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— POLITICS Who Gets What, When, How BY HAROLD D. LASSWELL CONTENTS PART 1 ELITE ¡o 295 PART U METHODS . 314 . 326 . 342 - 360 PART TH RESULTS vi . 375 viL P... . 892 VIT PERSONALITY . 410 IX. Arrupe . 427 PART IV RÉSUMÉ BimLIocrarHicaL No7ES . A POLITICS: Fha Gets haz, When, How The spirit of critical discontent is rie in the world out- side the Soviet Union. Well-built highroads of intellectual achievement are traveled with reluctance, not in protest against the engineering, but in skepticism of starting point and destination. Much of the literature of comparative gov- ernment, law, and administration is devoted to the taxon- omy of institutional practice, with little reference to the living forms which are thereby helped or hurt. The rude glare of political analysis is dimmed in the literature of political quietism. British, Austrian, and American economics are not im- pervious to the intellectual weather. Classical economics, if we are to believe Ricardo, was concerned with the dis- tribution of wealth, one uf the principal means of influence, The conditions of wealth distribution under conditions of Íree competition have been carefully phrased. Distribu- tion under other conditions was understressed in classical analysis. Modern events have sharply reminded us that distribution depends on myih and violence (on faith and brigandage) as well as bargaining. Little more has been done in this book than to state and illustrate the standpoint. The connection between what is written here and what has been wrilten elsewhere is to some extent shown in the bibliographic notes to the sepa- rate chapters which are printed at the end of the book. Specialists will be at no loss to distinguish between the original and the large body of derivative material. Those who accept the frame of reference here proposed will share common standards to guide future intellectual effort. POLITICS: Who Gets What, hen, How There are many practical implications which follow from various aspects of this analysis. My findings are in many respecis parallel to the concluding chapters of The Promise of American Politics by my friend, colleague, and representative, Professor and State Senator T. V. Smith. This is most gratifying to me in every one of my capacities as friend, colleague, and constituent. The quotation from An Experiment in Autobiography, published by The Macmillan Company, is by kind permis- sion of H. G. Wells. The sentences from Engene O'Neill's Mouming Becomes Electra are reprinted by courtesy of Random House. Csuucaco, ÍLenvors Ñ June, 1936, H.D.L. Part 1 — Elite CHAPTER 1 ELITE The study of politics is the study of infinence and the influential. The science of politics states conditions; the philosophy of politics justifies preferences. This book, re- stricted to political analysis, declares no preferences. It states conditions. The influential are those who get the most of what there is to get. Available values may be classified as deference, income, safety. Those who get the most are elite; the rest Are mass, The distribution of deference is relatively clear in a formal hierarchy. The peak of the Roman Catholic pyra- mid is oceupied by a comparatively small number of offi- cials. There are one Pope, 55 cardinals, 22 apostolic dele- gales, 256 vicars apustolic, 245 archbishops, 1,578 bishops. The Communist party in the Soviet Union comes to a sharp head in the Political Committee of nine or ten members. The looser structure of government in the United States none the less confers special influence upon the Supreme Court of nine, the Presidency of one, and the Congress of a tew hundred. Although any bright and talk- ative dad in the United States may be told that one day he may be president, only eight boys made it in the last gen- eration. The potent American Senate, though compara- tively large, would provide a place for only 480 senatora each generation were none reelected. Deference pyramids, in form and in fact, are steep. 295 2098 POLITICS: Pho Gets What, When, How ist trades unions, was a military airman, as was Gregor Strasser, who was so closely tonnected with Hitler until shorily before the Naz's assumption of power. The same active role in partisan politics has often been assumed by naval oflicers, and particularly by submarine officers. In connection with civil posts intimately associated with violence may be recalled the prescriptive right of the Roosevelt family to an assistant-secretaryship oí the navy. Once there was Theodore Roosevelt; later Franklin D. Roosevelt served from 1913 to 1920, and was in charge of the inspection of United States naval forces in Euro- pean waters, July-September, 1918. Skill in political organization is traditionally repre- sented in the American Cabinet by the postmaster gen- eral. Skill in organization was indispensable to the elim- ination oí Trotsky by Communist party secretary Stalin. Hitler is a notable combination of"oratory aud organiza- tion; Mussolini, of oratory, jowmalism, and organiza- tion; Masaryk, of oratory, journalism, scholarship, and organization. It is noteworthy that the political committee of the Communist party has gradually altered its com- position, substituting more skill in organization for skill in oratory, journalism, and scholarship. Skill in handling persons by means of significant sym- bols involves the use of such