Authority could not possibly look for support in those mutinous mobs of soldiers who regarded military service in the light of an eight-hour day. Thus, the second element, the one security for authority, was taken away, and Revolution actually enjoyed none but the original one, popular support, wherewith to build up its authority.
Every nation may be divided into three classes : at one end the best men of the nation, good in the sense of every virtue, and especially distinguished by their courage and readiness for self-sacrifice ; at the other end the worst dregs of humanity, bad in the sense that they are self-seeking and depraved. In the middle, between the two extremes, lie the third class, the broad intermediate stratum, in whom there is neither the spirit for good nor for bad.
The lack of a new and great idea is at all times a sign of lack of fighting force. The conviction that there is a right to use weapons, even the most brutal, ever goes hand in hand with fanatical belief that a new and revolutionizing order of things must be victorious in the world.
A Movement that fails to fight for such high ideals and aims will never fight to the very last.
In producing a great new idea the French Revolu¬ tion discovered the secret of success. It was the same with the Russian Revolution, and Fascism drew its strength solely from the idea of submitting a whole nation to a process of complete regeneration, with very happy results for that nation.
When the Reichswehr was formed and consolidated, Marxism gradually obtained the force necessary for the support of its authority, and began, as a logical con¬ sequence, to discard the dangerous seeming Nationalist defence associations, on the ground that they were now superfluous.