How is this economic equality and freedom to be brought about? One way is Soviet communism which, in practice, means ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ or the violent and ruthless suppression of the ‘rentier’ class. Even the life of the proletariat is regulated rigidly to such an extent that freedom and democracy are, more or less, nullified. The remedy, in other words, becomes worse than the disease itself. As Boris Brutzukus observes, “the Leviathon of Hobbes which absorbs the individuality utterly is represented not by the former monarchist state of the West nor by the democratic state of today: it is represented by the Socialist State.”[39] Max Eastman, once an ardent admirer of Soviet Russia, also felt disillusioned later. “I now think that an armed seizure of power by a highly organized minority party, whether in the name of Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the Glory of Rome, the Supremacy of the Nordics, or any other slogan that may be invented, and no matter how ingeniously integrated with the masses of the population, will formally lead to a totalitarian state.[40] And totalitarian state is merely the modern name for tyranny with up-to-date techniques. Such tyranny, even in the name of the efficiency of the war-machine, inevitably throttles the free and natural development of human personality. As John Stuart Mill observes, we should not forget that in the long run ‘the worth of a state is the worth of the individuals composing it’. “A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be mere docile instruments in its hand even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished”[41]. “Hence the supreme need for evolving democracy on non-violent lines.