media as the oration, the polemical article, the news story, the legal brief, the theological argument, the novel with a purpose, and the philosophical system. The opportunities for men to live by manipulating symbols have grown apace with the camplication of our material environment through the expansion of technology. Since 1870, for example, pro- fessional authors in Ámerica have jumped from an in- consequential number to' between 12,000 and 13,000. There are 60,000 artists where formerly there were ELITE 299 4,000; 40,000 actors instead of 2,000; 165,000 musi- cians in place of 16,000. There has been a tenfold in- crease in the teaching profession. There are ten newspa- permen where there was one in 1870. There are 300,000 lawyers today; and it is common knowledge how much influence is exercised by lawyers in courts, legislatures, commissions, and on boards of directora. Half of the President's Cabinet are lawyers. Specialists on the handling of things, as well as per- sons, have spectacularly increased in modern times. ln íhe United States technical engineers (excluding elec- tricians) have risen £rom 7,000 in 1870 to over 226,000 in 1930 (the gainfully employed as a whole expanded only 300 per cent). Yet those who specialize in engineer- ing receive less deference than those who specialize in symbols which sway the masses. Ít was skill in bargaining that was the road to eminence as modern industry expauded during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Elites may he compared in terms of class as well as skill. A class ia a major social group of similar function, status, and outlook. The principal class formations in recent worid politics have been axistocracy, plutocracy, middle class, and manual toilers, : In 1925 the landed aristocracy of Germany owned most of the large estates which ocenpied 20.2 per cent of the arable land of the country. They had 40 per cent of the land east of the Elbe River. All told, these large estates constituted but 0.4 per cent of the total mumber of land- holdings in Germany. At the base of the pyramid were those who ocenpied small holdings: 59.4 per cent of the total holdings of Germany accounted for only 6.2 per cent of the arable land. The concentration of landownership in the hands of a 300 POLITICS: Pho Gets Phat, hen, How small aristocratic coterie is especially noteworthy in Chile, where it has been officially estimated that 2,500 individ- uals hold 50,000,000 acres of the 57,000,000 acres in private possession. ln prewar Hungary properties of 1,300 acres or morc, comprising only one-terith of one per cent of the total number of holdings in the country, included 17.5 per cent of the total area. So large were the holdings of the aristocracy in the Baltic provinces of the former Russian Empire that a new state like Estonia found at the beginning of its national life that 1,149 large estates occu- pied 58 per cent of its total area. In Latvia, where one-half of the country was in 1,500 baronical estates, land reforms created 43,000 new peasant holdings by 1922, Great plutocracies have arisen from commerce, indus- try, and finance, as capitalistic society developed through its several phases. Typical of the merchant capitalist period was the fortune of John Jacob Astor, which aggregated 20,000,000 and was derived from the oriental and fur trade, and from speculation in New York real estate. In- dustrial fortunes rose later, Cornelius Vanderbilt left $100,000,000 from speculations in railroads. Cyrus Me- Cormick huit on the basis of agricultural machinery, An- drew Carnegie on steel, Jolm D. Rockefeller on oil, and J. Pierpont Morgan on investment banking. By 1929 there were 504 persons in America whose incomes were in ex- cess of $1,000,000, and whose wealth was $35,000,000,- 000. As a rule these great fortunes were highly diversified, representing paper control over remote operations. At the end of the eighteenth century the rising bour- gevisie clashed sharply with the French aristocracy, but elsewhere the new bourgevisie fused more readily with the declining aristocracy. Although the largest fortune in Germany in 1913 was the Krupp fortime of $70,000,000, representing the new industrial capitalists, the second ELITE 301 largest fortune was owned by the aristocrat Prince Henc- kel von Donnersmarck. The Kaiser was fifth. Most of the aristocratic fortunes had become diversified and depended upon typically capitalistic undertakings. The gradualness of the eclipse of the aristocraey by new social formations is indicated by the analysis of Brit- ish Cabinet ministers since the beginning of the nine- teenth century. Harold J. Laski has shown that between 1801 and 1831 no less ¿han 52 of the 71 ministers of Cabinet rank were sons of nobility. Between 1906 and 1916 the sons of nobility sank to parity with other social classes, contributing 25 of-the 51 ministers. From 1917 to 1924 but 14 of the 53 ministers were from the nobility. In Japan the transition to modern industrialism and finance was managed by parceling the new enterprises among ihe great feudal families. The lesser middle class is composed of those who exer- cise skills which are requited by modest money returns, Hence the class comprises small farmers, small business- men, low-salaried professional people, skilled workers and erafismen. The manual workers are those who have acquired little skill; they are the true