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nydus/The Practice and Theory of BolshevismPublic

This work examines the ideological foundations and motivations of the Bolshevik movement in Russia. The author critiques the movement as a fanatical belief system that, despite its stated hopes, risks causing widespread violence and intellectual degradation.

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Table of Contents

PART II

outline a political psychology which seems to me more nearly true than that of Marx.

II ToC

DECIDING FORCES IN POLITICS

The larger events in the political life of the world are determined by the interaction of material conditions and human passions. The operation of the passions on the material conditions is modified by intelligence. The passions themselves may be modified by alien intelligence guided by alien passions. So far, such modification has been wholly unscientific, but it may in time become as precise as engineering.

The classification of the passions which is most convenient in political theory is somewhat different from that which would be adopted in psychology.

We may begin with desires for the necessaries of life: food, drink, sex, and (in cold climates) clothing and housing. When these are threatened, there is no limit to the activity and violence that men will display.

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