If you want a dictator, whether it is Lenin, or Mussolini, or Primo de Rivera, ask, not whether he can set money in circulation, but if he can set life in motion, by dictating to his people.
Now, although we hate to admit it, Lenin did set life a good deal in motion, for the Russian proletariat. The Russian proletariat was like a child that had been kept under too much. So it was dying to be free. It was crazy to keep house for itself.
Now, like a child, it is keeping house for itself, without Papa or Mama to interfere. And naturally it enjoys it. For the time it’s a game.
But for us, English or American or French or German people, it would not be a game. We have more or less kept house for ourselves for a long time, and it’s not very thrilling after years of it.
So a Lenin wouldn’t do us any good. He wouldn’t set any life going in us at all.
The Gallic and Latin blood isn’t thrilled about keeping house, anyhow. It wants Glory, or else Glory. Glory on horse-back, or Glory upset. If there was any Glory to upset, either in France or Italy or Spain, then communism might flourish. But since there isn’t even a spark of Glory to blow out—Alfonso! Victor Emmanuel! Poincaré!—what’s the good of blowing?
So they set up a little harmless Glory in baggy trousers—Papa Mussolini—or a bit of fat, self-loving but amiable elder-brother Glory in General de Rivera: and they call it power. And the democratic world holds up its hands, and moans: “Dictators! Tyranny!” While the conservative world cheers loudly, and cries: “The Man! The Man! El hombre! L’uomo! L’homme! Hooray!!!”
Bunk!
We want life. And we want the power of life. We want to feel the power of life in ourselves.
We’re sick of being soft, and amiable, and harmless. We’re sick to death of even enjoying ourselves. We’re a bit ashamed of our own existence. Or if we aren’t we ought to be.