proletariat. The line between plutocracy, lesser bonrgeoisie, and prole- tariat is a matier of acrimonious debate in practical pol- itics, and of great uncertainty among scientists, Socialist propagandists have sometimes sought to include skilled workera, and even-low-income professional people, among the proletariat. Propagandists of plutocracy have sought to obscure the demarcation between big business and big finance, on the one hand, and lesser business and lesser finance, on the other, by speaking of “business” as a unit. Arthur N. Holcombe applicd the terms defined by Buk- harin to the United States with these results: by assigning 24,800,000 of the gainfully employed and 14,000,000 304 POLITICS: Who Gets What, When, How They have succeeded in control by externalizing their rages against doprivation. Such are the men of Napole- onic mold, prone to break themselves or others. Whatever the spetial form of political expression, the common trait of the political personality type is em- phatic demand for deference. When such a motive is associated with skill in manipulation, and with timely circumstances, an effective politician is the result, The fully developed political type works out his destiny in the world of public objects in the name of public good. He displaces private motives on public objects in the name of collective advantage. The true political personality is a complex achieve- ment. When infants are born, they are unequipped with language of reference to environment, immediate or re- mnte, Their impulses are first organized toward an imme- diate intimate circle. The symbols of reference to the world of affairs are endowed with meaning in this pri- mary situation, and the true politician learns to use the world of public objects as a means of alleviating the stresses of his intimate environment. Cravings for defer- ence, frustrated or overindulged in the intimate circle, find expression in the secondary environment, This dis- placement is legitimized in the name of plausible sym- bols. He does not act for the sake of action; he implies that he strives for the glory of God, the sanctity of the Home, the independence of the Nation, the emancipation of the Class. In the extreme case, the politician is hound to no specific objects in his environment. He is not preoecn- pied with the routines of nature, discernible in science, art, technology; he is concerned only with the deference meaning of objects for his ego. Besides skill, classes, and personality groups, we may ELITE 305 examine the distribution of values among attitude groups, The world is divided among those who are influential on the basis of shared symbols of loyalty to nation, elass, occupation, person. Some rise to eminence in the name of militant. or conciliatory methods; in the name of demands jor a vast gemut of policies; in ihe name of optimistic visions of the future. Quite different personality types may be united in loyaliy to nation or class, method, pol- icy, outlook. Thus attitude groups cul across personality classifications, even as they cut across skill or class. Át any given time the members of a skill or class group-may not have risen to full skill or elass consciousness. Al- though an objective observer may be able to consider the meaning of events for their relative success or failure, the members of ¿he skill or class group may talk the language of patriotism, and have no common symbol of class or skilL At this point it may be convenient to cast a glance back» ward over the ground which has been covered. The term “politics has been used to mean the study of inlluence and the influential. lt is plain, however, that no simple index can be profitably used to measure influence and the influ- ential. One aspect of influence is the relative sharing of values. Different results can be obtained by using differ- ent values, An elite of deference is not necessarily an elite of safety. More values may be added to the present list of three (deference, safety, income), Whateyer the list, the items may be differently combined, thus reaching different results to correspond to varying judgments of the elite, New results may be obtained by defining influ- ence in other terms than relative share of values, The term may be used to indicate a judgment of how values might be influenced if there were conflicts about them. Thus 306 POLITICS: Who Gets Phal, Phen, How financial capitalists may be judged to be stronger or weaker than industrial capitalists in case of a hypothet- ical collision. From analysis, then, we can expect no static certainty. lt is a constant process of reexamination which brings new aspects of the world into the focus of critical attention. The unifying frame of reference for the special student of poli- tics is the rich and variable meaning of “influence and the influential,” “power and the powerful.” Perhaps the reader may find himself pausing to consider his own position in the world from the standpoints thus far developed. What is my principal skill? What is my class? What is my type of personality? What are my loyalties and my preferences about collective policy 'and attitude? Where do these skill, class, and personality formations stand with reference to the distribution of such values as deference, safety, and income in my locality, my region, my state, my continent, my world? How has my position altered so far during my life, and what