What is a reactionary? More specifically, what do young lads and lasses of the festive left, “toads” and N-L-N-F, picture a reactionary as?
In principle, these circles label “reactionary” as an egocentric person par excellence. Devoid of the most basic sense of justice, compassion for others, or zeal for the common good, a “reactionary” only cares about filling his pockets with unlimited money; the more, the better, as long as his wealth keeps growing. Everything else is secondary.
This greed for money drives a “reactionary” to become a politician. To amass and maintain an excessive fortune without sharing benefits with others, he must harm many people and create envy. Threatening to call the police is his way of deterring those who might oppose him or envy his wealth. To have the police at his command, he must enter politics to control the state.
All of this cannot be achieved without certain social prestige. A special “tonus” of distinction, which sets him apart from the masses, is therefore useful for the “reactionary,” even today when nabobs are highly “democratized.” Hence, in important situations, there is a need for the top hat, which communist propaganda wrongly cites as the symbol of modern reaction.
This symbol is not part of the modern “reactionary”; it is a relic of aristocratic society from the “Belle Époque.” Today’s “reactionary” wears it only occasionally to add a touch of high style to his social “status.”
Someone might object, but isn’t the “reactionary” a successor to the aristocrat? So why doesn’t the symbol of the latter fit the former properly?
In a broad sense, one can argue that the modern “reactionary,” the plutocrat or oligarch (a member of an oligarchic class), is a successor to the aristocrat. However, he is the opposite of the aristocrat; he is the true destroyer of aristocracy.
Indeed, just as a plutocrat is a caricature of a landowner, a nobleman becomes an egocentric vampire. However, his greed differs in that the plutocrat lives for money and seeks political power and social prestige solely to protect or increase his fortune, while the aristocrat (vampire or not) is primarily concerned with honors and only pursues power and wealth insofar as they help preserve and elevate his honors.
As the plutocrat grew in power and replaced the aristocrat, his predecessor and rival, the sense of practical usefulness outweighed symbolic values.
The plutocratic vampire exists just as the aristocratic vampire once did. And just as the aristocrat-vampire was the best excuse for the revolutionaries of 1789 to wage Revolution, for today’s communists, the owner-vampire (which is simply a plutocrat) is the best excuse for class warfare.
In leftist language, vampirism equals reaction. The sans-culottes of the French Revolution saw the noble vampire as a “reactionary.” The communist, an ideological “descendant” of the sans-culottes, views the plutocrat as a “reactionary.”
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How is it possible to love vampirism, whether noble or bourgeois? The only one who can love the vampire is himself.
Therefore, if the men of 1789 and today’s communists were simply fighters against vampirism, the goal they pursued (setting aside questions of method) could only deserve sympathy.
And any “reactionary” intellectual, politician, or military officer serving a vampire-plutocrat would also be a wrongdoer.
In reality, however, for genuine 1789 revolutionaries and those of today, fighting vampirism is just a pretext. Neither intends to eliminate only the aristocrat-vampire. According to a true revolutionary, every nobleman and every bourgeois is necessarily a vampire or “reactionary” because being a noble means oppressing ordinary people, and being a bourgeois means stealing from the people.
Unsurprisingly, some Marat, Proudhon, or Marx might think this way, since seeing any inequality as a rights violation fits their inherently egalitarian mentality.
However, it is surprising that a Catholic would think this way after twenty centuries during which the Church has consistently taught that nobles, bourgeois, and workers alike can be saved, and that heaven is full of people from any of these social classes who have become saints. There have been saints among nobles as well as among the bourgeois and workers. Jesus Christ, Our Lord, was a humble worker in Nazareth, but also accepted the people of Jerusalem to solemnly acclaim Him as Prince, son of the royal house of David, as was due to Him.
Similarly, for the communist, a “reactionary” is not only someone who defends the noble or bourgeois vampire, but also anyone who denies that all inequality is an injustice, and that every nobleman or landowner, no matter how virtuous and saintly, is a scoundrel by definition.
With the term “reactionary,” communists aim to label as objects of the same hatred the vampire and his dishonest, sold-out defender—the nobleman, the bourgeois, and the disinterested supporter of the elevated and wholesome principle that harmonious inequalities among men can and should exist. Depending on the times, places, and circumstances, aristocrats, the bourgeoisie, or both classes may legitimately be at the top of the social hierarchy.
For social hierarchy to be legitimate, the honors given to some must not become dishonor for others. Instead, everyone should participate, though to different extents, in the full honor that is inherent to human and Christian dignity. Wealth should not be concentrated in the hands of a few to the point where others are left in poverty, insecurity, and dependence, which are incompatible with human and Christian dignity.
That said, it should be noted that the true reactionary is the communist.
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Imagine an employer who controls legislators, judges, military personnel, police chiefs, and officers—all entirely at his command. All these individuals are his employees. He assigns any tasks he deems appropriate to each of them. He freely determines their working hours and punishes any discontented or negligent workers at will. He ensures that judges always rule in his favor in court cases. How would this super-vampire boss differ from a Fidel or a Brezhnev? Isn’t it true that the situation of a poor “volunteer worker” recruited in Russia, or a miserable sugarcane cutter in Cuba, is far worse than that of the most oppressed worker exploited by the most ruthless and all-powerful boss? What boss in our bourgeois society wields power over his workers comparable to that of the communist State?
In other words, has there ever been a nobleman more “vampirically” arrogant or a boss more “vampirically” possessive of his workers than Fidel or Brezhnev?
In that case, oh communist, I ask you: why aren’t the Soviet Führer and his Cuban counterpart considered the ultimate “reactionaries”? Why aren’t you seen as the “reactionary” par excellence?
