第二百六十六章 一 问题的表面
暴动是由什么构成的？由一无所有和一切。由一种逐渐释放的电荷、突然迸发的火焰、游离的力量、飘忽的气息构成。这气息遇上有思想的头颅、有梦想的头脑、有痛苦的灵魂、有燃烧的激情、有嚎叫的苦难，便将其席卷而去。
飘向何方？
漫无目的。穿过国家、法律，穿过繁荣和他人的傲慢。
被激怒的信念，被激化的热忱，被搅动的义愤，被压抑的好战本能，被昂扬的少年勇气，慷慨的盲目；好奇心，对变化的嗜好，对意外的渴求，那种让人乐于阅读新戏海报的情感，还有戏院里提词员的哨声；模糊的仇恨、怨怼、失望，每一种自认为被命运击垮的虚荣心；不适，空虚的梦想，受困的野心，所有希望垮台的人，总之，在最底层，乌合之众，那种会燃烧的烂泥——这就是暴动的要素。最高尚和最卑劣的；那些游走于一切界限之外、等待时机的人，波西米亚人，流浪汉，十字路口的漂泊者，那些夜晚睡在房屋构成的荒漠里、除却天上寒冷的云朵别无屋顶的人，那些每天靠机缘而非劳作乞求面包的人，贫穷与虚无的未知，赤臂赤足者，都属于暴动。凡是在灵魂深处对国家的任何行为、对生活或命运怀有隐秘反叛的人，都已为骚乱做好了准备，一旦骚乱出现，他便开始颤抖，感到自己被旋风裹挟而去。
暴动是社交氛围中的一种水龙卷，在特定的温度条件下突然形成，旋转上升、下降、轰鸣、撕裂、夷平、碾压、摧毁、连根拔起，卷走伟大与渺小，强者与弱者，树干与稻草。被它卷走者与被他击中者同样遭殃！它将两者互相撞碎。
它赋予它所攫住的人一种难以言喻、非同寻常的力量。它用事件的力量填满第一个来者；它将一切都变成投掷物。它将粗糙的石块变成炮弹，将搬运工变成将军。
如果我们相信某些狡猾政治观点的预言家，从权力的角度来看，少量的暴动是可取的。体制：暴动强化了那些它未能推翻的政府。它考验军队；它巩固资产阶级；它锻炼警察的肌肉；它展示社会框架的力量。这是一种体操练习；这几乎是卫生学。权力在经历暴动后会更健康，如同一个人在充分按摩后一样。
三十年前，人们还从其他角度看待暴动。
对于一切事物，都有一种自称“常识”的理论；菲兰特对抗阿尔塞斯特；在虚假与真实之间提供的调解；解释、告诫，带着高傲的缓和，因其混合了责备与辩解，自以为智慧，却往往只是卖弄学问。整个被称为“中庸之道”的政治学派便是由此产生的。如同冷水与热水之间，它是温水派。这个学派有着虚假的深度，全浮于表面，只剖析结果而不追溯根本原因，从半吊子科学的高度斥责广场上的骚动。
若听从这个学派，“那些复杂化了1830年事件的暴动，夺走了那伟大事件的一部分纯洁性。七月革命本是一场美好的民众狂风，骤然间晴空万里。暴动却让乌云重现。它们使这场起初因万众一心而如此卓越的革命，退化为一场争吵。在七月革命中，如同在所有断断续续实现的进步中一样，存在着隐秘的裂痕；这些暴动使这些裂痕变得可察觉。人们可能会说：‘啊！这碎了。’七月革命之后，人们只感受到解脱；暴动之后，人们意识到一场灾难。
“所有暴动都会关闭店铺，压低基金，使交易所陷入惊惶，暂停商业，阻塞交易，加速破产；没有钱，私人财富不安，公共信用动摇，工业混乱，资本撤离，工作贬值，恐惧无处不在；每个城镇都受到冲击。由此产生深渊。据计算，一场骚动的第一天耗去法国两千万，第二天四千万，第三天六千万，三天的起义耗去一亿两千万，也就是说，如果只考虑财政结果，它就相当于一场灾难、一场海难或一场战败，足以摧毁一支由六十艘战列舰组成的舰队。
“毫无疑问，从历史角度看，起义有其美感；街垒战争不比丛林战争逊色，也不比它缺少悲壮：一边有森林的灵魂，另一边有城市的心脏；一边有让·舒安，另一边有让娜。暴动曾以红光映照出巴黎性格中所有最原初的特点：慷慨、奉献、喧闹的欢乐，学生们证明勇敢是智慧的一部分，国民自卫军不可战胜，店主们的露营，街头顽童的堡垒，路人对死亡的蔑视。学校与军团交错碰撞。归根结底，交战双方之间只有年龄的差别；种族相同；是同一些坚忍的人，二十岁时为理想而死，四十岁时为家庭而死。军队，在内战中总是可悲之事，以谨慎对抗勇敢。起义在证明民众无畏的同时，也教育了资产阶级的勇气。
“这很好。但这一切值得流血吗？除了流血，还要加上未来的黑暗，进步的妥协，最优秀者的不安，诚实自由主义者的绝望，外国专制主义幸灾乐祸于革命自相残杀，1830年的失败者得意洋洋说：‘我们早就告诉过你们！’再加上巴黎可能扩大了，但法国无疑缩小了。再加上，必须说清，那些过于时常玷污了秩序变得凶残、战胜了变得疯狂的自由的血腥屠杀。总而言之，起义是灾难性的。”
这就是那种近似智慧的话语，而资产阶级，那种近似人民的阶级，如此心甘情愿地以此自满。
就我们而言，我们拒绝使用“起义”这个过于宽泛、因而过于便利的词。我们在一种民众运动与另一种民众运动之间做出区分。我们不问一场起义是否花费像一场战役一样多。首先，为何要有战役？这里便涉及战争的问题。战争比起义更不是一场灾祸吗？况且，所有起义都是灾祸吗？如果七月的暴动确实花费了一亿两千万呢？使腓力五世在西班牙确立，花费了法国二十亿。即便代价相同，我们也更偏爱七月十四日。然而，我们拒绝这些数字，它们看似理由，实则只是词语。在给定的起义面前，我们按其本身加以审视。在上述教条主义反对论所说的一切中，只涉及效果，而我们寻找原因。
我们将直言不讳。
Of what is revolt composed? Of nothing and of everything. Of an
electricity disengaged, little by little, of a flame suddenly darting
