Signs of Change

MP3 Audio CD. Signs of Change

HOW WE LIVE AND HOW WE MIGHT LIVE.


THE word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has
a terrible sound in most people’s ears, even when we have explained to
them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and
all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in
the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize
on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use
the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in
the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast
change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As,
however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what
these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can’t help thinking that
it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal
beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means
a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at
least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which
will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage
some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.

Fear and Hope—those are the names of the two great passions which rule
the race of man, and with which revolutionists have to deal; to give hope
to the many oppressed and fear to the few oppressors, that is our
business; if we do the first and give hope to the many, the few _must_ be
frightened by their hope; otherwise we do not want to frighten them; it
is not revenge we want for poor people, but happiness; indeed, what
revenge can be taken for all the thousands of years of the sufferings of
the poor?