The First Leftist by Dean Russell

[Stephane Budge]

The first leftist would not be popular in America today. That is true
because the original leftists wanted to abolish government controls
over industry, trade, and the professions. They wanted wages, prices,
and profits to be determined by competition in a free market, and not
by government decree. They were pledged to free their economy from
government planning, and to remove the government-guaranteed special
privileges of guilds, unions, and associations whose members were
banded together to use the law to set the price of their labor or
capital or product above what it would be in a free market.

The first leftists were a group of newly elected representatives to
the National Constituent Assembly at the beginning of the French
Revolution in 1789. They were labeled "leftists" merely because they
happened to sit on the left side in the French Assembly.

The legislators who sat on the right side were referred to as the
party of the Right, or rightists. The rightists or "reactionaries"
stood for a highly centralized national government, special laws and
privileges for unions and various other groups and classes, government
economic monopolies in various necessities of life, and a continuation
of government controls over prices, production, and distribution.

Early American Ideals

The ideals of the party of the Left were based largely on the spirit
and principles of our own American Constitution. Those first French
leftists stood for individual freedom of choice and personal
responsibility for one's own welfare. Their goal was a peaceful and
legal limitation of the powers of the central government, a
restoration of local self-government, an independent judiciary, and
the abolition of special privileges.

Those leftists, holding a slim majority in the two years' existence of
the National Constituent Assembly, did a remarkable job. They limited
the extreme powers of the central government. They removed special
privileges that the government had granted to various groups and
persons. Their idea of personal liberty with absolute equality before
the law for all persons was rapidly becoming a reality. But before the
program of those first leftists was completed, a violent minority from
their own ranks — the revolutionary Jacobins — grasped the power of
government and began their reign of terror and tyranny.

That development seems to have risen from this little-understood and
dangerously deceptive arrangement: two groups of persons with entirely
different motives may sometimes find themselves allied in what appears
to be a common cause. As proof that this danger is not understood even
today, we need only examine the results of our own "common cause"
alliances with various dictators against various other dictators. So
it was among the leftists in France in 1789. The larger faction wanted
to limit the powers of government; the leaders of the other group
wanted to overthrow the existing rulers and grasp the power
themselves.

Separation Of Powers

The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis DavidThe majority of the original
party of the Left had been opposed to concentrated power regardless of
who exercised it. But the violent revolutionists in their midst, led
by Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, were opposed to concentrated power
only so long as someone else exercised it. Robespierre, who
represented himself as spokesman for the people, first said that the
division of the powers of government was a good thing when it
diminished the authority of the king. But when Robespierre himself
became the leader, he claimed that the division of the powers of
government would be a bad thing now that the power belonged "to the
people."

Thus, in the name of the people, the ideas of the original leftists
were rejected. For all practical purposes, local self-government
disappeared completely, the independence of the judiciary was
destroyed, and the new leaders became supreme. The program of the
first party of the Left was dead.

Most of the original leftists protested. So they too were soon
repudiated in the general terror that was called liberty. But since
the name leftist had become identified with the struggle of the
individual against the tyranny of government, the new tyrants
continued to use that good name for their own purposes. This was a
complete perversion of its former meaning. Thus was born what should
properly be called the new and second Left.

The leaders of this new Left were greatly aided in their program of
deceiving the people by using this effective device of changing the
meaning of words. The term "tyranny" had been used to describe the
powers of the old government. And the term "liberty" had been used to
describe the ideas of the original leftists. Well and good. But when
the second leftists in turn became tyrannical, they continued to call
it liberty! In the name of liberty, mob violence was encouraged,
habeas corpus was abolished, and the guillotine was set up!

Look Behind The Label

Now who is opposed to liberty or progress or any of the various other
desirable ideals that government officials claim will result from
their "unselfish programs for the people"? Probably no one. Thus do
the people tend to accept almost any idea — communism, socialism,
imperialism, or whatever — if those ideas are advanced under
attractive labels such as freedom from want, defense against
aggression, welfare, equality, liberty, fellowship, and security.
Since most of the world today still suffers from this disease of "word
confusion," it is hardly surprising that the French people in the
1790s were also misled by the same device.

The rallying cry of this new Left was, All power to the people! And,
as always, it sounded good to the people. But the point that the
French people missed is the same point that haunts the world today. It
is this: the people cannot themselves individually exercise the power
of government; the power must be held by one or a few persons. Those
who hold the power always claim that they use it for the people,
whether the form of government is a kingdom, a dictatorship, a
democracy, or whatever. If the people truly desire to retain or to
regain their freedom, their attention should first be directed to the
principle of limiting the power of government itself instead of merely
demanding the right to vote on what party or person is to hold the
power. For is the victim of government power any the less deprived of
his life, liberty, or property merely because the depriving is done in
the name of — or even with the consent of — the majority of the
people?

