Tired of the inefficiency of absolute monarchy and the tax burden for supporting useless and effete aristocrats, ignorant priests, and a bungling civil service, the French middle classes declared their representatives a parliament. They went on, supported by the urban mob to overthrow the monarchy, declare a republic and to promulgate a document of human rights.

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity were a heady mixture of ideas. These escaped, as from a Pandora’s box that, once opened, could not be closed again. The French had let loose, on an astonished Europe, a host of thoughts which gave rise to revolutions, to counter-revolutions and to wars on a grand scale. The idea of Freedom gave rise to some of the worst tyrannies of the modern era. The idea of equality has tended to force everyone down to the cultural level of garden gnomes and the idea of brotherly kindness has led to a century of war and cruelty, of repression and fear and of betrayal of all human feelings on a grand scale.

Intoxicated with the idea of freedom and the, illusion of the unity of the nation, they decided that all must be free, and set about putting the idea into effect. People who did not want to be “free” were judged, before revolutionary tribunals, as “aristocrats” and were strung up to the lampposts or carted off to public execution by means of the curious machine invented by the ingenious Dr. Guillotine.

Of course to be “free” actually meant to support the republic, enthusiastically singing the Marseillaise and cheering as the blade of the guillotine fell on another aristocratic neck. To show less than wild support for these “patriotic” activities as to be labeled a traitor and an aristocrat, with painful and, usually terminal, results. Meanwhile revolutionary armies carried their brand of freedom, mostly death, rape and pillage across the rest of the continent.

After a few years of disorder, a succession of increasingly radical and extremist governments, Napoleon, with a “whiff of grapeshot, made himself Emperor and led France on the road of war against every other major state in Europe and beyond. There followed wars, nationalistic movements and revolutions and other disorders on a smaller scale all over Europe, also involving its overseas possessions.

Just over a hundred years after the allied forces of Europe disposed of the French emperor, another violent upsurge of unrest led to similar but worse changes in Russia. The ineffectual and decadent monarchy there, bogged down by its corrupt and inefficient civil service, collapsed under the additional strains imposed upon it by the First World War. There was massive disillusionment and discontent among the ranks of its peasant soldiers and the vast numbers who had flocked to the cities for work in the factories. People voted with their feet. Soldiers simply walked off home, some kept their guns, some, depending on their temperament, threw them away. Officers, who tried to stop the mass walk out from the war, were simply killed or, if they were sensible, joined their troops.

The popular movement of February, or March 1917, depending which calendar you use,led to the overthrow of the monarchy and a government put in place, by the more liberal of the political classes. This government showed itself just as inept as the one of the Tsar. It, in its turn, was overthrown by a much more sinister and organised political grouping which again used a slogan to energize the workers and peasants in its support. Karl Marx”s 1848 Manifesto of the Communist Party concluded with the stirring wprds, “Workers of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to gain.” Once more liberty, the losing of chains, and unity, this time of class rather than of nation, persuaded the people to put a party of monsters in power. The elections scheduled for early 1918 were canceled. The Tsarist secret police was replaced by a much more ruthless and efficient organ of “public safety” controlled by Felix Dzershinsky who died, not too long after, of stress from overwork.

Lenin too succumbed to his success and his last years were to see the increasing power of his “monster in waiting”, the “Man of Steel” Joseph Djgashvili. There followed a reign of terror in Russia far surpassing that brought about by the French revolutionaries. It rivalled in bloody cruelty the worst excesses of Attilla the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane put together. It made Ivan the Terrible look like a benefactor, or a disciple of Mother Theresa, by contrast.

This was not the end. Things could not get much worse in Europe though revolutionary ideas spread. Thus caused a certain amount of consternation in other places among people dedicated to the status quo. In another European nation, renowned for its high civilization and culture, another monster was waiting in the wings. An ex-corporal was to take over the German state and to make himself the super hero eulogized by Nietzsche. In prison, after a failed coup attempt, which left some of his followers dead, besotted supporters persuaded him that he was the coming hero. With great glee the German generals were told that the German army was “stabbed in the back,” in 1918. shortly after Hitler’s accession to power the nation put on uniform and began goose-stepping while the bands played Deutschland Uber Alles and the Horst Wessell Lied.

All these had several things in common. All these we, if we know what is good for us, want to avoid happening in the future. Let us look at those things they shared so we know why they came about. It may be that, given the intelligence and the will, we could make the future a better one. But I doubt it. One thing we learn from History is that we do not learn from History. A verse by Steve Turner sums this up nicely, cynically but realistically.

“History repeats itself.
It has to,
Nobody listens.”

All these movements arose out of social and political breakdown or defeat in war, or both. They all held out a bright future and some sort of victory if only you supported their movements. When they did get into power they continued the violence that had characterised them during their time on the streets. They ruled by fear and by the intimidation of their enemies and perceived enemies. They had slogans which promised peace, prosperity and a glorious future to all classes of society except to those they saw as the enemies of their movement. Enemies, of course, as with all authoritarian systems were those who did not agree with them. These, in all the above horrible examples, were sniffed out and rooted out by secret policemen and women and executed or incarcerated. Judges passed their judgments not according to an absolute code of justice but on a relativistic one whereby justice became what was best for party and nation.

