China and the West

Russell, Bertrand. Science of social structure : preface to Five lectures on science of social structure [ID D28359].
Before I embark on the detail of this course of lectures, I wish to state in a few words my own position on the questions with which we shall be concerned. I am a Communist. I believe that Communism, combined with developed industry, is capable of bringing to mankind more happiness and well-being, and higher development of the arts and sciences, than have ever hitherto existed in the world. I therefore desire to see the whole world become communistic in its economic structure. I hold also, what was taught by Karl Marx, that there are scientific laws regulating the development of societies, and that any attempt to ignore these laws is bound to end in failure. Marx taught what his nominal disciples have forgotten, that communism was to be the consummation of industrialism, and did not believe it to be possible otherwise. It was in this emphasis upon laws of development that he different from previous religious and Utopian communists. There have been Christian communists ever since Christianity began, but they have had little effect, because economic structure was not ripe for communism. If, here in China, a government were to decree communism tomorrow, communism would not result from the decree, because there would be resistances and incapacities in the habits of the people, and because the material conditions in the way of machinery etc. do not exist. The power of governments is strictly limited to what is technically and psychologically possible at any moment in a given population. For success in social reconstruction, it is vitally necessary, not merely to understand the ethical purposes at which we should aim, but also to know the scientific laws determining what is possible. Miss Black's lectures (which I shall assume you have all heard) are dealing with these laws as applied to the past ; I shall be dealing with tem as applied to the present and the near future. Ethics without science is useless ; we must know not only what is good, but also what is possible and what are the means for achieving it.