Germinal - Emile Zola [163]
‘Yes, yes, he’s right. Bravo!’
Then Étienne turned to his favourite subject, the collectivization of the means of production, a barbarous mouthful of a phrase, which he loved to trot out when he could. His own political education was now complete. Having begun with the neophyte’s sentimental taste for solidarity and a belief in the need to reform the wage system, he had come to the view that it should be abolished as a matter of policy. At the time of the meeting in the Jolly Fellow his idea of collectivism had been essentially humanitarian and unsystematic, but it had now evolved into a rigid and complex programme, each article of which he was knowledgeably ready and able to discuss. First, he took it as axiomatic that freedom could not be achieved other than by the destruction of the State. Second, once the people had taken power, the reforms would begin: namely, the return to an earlier form of community life in which a family structure based on oppression and the moral code would be replaced by a family whose members were free and had equal rights; absolute civil, political and economic equality for all; guaranteed independence for the individual, based on the ownership of, and the right to enjoy all the fruits of, the means of production; and finally, free vocational training paid for by the collective. All this required a complete overhaul of a society that was old and rotten to the core; and he duly attacked marriage and the rights of inheritance, talked about regulating the amount of money each person could have, and grandly abolished all manner of entrenched and time-honoured iniquity with a single sweep of his arm, like a reaper scything ripe corn to the ground. Then, with his other hand, he would set about the process of rebuilding, constructing the humanity of the future, the great edifice of truth and justice that would rise with the dawn of the twentieth century. In the course of his mental journey the claims of reason faltered and gave way to sectarian obsession. Any scruples prompted by common sense or normal feelings were swept aside: nothing could be simpler than the realization of this brave new world. He had it all planned, and he talked about it all as if this were simply some machine he could assemble in a matter of hours come what may.
‘Our day has dawned,’ he proclaimed in a final flourish. ‘It is our turn to have all the power and the wealth!’
The roar of acclamation rolled towards him from the depths of the forest. The whole clearing was now bathed in the pale light of the moon, and the sea of faces resolved itself into sharply delineated rows that stretched away beyond the tall grey tree-trunks into the darker recesses of the forest. Here in the freezing cold there swirled a tide of angry expressions, of shining eyes and bared teeth, a pack of starving humanity, of men, women and children unleashed upon the rightful pillage of ancient property that others had taken from them. They no longer felt the cold, for this fiery oratory had warmed them to the cockles of their hearts. They were borne up on a wave of religious exaltation, filled with the feverish expectancy of the early Christians living in hope of the new age of justice. Many obscure phrases had passed them by, and they understood little of all the more technical and abstract arguments; but the very obscurity and abstraction of the speech simply