Preface to 3rd ed. of Roads to Freedom, 1918, by Bertrand Russell

* 3rd ed. pub. in 1920.
* This preface was added in 1948.

THIS book was written in response to an invitation from an American publisher (given before the United States had become a belligerent) to give an account of Socialism, Anarchism, and Syndicalism. It was finished in the early months of 1918, when the Germans still appeared to be everywhere victorious. The Russians were concluding a separate peace, and in the West it seemed that the Germans would capture the Channel Ports and drive a wedge between the British and French armies. The prospect of peace seemed remote. It is difficult now to remember how sudden was the turn of fortune that led to Allied victory.
So much has happened since that time that inevitably the opinions of all who are not impervious to experience have undergone considerable modifications. The creation and collapse of the League of Nations, the rise and fall of Fascism and Nazism, the second world war, the development of Soviet Russia, and the not remote possibility of a third world war, have all afforded political lessons, mostly of a sort to make the maintenance of optimism difficult.
The creation of an authoritarian undemocratic form of Socialism in the USSR, while very relevant to many of the discussions in this book, does not, in itself, suggest any need for modification of the opinions advocated. The dangers of a bureaucratic regime are sufficiently emphasized, and what has happened in Russia only con-firms the justice of these warnings. In one respect-and this is my chief reason for agreeing to a reprint-this book is rendered again relevant to present circumstances by the growing realization among Western Socialists that the Russian regime is not what they desire. Before the Russian Revolution, Syndicalism in France, the IWW in America, and Guild Socialism in England were all movements embodying suspicion of the State and a wish to realize the aims of Socialism without creating an omnipotent bureaucracy. But as a result of admiration for Russian achievements all these movements died down in the years following the end of the first world war. In the first months of 1918, when this book was written, it was impossible to obtain reliable information about what was happening in Russia, but the slogan 'all power to the Soviets', which was the Bolshevik battle-cry, was taken to indicate a new form of democracy, anti-parliamentary and more or less syndicalist. And as such it en-listed left-wing support. When it turned out that this was not what was being created, many Socialists nevertheless retained one firm belief: it might be the opposite of what Western Socialists had been preaching, but whatever it might be it was to be acclaimed as perfect. Any criticism was condemned as treachery to the cause of the proletariat. Anarchist and sydicalist criticisms were forgotten or ignored, and by exalting State Socialism it became possible to retain the faith that one great country had realized the aspirations of the pioneers.
This attitude has been changing rapidly during recent years, and those who can no longer give uncritical adoration to the Soviet Government are impelled to seek among earlier doctrines for less authoritarian forms of Socialism. In this book such earlier doctrines are described and discussed. Guild Socialism, which I then favoured, still seems to me an admirable project, and I could wish to see advocacy of it revived.
But there are other respects in which I find myself no longer in agreement with my outlook of thirty years ago. If I were writing now. I should be much less sympathetic to Anarchism. The world is now, and probably will remain for a considerable time, one of scarcity, where only stringent regulation can prevent disastrous destitution. Totalitarian systems in Germany and Russia, with their vast deliberate cruelties, have led me to take a blacker view than I took when I was younger as to what men are likely to become if there is no forcible control over their tyrannical impulses. During the first world war it still seemed possible to hope -- indeed most people did hope-that after the peace a better world would be created than that which preceded 1914. Few had such a hope during the second world war, and hardly any retained it after the fighting ceased. The optimist now is the man who thinks it possible to hope that the world will not get worse; to suppose that it may get better in any near future is scarcely possible except through wilful blindness.
The Utopian hopes that are expressed in the following pages, particularly in the last chapter, though I can retain them as a vision of some far distant day, have much less relation to the present than I believed them to have when I wrote. Fundamentally, it is true, the problems are largely unchanged. The prevention of war, if possible, is still of the first importance. So is the combination of liberty with economic justice in the measure in which this can be achieved. It is clear that some degree of liberty ought to be sacrificed for the sake of justice, and some degree of justice for the sake of liberty. But in a world of scarcity this problem is more difficult than in a world of plenty, and a world of plenty is postulated by most of the discussions in this book.
For such reasons, while I see little reason to change as regards ultimate solutions and long-run hopes, urgent problems and immediate hopes are no longer what they were in 1918. But the problem of preserving as much liberty as possible under Socialism is even more urgent now than then, and the greater part of what is said on this problem in this book still seems to me valid. I hope it may seem so also to some at least among my readers.

June 1948.