時が経過するにつれて,ロシアの政治体制がもっと自由になるであろう徴候は存在している(注:スターリンが1953年3月に亡くなり、フルシチョフが後を継いだことなど)しかし,その可能性はあってもとても心もとない(確かであるとはとても言えない状況である)。それまでの間(in the meantime 自由な体制になるまでの間),芸術や科学だけでなく,日々のパン(食料)が十分であること,また,子供が先生に不注意なことを言ったがためにシベリアの荒野での強制労働にやられるような恐怖からの自由,を高く評価する者はみな,各自の国で,より奴隷的でなくもっと豊かな生活様式を確保するために各自ができることをしなければならない。 |
I have always disagreed with Marx. My first hostile criticism of him was published in 1896. But my objections to modern Communism go deeper than my objections to Marx. It is the abandonment of democracy that I find particularly disastrous. A minority resting its power upon the activities of a secret police is bound to be cruel, oppressive and obscurantist. The dangers of irresponsible power came to be generally recognized during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but those who have been dazzled by the outward success of the Soviet Union have forgotten all that was painfully learned during the days of absolute monarchy, and have gone back to what was worst in the Middle Ages under the curious delusion that they were in the vanguard of progress. There are signs that in course of time the Russian regime will become more liberal. But, although this is possible, it is very far from certain. In the meantime, all those who value not only art and science but a sufficiency of daily bread and freedom from the fear that a careless word by their children to a schoolteacher may condemn them to forced labor in a Siberian wilderness, must do what lies in their power to preserve in their own countries a less servile and more prosperous manner of life. |