are the probable alterations before I die? Plainly the last question poses the most crucial problem in the sharpest possible way. One purpose of thought is to help in locating the selí as an object among objects in the march of time. The goal is to view the self correctly in the context of events which include the future as well as the past. In this case, the objective is orientation in the succes- sion of skill, class, personality, and attitude forms through time. - This is the contemplative approach to political events. But there is a manipulative approach as well. lt views events in order to discover ways and means of gaining goals. Such a standpoint does not necessarily call for overt participation in revolutionary or counterrevolutionary, re- formist or counterreformist movements, although it does ELITE 307 bring the attitude of the analyst much closer to that of the agitator-organizer. If events are viewed in this perspective, a new sense of personal involvement may have a vitalizing effect upon the thinker when he resumes the contemplative attitude. How may elites be attacked or defended? How may spe- cific objectives be reached by means of symbols, violence, goods, practices? Such are the major problema of the manipulative approach to politics as here understood; such are the questions to be broached in the next four chapters. The contemplative approach is then resumed, and the meaning of events is construed with reference to skill, class, personality, attitude. LK: may be serviceable to put the present interpretation of politics in the perspective of recent specialized thought on the subject. Not until 1906 were there enough political scientists in the United States to organize a national organ- ization (although the American Economic Association was founded in 1885). The original members of the associa- tion were recruited from the faculties or departments of government or political science, and from sóme depart- ments of history and philosophy, and from some schoals of law. Although these political sciemtists had different tech- nical skills at their command, they were united by com- mon interest in what was understood to be the institution of govemment, As distinguished from law and philosophy, political science was chiefty comparative government, em- phasizing the broad historical transformations which ush- ered in modern institutions, especially in Western Europe and in English-speaking countries. In recent years, academic political science has enlarged its descriptive content by concentrating attention upon pub- lic administration, political parties, promotional groups, and political personalities. Political scientists have become 310 POLITICS: Who Gets What, When, How influential which may be described in selected terme, like class, skill, personality, and attitude. The fate of an elite is profoundly affected by the ways it manipulates the environ- ment; that is to say, by the use of violence, goods, symbols, practices. This book will begin with the methods of the infuential, and conclude with the consequences for the influential. Pert H — Methods CHAPTER II SYMBOLS Any elite defends and asserts itself in the name of sym- bols of the common destiny. Such symbols are the “ideal. ogy” of the established order, the “utopia” of counter- elites. By the use of sanctioned words and gestures the elite elicits blood, work, taxes, applause, from the masses. When the political order works smoothly, the masses venerate the symbols; the elite, self-righteous and unafraid, sufters from no withering sense of immorality. “God”s in his heaven— alV's right with the world.” “In union ihere is strengik”"— not exploitation. A wellestablished ideology perpetuates itself with little planned propaganda hy those whom it benefits most. When thought is taken ahout ways and means of sowing convic- tion, conviction has already languished, the basic outlook ol society has decayed, or a new, triumphant outlook has not yet gripped the automatic loyalties of old and young. Happy indeed is that nation that has tio thought of itself; or happy at least are the few who procure the principal benefits of universal acquiescenee. Systems of life which confer special benefits on the other fellow need no plots or conspiracies when the masses are moved by faith and the elites are inspired by selM-confidence, Any well-knit way of life molds human behavior into its own design, The individualism of bourgeois society like the communism of a socialized state must be'inculcated from the nursery to the grave. in the United States, as one an 310 POLITICS: Who Gets What, hen, How influential which may be described in selected terms, like elass, skill, personality, and attitude. The fate of an elite is profoundly affected by the ways it manipulates the environ- ment; that is to say, by the use of violence, goods, symbols, practices. This book will begin with the methods of ihe infuential, and conclude with the consequences for the influential, Part H — Methods CHAPTER 11 SYMBOLS Any elite defends and asserts itself in the name of sym- bols of the common destiny. Such symbols are the “ideal. ugy” of the established order, the “utopia” of counter- elites, By the use of sanctioned words and gestures the elite elicits blood, work, taxes, applause, from the masses. When the political order works smoothly, the masses venerate the symbols; the elite, self-righteous and