Their regimes are presented as omni competent and have a way of showing the masses an enemy in which they can believe. For the Nazis it was Bolshevism and threats to their racial purity both taken to be the ploy of Zionism and the Jews in general. The Bolsheviks, however believed that Marx’s interpretation of History was a self-evident truth and it was capitalism which was the “class enemy”. That the Bolshevik leaders took on Middle class lifestyles is not surprising since any such group can convince themselves that they are entitled to at least a few “little luxuries”. Orwell in his Animal Farm, demonstrates this principle perfectly.

Without exception they were militaristic but controlled the military and made it an arm of their policy. They were also racist in some form or another. Their leaders managed to be seen both as “men of the people” and a political elite who had true political and social wisdom and who therefore were most fitted to be the spear head of nation, or class, or race. All these ideas had some sort of philosophical basis. This was usually a form of Platonic thought, where an elite ruled and guided the people and opened up careers in the service of nation, class or people for aspiring members of that elite. As with all authoritarian movements, the Leader was eulogised, admired and, most important, obeyed.

The elite always saw themselves, their founder, or their leader as absolutely right. Their ideology preyed upon people’s longing for certainties and gave them pseudo-certainties which to doubt was heresy, as in the Roman church of the middle Ages, and which carried similar penalties. Voltaire and Rousseau for the French revolution served the same purpose as Marx for the Russian and Mein Kampf for Nazi Germany.

It can probably be argued that all successful revolutions share all or most of these features. Not to have them means that a would-be revolutionary must fail or only have short-lived and partial success.

In contrast to these, though most of the democracies had small Fascist and Communist parties, these were never taken very seriously. The democracies were relatively were law abiding but did not reverence their leaders, nor their legislators. Instead they revered the law itself and generally held it in awe and so obeyed it. There is a difference between being under law and being under the arbitrary rule of a party, a committee or a leader. In the one party state not only is dissent not allowed, but no opposition is tolerated. It is the feature of authoritarian systems that they believe themselves to be absolutely right and that gives them the right to indoctrinate others.

To see these systems in action, as they really are, one could not do better than to read George Orwell, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Hans Peter Richter. These authors have had experience of the fascists of the left and also of the right and they write from out of their painful memories.

Someone has said that the price of freedom is to be forever watchful. It is not, however as simple as this. To resist the authoritarian one needs to be independent, rational, to have a certain amount of moral courage and to be imaginative with skills of empathy and interpersonal relations. The authoritarian as Adorno and his associates have shown, needs someone to prop him up. He needs a leader to tell him what to do. He needs easy solutions and he is suspicious of what is new, different, strange or in any way threatening. To the authoritarian most things are threatening. He is the sort of person who does not like questioning and who says to his children, “because I say so”, without wanting to or being able to give an explanation for his beliefs. He is the sort of person who will say “That was not the way I was brought up,” as if the way he was brought up was the ideal child rearing method. Most of us find that our children somehow grow up in spite of our mistakes, as my own are constantly reminding me.

If you are still reading this you are not likely to be an authoritarian therefore I suggest you do as Solomon did which was to ask God for wisdom as the best possible gift one could ever have. We need to challenge out fellow citizens as did the Lord Jesus and as did Socrates. We do well also to bear in mind what happened to them. The price of being free in our minds might well be one of suffering.

It is right that we should support our government but to be critical of it as well. Governments tend towards the authoritarian and they do not like to be criticised. Criticism, however is good for them and, as good citizens we are responsible to want the best for our government and our fellow citizens.

Governments are required to protect the people they rule over. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans explains that they are there to deal with evildoers and to enable the people to go about their legitimate business without interference or molestation. For this reason governments are allowed some sort of military and police force. Thomas Hobbes the English Philosopher of troubled times argued for an absolute monarch. Since no one, he argued, acted against his own interests, and the interests of the monarch, if he was to prosper, were the interests of the state, then clearly an absolute monarch was the answer.

Later developments and later thinking have changed things and the British Head of State is a constitutional monarch, while government is conducted by a Prime Minister aided by ministers chosen from senior elected representatives of the people. This gives a democratic check on the legislators and the executive, as well as the check supplied by the judiciary, as the judges interpret and apply the law.

The Social Contract is the idea that we all have to give up a little of our freedom to the law and to the government in order that the government may enforce the law and we can go about our business freely. In his Second Treatise of Government John Locke argues for a form of social contract. He says: “Secondly, political power is that power which every man, having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of society, and therein to the governor whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good and the preservation of their property.”

The above does not differ from the instruction of the Apostle in the letter to the Romans, but agrees with it. The Apostle, however, words his argument to agree with his point that Christians ought to seek the well being of any ruler who is set over them whether they be a democratically elected government or a Nero. Where contracts, however, are broken as when conditions of anarchy are not dealt with and disorder and lawlessness are not corrected, only more disorder results. To rebel against an ineffective government is to encourage the disorder. We must at all times seek the best for out government even if it is a bad one since, by anarchy, a bad government may become a worse one.

Finally a quote from a famous speech on democracy is appropriate here. The funeral oration by Pericles, the Athenian statesman, is perhaps the finest piece of oratory up to Martin Luther King’s oration for equality and justice. These are not rivals but stand together, one from the ancient world and one from the modern. We might do well to learn them by heart.

“Let me say that our system of government does not copy the institutions of our neighbours. It is more the case of our being a model to others,… Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty…. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbour if he enjoys himself in his own way…
We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep respect.” (Thcydides, p145)