The Great American Revolution; R. Bradford

RALPH BRADFORD The Great American Revolution IT HAS BECOME the fashion in our country to refer to every change or proposal for change as a "revo lution." When farmers first began to set up organizations to promote their interests it was dubbed the Farm Revolution. The movement to se cure for black citizens the rights to which they are entitled was soon referred to as the Black Rev olution. People of late have become aware of the dangers that lurk in water and air pollution; and so, in press and on television the Eco logical Revolution has blossomed. Students become disenchanted with some course of study, or with dor mitory arrangements; and when they become voca.l about it - 10, there is a Campus Revolution! And so it goes, ad nauseum. Let anybody advocate a sharp change of some kind, whether in the meth od of electing a congressman or Mr. Bradford is well known as a writer, speaker, and business organization consultant. He now lives in Ocala, Florida.

choosing a village alderman, whether the aim is to lower prices, or to cut taxes, or to get better fire protection, or whatever, in no time at all he will be said to be heading a "revolution." As a result of this resort to rhetorical pyrotechnics the word "revolution" has become common place, bland, watered-down - and dangerously deceptive. With re spect to the real implications of revolution we have gone off into a kind of semantic euphoria. The word not only has no terror for us; it has become a mere symbol of change - change that may be somewhat sudden, dramatic and far-reaching, to be sure, but is on the whole beneficial and in the line of human progress and betterment. This of. course is an illusion, a self-deception of tragic signifi can-ce. All Americans and their in stitutionsare the worse for it, be cause they are imperiled by it. Several years ago an American politician who had a.chieved con siderable eminence, and who at 387 388 THE FREEMAN July least had the merit of making po litical debate a more literate exer cise, made a trip through several of the South American countries.

Whereve~r he saw evidence of poli t ical progress, or even discerned signs of impending change that he thought would be beneficial, he trotted out the "revolutionary" symbolism. The United States had been born of a revolution; we sym pathized with the aspirations of all people who were trying to bet ter their condition; and, in short, it seemed he was all for bigger and better revolutions among our southern neighbors. Was he an incendiary, inciting those people to violence? Not at all. He was a gentle man who, I am sure, abhorred violence. The trouble was that he was using the word "revolution" in its watered-down sense. He was thinking of better government, probably some social security type legislation, some much-needed slum clearance, more and better education, wider ob servance of democratic procedures, and the like. He did not realize, apparently, that to most of his lis teners "revolution" didn't mean the peaceful substitution of what he would call "progressive" ideas for what he considered "reaction ary" ones. To mqst of them the term meant civil strife, political upheaval, barricades, blood in the streets, fire in the palace, and shouts of a la pared - to the wall with them!

Americans who talk glibly of the "revolution" they hope to see (meaning, of course, the adoption of their particular brand of polit ical or economic salvation) need to understand that in much of the world, especially in the Marxist domina ted areas, there is nothing mild, bland, peaceful, gradual or merely "progressive" about the in terpretation of that word. It is also clear, alas, that there is a growing element right here at home who measure revolution in the same scales, as their bombs, fires and rhetoric abundantly testi fy. No doubt there are some well meaning people, both here and abroad, who see in Marxism only a peaceful, if somewhat drastic, political and economic program just another philosophy of govern ment. But such people are hopeless dupes. No matter how mild-man nered he may seem to be, cross a Marxist and you are apt to get the vituperative scorn of intolerance; scratch him and you get the blood of a revolutionist. He doesn't con template a nice, friendly, gradual and evolutionary reordering of so ciety. He means action, violent ac tion - fire, bombs, executions and the iron heel - all, of course, in the name of justice and humanity.

Is this an exaggeration? Ask of the ghosts of those Russian farm1975 THE GREAT AMERICAN REVOLUTION 389 ers, the kulaks, who were "liqui dated" by the millions, their crime being that they owned a little land and did not want to have it taken away from them. Ask at the graves of those nameless Chinese peasants who were mowed down by the murderous fire of Mao's execu tioners. Ask the people of Latvia; ask the Estonians; ask the Hun garians; ask the family or friends of those East Germans whose only offense was their desire to escape to freedom, and who left their bul let-shattered bodies beside the im prisoning Wall as testimony to the brutal efficiency of "revolution." At this mention of the Berlin Wall and its victims, someone may well summon up the specter of HitIer, and remind us that blood and tears and unspeakable cruelty were practiced by that madman and his goons - and that theirs was not a communist regime. And the answer is: quite true - and beside the point. Or rather, in sup port of the point. In the first place, the Hitlerian movement started out as a socialist putsch. Even the hated name Nazi was only an ab breviation of the German for Na tional Socialist. But it soon went far beyond the relatively mild pro posals of the English Fabians and became a totalitarian dictatorship.

And it achieved its ends by revo lution - not so declared, but so ex ecuted. From the Marxist point of view it was a revolution in re verse; but it was a revolution, none the less. The techniques of brutal ity practiced by the Russian and Chinese revolutionaries of the left were equally effective instruments for the German revolution of the right. What' 5 to Celebrate? Now I can imagine someone echoing an old and familiar re frain: "But why get excited about revolution? Our nation is a prod uct of revolution. Right now we are beginning a year-long celebra tion of .... " Of what, friend? A revolution? That's what a lot of people think and say, because our long-ago War for Independence got tagged in the history books as a "revolutionary" war. It was not that at all, in the true sense of the word. * It was a fight for independence, not for radical social and economic change. The Colonial leaders were not out to rewrite the laws of England.

They didn't propose to abolish Parliament, or fire the Prime Min ister, or sink the Royal Navy. They had many grievances against King George, and they set them forth boldly; but they didn't suggest de throning him. They didn't want to destroy him, either as king or * See the author's article "The Great Anniversary Festival" in the May, 1975 issue of The Freeman.

390 THE FREEMAN July man, any more than they wanted to destroy the British government. They simply wanted to be free of both - to escape the frustrations imposed by a nagging and rather stupid bureaucracy. They were quite content to see the mother country survive and prosper ; and when they had finally won their war and achieved Independence, they based their institutions and philosophy of government on the same concepts of individual liberty that had long been dear to the hearts of Englishmen. Actually the "revolution" that we ought to venerate was not a thing of armies and battles. Nor did it begin, as orators like to as sert, with those shots that were fired " by the rude bridge" - shots that were "heard round the world." That episode, and even the bloody fighting at Bunker Hill, were but tragic small scenes in a continuing drama that had started long before. Some forty years later, an aged John Adams, looking back, was to write that even the war with Eng land was "no part of the Revolu tion." And he went on to assert that "the Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington."

Maybe the old gentleman retro spectively overestimated the sentiment that prevailed during those fifteen years. Probably most of the people were not greatly agi tated in their "hearts and minds." Impatient - yes. Disgusted - to be sure. Fed up - of course. But such disgruntlement is not the stuff of revolution, which must be fed with the fires of fundamental beliefs and convictions. Even in 1776 there was yet no overwhelming desire fvr the radical change of independ ence, and small appetite for a war to achieve it - and this despite great indignation over the irritat ing small tyrannies (and some great ones) of a. succession of stu pid British ministries. The Idea of Liberty But in a deeper sense the "hearts and minds" phrase was significant; and its symbolism reached much farther back than the fifteen years Adams mentioned. It covered' the whole life-span of the Colonials, and that of their grandparents. For there was a revolution going on and slowly coming to maturity, in the thinking of men concerning the in stitution of government, their prop er relationship to it, and its effect upon their welfare and happiness.