unafraid, sufters from no withering sense of immorality. “God”s in his heaven— all's right with the world.” “In union there is strength"— not exploitation, A well-established ideology perpetuates itself with litile planned propaganda by those whom it benefits most, When thought is taken about ways and means of sowing convio- tion, conviction has already languished, the basic outlook of society has decayed, or a new, triumphant outlook has not yet gripped the automatic loyalties of old and young. Happy indeed is that nation that has ño thought of itself; or happy at least are the few who procure the principal benefits of universal acquiescence. Systems of life which confer special benefits on the other fellow need no plots or conspiracies when the masses are moved by faith and the elites are inspired by self-confidence. Any well-knit way of Hife molds human behavior into its own design, The individualism of bourgeois society like the communism of a socialized state must be'inculcated com the nursery to the grave. In the United States, as one an 314 POLITICS: Who Gets What, When, How cause of greater burdens of prohibitory regulation, but personal motives and struggles are the subject matter of the secondary means of communication in the bourgeois world. When such an ideology impregnates life from start to finish, the thesis of collective responsibility runs against a wall oí noncomprehension. In any collective society, the whole texture of Hife experience would need to be respun. ln the Soviet Union, for instance, there have been efloris to remodel the psychological environment of the rising gen- eration. This has meant collective houses, where commu- nity laundries and similár services replace the private unit. Group tasks supplant individual tasks in order to keep col- lective emterprises rather than ambitious persons at the center of attention. Theatricals emphasize the play and not the star, and treat the fate of movemenis rather than the problems of the individual person. The emblems and words of the organized community are also part of the precious haze of early experience. In the United States the memories of all are entwined with the flag, snapping in the breeze on Memorial Day; “The Star- Spangled Banner,” sung in uncertaín unison on special holidays; the oath of allegiance to the flag, repeated hefore honts of study and revitation; the pageant of the Pilgrim Fathers, rehearsed at school, at church, at club. There are memories of stiff, embarrassed silence at the name of the alacker relative; tales of travel and adventure with the feet, the army, the air force; solemn requiem for the dead; marching columns of the gray, blue, khaki. On occasions like the inauguration of the President, the unifying symbols of the nation rise again to the threshold of attention. The identifying term has changed from time to time. Before the Civil War, this was the “Union,” but the bloody and contentious associations of that word led to its practical elimination in presidential rhetoric after the SYMBOLS 315 Civil War. The term “United States” has been dropping cut to the advantage of “America” or “American,” notably since the World War. Inaugural oratory has invariably contained reference to the deity, and usually to words like “Sreedom,” “liberty,” “independence,” “economy,” “self. government” Even George Washington made an allusion to the common past, and after Franklin Pierce “our glori- ous past” or “our memories” were duly celebrated. Such expressions as “our fathers, our forefathers, the framers, the founders, our sages, heroes” were seldom left out. “Confidence in the future” was omitted by James Monroe and Grover Cleveland only. Adverse references were made to “partisanship” in most of the addresses. Usually there were self-adulatory words like “intelligence of our peo- ple, our righteous people, our great nation.” Tn the picture language of the public, reflected in car- toons, foreign nations have often played a sorry role, ex- cept when public sympathy moved more or less episodically in their favor. For many years the “Mexican” stereotype included a bolero coat, a large sombrero, spurs, revolver, and rifle. The clothes were often torn and ragged, with patched shoes or bare feet, The dark hair, slightly upturned mustache, dark eyes, clenched fist, defiant face aroused an- noyance rather than hatred. The “Mexican” was often shown as a small, thin urchin who should be soundly spanked and put to bed. Sometimes he was depicted as playing with fire, or sticking his tongue out at Uncle Sam, or being caught in a juvenile prank by his policeman neigh- bor to the north. Before 1915 there was some uncertainty about the stere- otype of the “Japanese.” He figured as a little boy or as a tiny man wearing a kimono, As late as May, 1915, the cartoonist Bowers drew the “Japanese” with a kimono reaching to the knees, big how tie at the back, bare arms 316 POLITHS: FPho Gets What, When, How and legs, shaven head, row of white teeth, and spear in hand. But in 1915 the tendency was to discard the kimono end array the “Jap” in a military outfit, usually a short plain coat (minus decorations), trousers, tight-htting mili- tary boots, military cap, sword, and often a revolver or bayonet. Occasionally, especially at the era of the Wash- ingion Conference, the “Jap” was portrayed in an ordinary business suit; but by 1925 he was back in full military