powerful and in other ways superior to Socialism. It alters the old controls more efficiently and completely and offers a finer basis for a new society.
In the first place, Socialism, especially as exemplified in Russia, clings to military and police violence and their symbols, as a prime control of society. Gandhiism would abolish this control, and by so doing will create more trust and a finer quality of trust than Socialism or Communism has done.[1] Despite the immense fund of trust evolved with in the Soviet system, that system has aroused, from its beginning, both in Russia and in other countries, more fears and hatred of itself than has Gandhiism in its own and other countries. That is chiefly due to the violence of the Communists, I believe, though they would say it is be cause of the efficiency of the Soviets in destroying capitalism in Russia. Some Socialists may protest that they do not believe in violence, but no Socialist party in power has yet given adequate proof of such belief.
Secondly, Gandhiism, through the weaving of khaddar and the use of charkha, attacks the old social gradations and controls of flattery and distinction more subtly and directly and powerfully, because it employs symbolism, than does Socialism. It is true that all people in Russia dress simply. Yet we have not heard of simple, coarse clothing being advocated as a conscious symbol of social unity in Russia. Simple clothing seems to have been worn there from poverty and dire necessity, but apparently its symbolic value is not fully appreciated. And among the Socialists of Germany and Great Britain there has been apparently little or no recognition of the connection be tween clothing and social position, between clothing and social flattery and control by the “upper” classes. This oversight has been one element in the failure of Socialism
- ↑ This point has been developed at more length in my Gandhiji’s Satyagraha, published by Ganesan, Madras, 1930.