forth, of a wandering force, of a passing breath. This breath
encounters heads which speak, brains which dream, souls which suffer,
passions which burn, wretchedness which howls, and bears them away.
Whither?
At random. Athwart the state, the laws, athwart prosperity and the
insolence of others.
Irritated convictions, embittered enthusiasms, agitated indignations,
instincts of war which have been repressed, youthful courage which has
been exalted, generous blindness; curiosity, the taste for change, the
thirst for the unexpected, the sentiment which causes one to take
pleasure in reading the posters for the new play, and love, the
prompter’s whistle, at the theatre; the vague hatreds, rancors,
disappointments, every vanity which thinks that destiny has bankrupted
it; discomfort, empty dreams, ambitions that are hedged about, whoever
hopes for a downfall, some outcome, in short, at the very bottom, the
rabble, that mud which catches fire,—such are the elements of revolt.
That which is grandest and that which is basest; the beings who prowl
outside of all bounds, awaiting an occasion, bohemians, vagrants,
vagabonds of the crossroads, those who sleep at night in a desert of
houses with no other roof than the cold clouds of heaven, those who,
each day, demand their bread from chance and not from toil, the unknown
of poverty and nothingness, the bare-armed, the bare-footed, belong to
revolt. Whoever cherishes in his soul a secret revolt against any deed
whatever on the part of the state, of life or of fate, is ripe for
riot, and, as soon as it makes its appearance, he begins to quiver, and
to feel himself borne away with the whirlwind.
Revolt is a sort of waterspout in the social atmosphere which forms
suddenly in certain conditions of temperature, and which, as it eddies
about, mounts, descends, thunders, tears, razes, crushes, demolishes,
uproots, bearing with it great natures and small, the strong man and
the feeble mind, the tree trunk and the stalk of straw. Woe to him whom
it bears away as well as to him whom it strikes! It breaks the one
against the other.
It communicates to those whom it seizes an indescribable and
extraordinary power. It fills the firstcomer with the force of events;
it converts everything into projectiles. It makes a cannon-ball of a
rough stone, and a general of a porter.