regalia. The hias against government is strikingly indicated by the absence of a cartoon stereoiype for the public as a re- cipient of benefits from public expenditures. The emphasis is all on the “Taxpayer.” Often arrayed in a dark suit with a white collar, four-in-hand tie, sometimes with a white vest, often with light trousers, the taxpayer is one of those pathetic souls who always get it in the neck. Formerly equipped with straw hat, derby, or large cowboy hat, he is now more commonly shown in a soft felt hat of varying size, sometimes perched on top of his head, sometimes plopped down. over his ears. Shoes may be ragged and patched, but the white collar of respectability remains. The frail Hittle fellow has thinning hair, a long nose, a slight mustache, and glasses. The nosepinchers were replaced by horn-rims about 1921. The “Taxpayer,” unlike the “Pub- lic,” is always being acted upon. He may be an Isaac about to be sacrificed; a bandaged cripple leaving the office of Doc. Democrat to get relief from Doc. G.0.P.; a rower, trying to row five large cruisers io the sérap heap; a saw- horse, on which governmental extravagances and waste are tester-totlering. Singularly enough, the stereotype of the “Capitalist” has remained uncomplimentary for many years, The checkered trousers with dark coat and checkered suit tended to give way in 1910 and 1911 to the dark suit or a dark coat and SYMBOLS 3n striped trousers. The white vest, winged colar, bow tie (or four-in-hand), stovepipe hat, varying in size and height, have long been consistently included within the stereotype. The amount of jewelry varies. At times he is bedecked with diamond studs, or a stickpin, cuíf links, and diamond rings, even on ihumb and first finger. Spats were added to his altire around 1912 and 1913, and his shiny patent leather shoes have been fixtures. Big cigars and a big cane are sometimes added. The “Capitalist” is fat necked, round bellied, and bald. The hands at times are excessively large to emphasize the grasping habits of the owner. Most of the time the “Capitalist” has been grinning, or smiling, at the expense of “Laborer” or “Public.” But in the years 1919. 1921 the negative symbol was that of “Labor” who was decked out with silk shirts and arrogance. When elites resort to propaganda, the tactical problem is to select symbols and channels capable of eliciting the de- sired concerted acta, There is incessant resort to repetition or distraction. The changing emotional requirements of the community, moods of submissiveness, moods of self-asser- tion, all complicate the task of managing men in the mass. Alter periods of discipline for the common cause, the mass trend is toward individualism and variety; after periods of self-assertion, the mass trend is toward disciplined funda- mentalism. This means that when the mores are observed, the countermores are suppressed; that when countermores are indulged, mores are suppressed. The-inhibited is not extinct; hence the sudden change in direction which dis- tinguishes the variable moods of men. Propaganda, when successful, is astute in handling: Aggressiveness Guilt Wealness Affection. 320 POLITICS: Who Gets hat, lPhen, How mosity inward, thus fomenting civil war or revolution. The connection between flucinating levels of insecurity and the effectiveness of propaganda is shown in the history of Ger- man morale during the World War. After the check on the Marne and the immobile war of the trenches, ¿he bubbling self-confidence and enthusiasm at the front and at home began to subside. The glorious march to Paris had not come off. The simpler soldiers yearned to get out of the trenches by Christmas. But it was not until the food short- age pinched the population at home that waves of discon- tent assumed significant proportions, In October, 1915, the chief of the Foreign Office press section noticed that com- plaints from wives at home were affecting morale at the front. In the summer of 1916, the letters home began to reflect the impact of the terrific losses around Verdun. The word Schiwindel began to be used to refer to the war. The Somme created the impression that Allied resources of men and material were inexhanstible, A critical, carping spirit began to show itself, and the gap between officers and men began visibly to widen. The privations of the “turnip winter” of 1916-1917 augmented the depression at home. In the summer of 1917 war aims were much discussed, and the blatant demands of the Vaterlandspartei for great an- nexations undermined ihe impression that the war was solely for defense. The soldiers at the front resented the high wages of the workers in the munitions factories, and the high profits of the munitions makers, After three months of incessant struggle in Flanders, there was an appreciable increase in the number of losses by capture. This telltale indication of sagging morale spread apace as the war drew to an end. Disciplinary diffi- culties were sometimes extreme when troopa were trams- ferred from the eastern theater to the western “graveyard.” Parily as a result of such evidence, the High Command SYMBOLS 321 decided to stake everything on the great offensive of 1918. As early as June, however, the troops were plainly disinte- grating. By July difficulties were flagrant, as shown by leaves without permission, crimes of cowardice, and open defiance of orders. August was a month of general