The Final Argument for Socialism

Reading Graham Greene’s 1934 novel, It’s a Battlefield, I was struck by a pithy exchange between two characters on socialism. The novel explores the intersecting lives of those close to the bus driver Drover in the days before he is due to hang. He is a Communist agent, and his Communist colleagues want him to die because this will gain support for the party; his wife and brother begin an affair. So, it’s a story where this activist’s devotion is contrasted with his having no real support from anyone. There is no hero in this book.

Such a story is obliged to have a debate between two characters on the merits of socialism. In his elegant style, Greene captures the last argument a socialist falls back on:

‘It hasn’t been tried. It’s too dangerous.’

‘It has been tried.’

‘Russia,’ the Assistant Commissioner said with distress; ‘we don’t want starvation here.’

‘We’ve got starvation here. It’s only that you and I don’t share it.’

If pressed on any evidence of a net decline in social benefit, the radical’s final response is to fall back on the notion that at least we will be equal, that somehow sharing misery has its own merit.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.