If we are to believe certain oracles of crafty political views, a
little revolt is desirable from the point of view of power. System:
revolt strengthens those governments which it does not overthrow. It
puts the army to the test; it consecrates the bourgeoisie, it draws out
the muscles of the police; it demonstrates the force of the social
framework. It is an exercise in gymnastics; it is almost hygiene. Power
is in better health after a revolt, as a man is after a good rubbing
down.
Revolt, thirty years ago, was regarded from still other points of view.
There is for everything a theory, which proclaims itself “good sense”;
Philintus against Alcestis; mediation offered between the false and the
true; explanation, admonition, rather haughty extenuation which,
because it is mingled with blame and excuse, thinks itself wisdom, and
is often only pedantry. A whole political school called “the golden
mean” has been the outcome of this. As between cold water and hot
water, it is the lukewarm water party. This school with its false
depth, all on the surface, which dissects effects without going back to
first causes, chides from its height of a demi-science, the agitation
of the public square.
If we listen to this school, “The riots which complicated the affair of
1830 deprived that great event of a portion of its purity. The
Revolution of July had been a fine popular gale, abruptly followed by
blue sky. They made the cloudy sky reappear. They caused that
revolution, at first so remarkable for its unanimity, to degenerate
into a quarrel. In the Revolution of July, as in all progress
accomplished by fits and starts, there had been secret fractures; these
riots rendered them perceptible. It might have been said: ‘Ah! this is
broken.’ After the Revolution of July, one was sensible only of
deliverance; after the riots, one was conscious of a catastrophe.
“All revolt closes the shops, depresses the funds, throws the Exchange
into consternation, suspends commerce, clogs business, precipitates
failures; no more money, private fortunes rendered uneasy, public
credit shaken, industry disconcerted, capital withdrawing, work at a
discount, fear everywhere; counter-shocks in every town. Hence gulfs.
It has been calculated that the first day of a riot costs France twenty
millions, the second day forty, the third sixty, a three days’ uprising
costs one hundred and twenty millions, that is to say, if only the
financial result be taken into consideration, it is equivalent to a
disaster, a shipwreck or a lost battle, which should annihilate a fleet
of sixty ships of the line.
“No doubt, historically, uprisings have their beauty; the war of the
pavements is no less grandiose, and no less pathetic, than the war of
thickets: in the one there is the soul of forests, in the other the
heart of cities; the one has Jean Chouan, the other has a Jeanne.
Revolts have illuminated with a red glare all the most original points
of the Parisian character, generosity, devotion, stormy gayety,
students proving that bravery forms part of intelligence, the National
Guard invincible, bivouacs of shopkeepers, fortresses of street
urchins, contempt of death on the part of passers-by. Schools and
legions clashed together. After all, between the combatants, there was
only a difference of age; the race is the same; it is the same stoical
men who died at the age of twenty for their ideas, at forty for their
families. The army, always a sad thing in civil wars, opposed prudence
to audacity. Uprisings, while proving popular intrepidity, also
educated the courage of the bourgeois.
“This is well. But is all this worth the bloodshed? And to the
bloodshed add the future darkness, progress compromised, uneasiness
among the best men, honest liberals in despair, foreign absolutism
happy in these wounds dealt to revolution by its own hand, the
vanquished of 1830 triumphing and saying: ‘We told you so!’ Add Paris
enlarged, possibly, but France most assuredly diminished. Add, for all
must needs be told, the massacres which have too often dishonored the
victory of order grown ferocious over liberty gone mad. To sum up all,
uprisings have been disastrous.”
Thus speaks that approximation to wisdom with which the bourgeoisie,
that approximation to the people, so willingly contents itself.
For our parts, we reject this word _uprisings_ as too large, and
consequently as too convenient. We make a distinction between one
popular movement and another popular movement. We do not inquire
whether an uprising costs as much as a battle. Why a battle, in the
first place? Here the question of war comes up. Is war less of a
scourge than an uprising is of a calamity? And then, are all uprisings
calamities? And what if the revolt of July did cost a hundred and
twenty millions? The establishment of Philip V. in Spain cost France
two milliards. Even at the same price, we should prefer the 14th of
July. However, we reject these figures, which appear to be reasons and
which are only words. An uprising being given, we examine it by itself.
In all that is said by the doctrinarian objection above presented,
there is no question of anything but effect, we seek the cause.
We will be explicit.
