J. E. Driault, Political and Social Problems, Paris, 1907.
((A general historical sketch of the “problems”: Alsace-Lorraine, Rome and the Pope, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, the Mediterranean, Egypt, the “Partition of Africa”, China, the United States (Chapter XI and its subsection: “Imperialism in the United States”), the Triple Alliance; the Franco-Russian Alliance, Chapter XIV, see my quotation,[1] Chapter XVI “The Social and Moral Problem”. Mostly the remarks of a historian and “diplomat”.))
From “Conclusion”:
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“The present time is, in fact, marked by universal tension, in which the existing state of peace is merely a truce, which many find too long and which many do not observe. The world is seized by a strange fever of imperialism, by fierce cupidities arising on all sides and shamelessly allowed to take effect. Society is shaken by the struggle of classes, everywhere violently conducted and hardly mitigated in recent times. Even the human mind is upset by doubts and the need for certainty. |
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“Mankind is in the throes of revolution— a territorial revolution, a new delimitation of frontiers, an assault on the great markets of the world, armaments up to the hilt, as if people were going to hurl themselves at one another tomorrow, for mutual ruin and extermination—a social revolution based on the worst feelings, the hatred of the poor for the rich, the contempt of the rich for the poor, as if society were still divided into free men and slaves, as if it had not altered since olden times—a moral revo- lution, a laborious transition from faith to science, painful anguish for people of sensitive conscience, the hard necessity for the churches to renounce controlling people’s souls in order to devote themselves to educating them.—A profound revolution, the outcome of that of the preceding cen- tury, but much more severe because of its incalculable consequences: for at issue is not only the political organisation of states, but the material and moral condi- tion of mankind” (393-94). |
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cf. K. Kautsky 1909 |
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((And then platitudes: the nineteenth century accomplished much, it liberated nationalities, etc., etc., but it left much to be done. “For this (19th) century was a century of science, but it put it at the service of force.” The next century must be a “school of justice”, etc., etc. A liberal, nothing more. That makes his admissions all the more characteristic: he senses the storm.))
[1] See present edition, Vol. 22. pp. 204-65.—Ed.
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