apathy, hopelessness, indiflerence, During the last months of the war from three-quarters of a miltion to a million men suc- ceeded in withdrawing themselves from active combat, and many of those who stayed at the front engaged in passive resistance. Willing soldiers began to be called “strike- breakers” and “warprolongers” by their comrades. Ludendort! first took note of the effects of enemy propa- ganda in the summer of 1917. During 1918 the menace of enemy propaganda was betrayed by the phrascs of enemy origin which appeared in letters home from the front, and in conversations overheard on troop trains and reported by intelligence officers to the high command. Such words as “Prussian militarism,” “Pan-German,” “bloodthirsty Kaiser,” and “Junker” were employed in the sense in- tended by Allied propagandists. Soldiers learned the word “Republic” because the French promised to give special consideration to all captives or deserters who shouted the word and surrendered. Radical socialist propaganda had revived at home, after some ef the socialist leadership re- covered from the abandonment of internationalism in 1914, In 1918 troops transterred from the eastern theater of war lo ihe western front had often fraternized with the Bol- shevik soldiers, and spread a revolutionary interpretation of the war. Entente propaganda was hammering home the thesis of the ultimate defeat of Germany, and inciting a governmen- tal, as distinguished from a social, revolution. Ín the famous “war without weapons” the use of leaflets reached spectacular proportions, All told, 65,595,000 leaflets were 322 POLITICS: Who Gets What, Phen, How snowed over the German lines. The French distributed 43,- 300,000, the British, 19,295,000, and the Americans 3,000,000. The German high command tried to defend it- self by offering a bounty to soldiers who would turn in these leaflets. One-sixteenth of the leaflets dropped by the Allies were actually handed to their officers by the German soldiers, The Germans also tried to coordinate special propaganda at home with a strong counteroffensive against the Allics, They spread 2,253,000 copies of the Gazeite des Ardennes on the western front, The object of revolution, like war, is to attain coercive predominance over the enemy as a means of working one's will with him, Revolutionary propaganda selects symbols which are calculated to detach the affections of ihe masses from the existing symbols of authority, to aitach these af. fections to challenging symbols, and to direct hostilities toward existing symbols of authority. This is infinitely more complex than the psychological problem of war prop- aganda, since in war the destructivo energies of the com- munity are drained along familiar channels. Most of those who have a hand in revolution must face a erisis of con- science, Constituted authority perpetuates itself by shaping the consciences of those who are bora within its sphere of control, Hence the great revolutions are in defiance of emo- tions which have been directed by nurses, teachers, guardi- aus, and parents along “accredited” channels of expression. Revolutions are ruptures of conscience, The psychological function of revolutionary propa: ganda, like war propaganda, is to control aggressiveness, guilt, weakness, afíection. Marxism, for example, fostera the projection of aggressiveness by denouncing “capital. ism” as predatory. Marxism fosters the projection of guiht by indicting capitalism as the root of the ¡lls of war, pov- erty, misery, disease. Marxism favors the projection of SYMBOLS 323 love upon “socialism” and the “proletariat.” Marxism facilitates the projection of weakness by asserting that capi- talistic society is bound to decay, for it bears the seed of revolution in its hosom. Hence, as was said by this writer in another context, “Dialectical materialism is the reading of private preferences into universal history, the elevating of personal aspirations into cosmic necessities, the re- moulding of the universe in the pattern of desire, the com- pletion of the crippled self by the incorporation oí the symbol of the whole. No competing symbolism rose to such heights of compulsive formulation.” Partial revolutionary movements are led by an elite which fights to exterminate those who are associated with ¡he latest world revolutionary movement. Such movements, like Italian Fasciem and German National Socialism, are belligerently antialien and pronafional. Regardless of how much they borrow in symbol or practice from the latest world revolutionary pattern, they conceal the theft, abomi- nate the source. The use of the “non-Aryan” as the unifying devil be- hind all the lesser devils oí Marxism, Versailles, Weimar, Dawes Plan, is easy to understand. The same type of mass movement in Italy had not utilized the Jew; but several circumetances conspired to heighten the availability of the Jow as a target of demagoguery in Germany. An analysis of these factors will illustrate ihe function of symbols in relation to context. There were lew Jews.in Germany: they were bankers, merchants, and professional people who were inclined to treat Jew-baiting with disdain, There was no proletarian bloc of Jews to create a pro-Jewish backfire among the working masses. in short, the Jews were so numerous that they conld conveniently be hated; not so numerous that they could effectively retaliate, The solid background of