The Ultras of Moral Revolution

Adam Michnik The Ultras of moral revolution Translated by Elzbieta Matynia Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 We need a moral revolution!1 We need a moral revolution because Do we really need one? we are surrounded by ‘souls of mud’– But of course! Replied an ultrarevolu- reactionaries, hidden royalists, petty tionary, a Jacobin. individuals, one-day patriots–who are But of course! Replied an ultrareac- conspiring against our revolutionary tionary, a partisan of the Counterrevo- government. We need a moral revolu- lution. tion because vice is spreading. Reaction- Radicals, adherents of extreme solu- ary newspapers are sowing lies; so one tions, Ultras of all the colors of the rain- has to force them into silence. Corrup- bow, have a need for revolutionary up- tion is spreading; so we must look care- heavals, because only upheavals that fully at the rich. “I regard wealth,” said turn the world upside down allow them Robespierre, “not only as the price of to ful½ll their dream of a great cleansing. crimes, but as a punishment for them; I want to be poor, so as not to be unfortu- nate.” France is surrounded by traitors– I those poisonous insects sowing shame- lessness, deceit, meanness. It is they who The Jacobin, the revolutionary Ultra, caused the collapse of a state and socie- says: ty functioning according to one system of values, discovered in 1789, with rules Adam Michnik is editor-in-chief of “Gazeta that allowed us to maintain a dignity and Wyborcza,” Poland’s leading daily newspaper. a brotherhood founded upon the need to He founded the paper in 1989 to support the in- do good. We need a moral revolution to- dependent trade union Solidarity during the ½rst day, now that we have a chance to leave free elections in the history of the Communist the crisis of nonmemory and the curse bloc. Michnik has published numerous books, in- of a fresh start. We need a cleansing, a cluding “Letters from Prison and Other Essays” capacity to do good for the Revolution. (1985), “The Church and the Left” (1993), and It also means a recognition of one’s own “Letters from Freedom: Post–Cold War Realities errors–one’s fatal tolerance for ‘moder- and Perspectives” (1998). 1 For Professor Barbara Skarga, with a deep © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts bow. This article was ½rst published in Polish & Sciences in Gazeta Wyborcza, April 15, 2005. Dædalus Winter 2007 67 Adam ates,’ for the forgiving and the temper- sadness and amazement. After all, those Michnik ate. who echo them ought to know where it on nonviolence The conservative, the reactionary Ul- all leads. & violence tra, says: Does history repeat itself? Karl Marx We need a moral revolution because once wrote, paraphrasing Hegel, that now, after the return of the Bourbons, each historical fact repeats itself twice the tide of revolution has receded. The –the original drama turns into farce. time has passed when vice ruled trium- Marx was wrong: history repeats itself phant over France; when regicide was much more frequently. The world is a law unto itself; when those responsi- still full of inquisitors and heretics, li- ble for regicide dictated their own laws; ars and those lied to, terrorists and the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 when virtue was humiliated, loyalty terrorized. There is still someone dying persecuted, and property con½scated. at Thermopylae, someone drinking a It’s true that a cruel despotism and the glass of hemlock, someone crossing the omnipotent guillotine, that revolution Rubicon, someone drawing up a pro- –this huge gutter of ½lth–polluted scription list. And nothing suggests that France. Nevertheless, France still has these things will stop repeating them- many virtues; so one can, wrote Joseph selves. de Maistre, “start the nation anew.” We like to reiterate that history is a France, washed clean from the dirt of teacher of life. If this is indeed true, we Jacobinism, restored to its monarchic listen very poorly to its lessons. That is and Catholic roots, will become a sym- why I am reflecting today on the Ultras bol of reconciliation between the King of the Revolution and the Ultras of the and his subjects. We need a moral revo- Counterrevolution, who dreamt about lution in order to restore the dream of a a Big Cleansing and a Moral Revolution state and society functioning according –not so that the language of that reign to one system of values, with rules that of terror may never repeat itself, but allow us to maintain the loyalty and dig- because I’m convinced it will inevitably nity be½tting royal subjects, always in- do so. clined to do good. We need a moral revolution because today everything is possi- ble, ‘even the resurrection of the dead,’ III not to mention the resurrection of ‘our After a victorious civil war, Lucius Cor- own moral subjectivity.’ One must avoid nelius Sulla, the Roman dictator, began at all costs a compromise with the bas- his rule by taking revenge on his oppo- tards of Jacobinism and Bonapartism, nents. He did it with an exacting meth- who want a constitutional monarchy, od, namely, by ordering the drawing up that is, a king without royal power–they of proscription lists, that is, lists of out- don’t understand that ‘every constitu- lawed enemies–and designating a re- tion is regicide.’ ward for their heads. “With nerve-rack- ing premeditation,” write historians II Max Cary and Howard Hayes Scullard, “Sulla prolonged the listing of new vic- What familiar voices despite such dif- tims, announcing from time to time ferent historical costumes. I hear them additional proscription lists. Terror continuously today–with mounting reigned. This modernized system of 68 Dædalus Winter 2007 mass murders was aimed with particu- Hegel later writes: The Ultras lar viciousness at those adversaries who of moral A government of some kind, however, revolution were wealthy. Their property was con- is always in existence. The question ½scated, and the cities of Italy became presents itself then, Whence did it ema- theaters of execution.”2 This was the nate? Theoretically, it proceeded from purpose of the proscription lists Sulla the people; really and truly, from the Na- announced: it was terrifying to ½nd tional Convention and its Committees. one’s name on such a list. The forces now dominant are the abstract For centuries the list of names has principles–Freedom, and, as it exists been an irremovable element of social within the limits of the Subjective Will Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/136/1/67/1829280/daed.2007.136.1.67.pdf by guest on 03 October 2021 history: the lists of witches burned at –Virtue. This Virtue has now to con- the stake; the lists of heretics examined duct the government in opposition to by the Inquisition; the lists of Jesuits the Many, whom their corruption and condemned to exile; the lists of Masons; attachment to old interests, or a liberty the lists of Jews; the lists of Christians that has degenerated into license, and suspected of Jewish background; the the violence of their passions, render un- lists of Communists and those suspected faithful to virtue. Virtue here is a simple of having Communist sympathies; the abstract principle and distinguishes the lists of royalists and other enemies of citizens into two classes only–those who revolution; the lists of agents of Tsarist are favorably disposed and those who are Okhrana; the lists of hostages; and the not. But disposition can only be recog- lists of those beheaded by guillotine or nized and judged of by disposition. Suspi- axe, or those who were shot. cion therefore is in the ascendant; but vir- Executions were usually preceded by tue, as soon as it becomes liable to suspi- the lists of suspects–those suspected of cion, is already condemned. Suspicion revolutionary or subversive activities, of attained a terrible power and brought a sinful past or present, of betrayal. Sus- to the scaffold the Monarch, whose sub- picion marched ahead of accusation and jective will was in fact the religious con- execution. science of a Catholic. Robespierre set up the principle of Virtue as supreme, and IV it may be said that with this man Virtue was an earnest matter. Virtue and Terror The French Revolution overturned an were the order of the day; for Subjective absolute monarchy and established a Virtue, whose sway is based on disposi- constitutional monarchy. “This consti- tion only, brings with it the most fearful tution was also vitiated,” wrote Hegel, tyranny. It exercises its power without “by the existence of absolute mistrust; legal formalities, and the punishment it the dynasty lay under suspicion, because inflicts is very simple–Death. it had lost the power it formerly enjoyed . Neither government nor constitution V could be maintained on this footing, and the ruin of both was the result.” And it had begun so beautifully. The Revolution began under a hopeful sign of Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood. 2 H. H. Scullard and M. Cary, Dzieje Rzymu The Bastille–a bastion and symbol of (Warszawa: n.p., 1992); translated from the tyranny–was captured. King Louis xvi Polish edition. Dædalus Winter 2007 69 Adam chose a path of compromise with the Speaking on behalf of the supporters Michnik revolutionary camp; absolutism col- of the Restoration, Chateaubriand de- on nonviolence lapsed.

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