the really fundamental thing, is a change of attitude towards human nature in general. The Communist view of human nature seems to me far more inspired by Faith, Hope, and Charity than our own. To them the prime cause of evil, that which puts Faith, Hope, and Charity at such a discount in bourgeois States, and which forbids the Communists to grant equal terms to representatives of the old Order in their own State, is the possession of capital, and in practice, therefore, also of private property (beyond a very limited point). It is the poison of wealth which stultifies men’s natural instincts of fellowship. Once a State is delivered from this perversive influence acting on any of its citizens, and granted also a certain degree of education, all can be trusted to receive equal rights. Their confidence in unspoilt human nature forbids the Communists to believe in self- interest as the indispensable motive by which alone the economic machine can be kept going. The doctrine of each man for himself, and the devil (in this case the Board of Guardians, the drink-shop, the prison, and the lunatic asylum) take the hindmost, is finally discarded. I suppose we are all to some degree disillusioned as regards the vision that 72so inspired the Economists of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, who really believed that in working for himself the profit-maker inevitably, by a magnificent provision of Nature, served also the best interests of the Community. That every citizen, however, should as a matter of course learn to work for the good of the Community, and to understand that his own best interests are served in so doing, still seems Utopian to our heathen pessimistic minds. In the U.S.S.R., on the other hand, public spirit is rapidly taking its place in the same category of virtues as honesty or personal cleanliness : something which it is only good manners to assume of one’s neighbour until there is proof to the contrary. Every school, every workers’ club, every popular institution in the U.S.S.R., serves as a centre of education in the civic spirit. It is a basic matter for the good of the Community, and therefore it is given a first place in education and propaganda, not left to more or less accidental, private supplementary effort.
