What can possibly be gained by an attempt to suppress that philosophy by an imprisonment of its members is quite beyond my understanding.
Harold J. Laski
The Public Record
Harold Joseph Laski was an English political theorist and economist. He was active in politics and served as the chairman of the British Labour Party from 1945 to 1946 and was a professor at the London School of Economics from 1926 to 1950. He first promoted pluralism by emphasising the importance of local voluntary communities such as trade unions. After 1930, he began to emphasize the need for a workers' revolution, which he hinted might be violent. Laski's position angered Labour leaders who promised a nonviolent democratic transformation. Laski's position on democracy-threatening violence came under further attack from Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the 1945 UK general election, and the Labour Party had to disavow Laski, its own chairman.
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But no one of common sense believes today in a Communist menace in England, least of all, perhaps, the Communists themselves.
If the Communist Party in England sought to initiate a rebellion, there would be a threat to the supremacy of the law.
The logic, indeed, of habitual government suppression seems to be that abnormal opinion is always dangerous because, if it is acted upon, the supremacy of the law will be endangered.
One has only to remember the Treason Trials of 1794, where there was not a scintilla of evidence against any one of the accused, or the follies enacted by governments during the Great War, to see that this is the case.
In the light of the evidence, we can rest assured that, unless we compel proof, in an ordinary court of law, that overt acts have been committed, such attacks will be made.
Or, once more, Mr Arthur Ponsonby’s organization of men pledged to refuse military service in the event of Great Britain going again to war ought not to be suppressed because, if Great Britain did go to war, some hundred thousand…
We do not think that announcement would have justified the British Government in imprisoning Mr Ghandi before the end of 1929 in order that he might be prevented from accomplishing his threat at a later time.
It ought not to be sufficient for a government to say that since a particular party has beliefs which include the right to violence and has elsewhere practised violence, that its suppression is legitimate.
It is, I think, essential that, as with the English law of treason, the government should be compelled to prove the commission of some overt act which directly tends to imminent rebellion in a court of law, and to bring two witnesses at…
But I cannot see that a government is entitled to prevent a society of Communists from preaching their doctrines either by speech or by publication of the printed word.
So, also, when a political party, the Ulster Volunteers, for instance, or their opponents, the Nationalists, begin to purchase munitions of war, interference by government is justified.
I agree, for instance, that a society of Communists which began to teach its members military drill could legitimately be regarded as a direct threat to peace.
The time for that interference comes only when, outside the specific categories of peaceful persuasion, men have moved to action which cannot logically be interpreted as other than a determination to overthrow the social order.
A society might be formed, for instance, to discuss and propagate the principles of Tolstoyan anarchy; I do not think any government has legitimate ground for interference with it.
For, otherwise, persecution will be built, not on fact, but on suspicion that facts may one day emerge, not on overt acts, but on principles of faith which are in truth only dangerous when they are expressed in practice.
We must, I think, begin with the principle that a government is not entitled to suppress associations the beliefs of which alone are subversive of the established order.
The liberty which associations enjoy must therefore be set in the context that they cannot have a liberty to overthrow the state.
A state must, therefore, assume that its duty to maintain peace and security lies at the very root of its existence.
It must demand that changes in its organization be the outcome of peaceful persuasion and not the consequence of violent assault.
Obviously the quality of liberty depends very largely upon the powers we give the state in this realm.
Unless state and church pursue an independent path, liberty is sacrificed; for either fusion or partnership will, in fact, involve a conflict for supremacy.
I cannot avoid the conclusion that in this historic realm only the American principle of complete separation and non-interference can produce freedom.
Such a church, quite obviously, is the mere creature of the state; it sacrifices its spiritual birthright for a material mess of pottage.
For this reason I believe that any attempt at partnership between them is bound to result in injury to freedom somewhere.
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