It was on this point that Hitler, for instance, misled the Germans,
and Stalin deceived the Russians. Both of them hastened to identify
themselves as champions of the people. And there appears to be little
or no doubt but that the majority of the people approved or acquiesced
in the overall programs that were initiated in their names.

As the "leaders" murdered millions of individual persons, their excuse
for their deeds was that they were doing them "for the people."

As they enslaved countless millions of human beings, they brushed all
criticism aside by exclaiming: "But the people voted for me in the
last election."

As they confiscated property and income, they claimed to be doing it
"for the general welfare" and by "a mandate from the people."

Hitler and Stalin merely adapted to their time and circumstances the
philosophy of the French Jacobins, the new leftists, who declared that
power is always too great in tyrannical hands, but that it can never
be too great in the hands of the people — meaning Hitler, Stalin, a
Jacobin leader, or any other person who wishes to possess and increase
the power of government over the individual citizen.

What Is Government?

Here is another illogical reason why the people of France traded the
freedom-with-responsibility offered by the policy of the first
leftists for the bloody tyranny offered by the policy of the second
leftists: They believed that an organized police force — government —
could be used to force people to be good and virtuous.

It is true that this organized force of government can be used, and
should be used, to restrain and punish persons who commit evil acts —
murder, theft, defamation, and such — against their fellow men; but
this force that is government cannot be used to force persons to be
good or brave or compassionate or charitable or virtuous in any
respect. All virtues must come from within a person; they cannot be
imposed by force or threats of force. Since that is so, it follows
that almost all human relations and institutions should be left
completely outside the authority of government, with no government
regulation whatever. But this seems to be a difficult idea for most
persons to grasp.

The idea of concentrated government power — force against persons — is
easy to grasp. And it is easy to imagine that this power can be used
to force equality upon unequal persons. Possibly this explains why so
many persons believe that the world could be near perfect if only they
had the power of government to force other people to do what they
think best for them. That concept of government is, however, the
direct road to despotism. Any person who holds it is, by definition, a
would-be dictator: one who desires to make mankind over in his own
image — to force other persons to follow his concepts of morality,
economics, social relationships, and government. The fact that such
would-be dictators may seem to have fine intentions, and wish only to
do good for the people, does not justify their arrogant desire to have
authority over others.

Thus it was that the terror of the second leftists reversed the
advance of freedom that had begun in France in 1789. And the French
Revolution finally became nothing more than a fight among would-be
rulers to gain possession of the power of government.

The new leftists — as is the case with all persons who desire
authority over other persons — did not fear the power of government.
They adored it. Like Hitler, Stalin, and other despots, their primary
reason for inciting the people to reject the old order was to get this
power for themselves. And the people did not object at first because
they did not understand that the power of government is dangerous in
any hands. They just thought that it was dangerous in the hands of a
king. So they took the power from the king and transferred it to a
"leader." They failed to see that it was a brutal restoration of the
very thing they had rebelled against! In fact, those second leftists
held far more power than Louis XVI ever had.

Is there a lesson for present-day America to be learned from this
French experiment with a highly centralized "people's government"?

The majority of the American people voted approval of this
"Robespierre philosophy of government" as expressed by the holder of a
high political office in 1936:

[I]n 34 months we have built up new instruments of public power.
In the hands of a people's government this power is wholesome and
proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic
autocracy, such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the
people.

When translated into simple English, that statement reads, power is a
good thing, so long as I am the one who has it.

That concept of increasing the power of the national government seems
to have even more support today, by the leaders of both major
political parties, than it had in 1936. All of them claim, of course,
that they will use the power "for the good of the people."

Something For Nothing

Have we fully considered where this road may lead? Have we forgotten
the teachings of our forefathers and their warning that the only hope
for permanent liberty lies in restricting the power of government
itself, regardless of who the government officials are or how they may
be selected? Have we forgotten their warning to be especially wary of
the demagogues who promise us something for nothing?

Our founding fathers, along with the first leftists who were of the
same political faith, were well aware that individual freedom and
personal responsibility for one's own welfare are equal and
inseparable parts of the same truth. They knew that history amply
supports this truism: when personal responsibility is lost — whether
it be taken by force or given up voluntarily — individual freedom does
not long endure.