©the uncle Jean-Paul

  My Dear Grégoire,

  Jean who came to the winter fair, told me you have become a Socialist since the last elections.
  First, I would like to congratulate you on such a promotion. But then, I feel that I must light your way for your new socialist consciousness. Because I fear, Grégoire,my nephew, that you let someone put a label on you, just likea bottle which can't read what the label says...

  I have to confess that I was very surprised when I heard the news. To convince me, Jean had to show me the electionlist, where at the end, I could read your name.
  Do you know, Grégoire, that Socialism which is above all, for the moment a political suit, is in fact the negotiation and the supression of private property !
  The pontiffs of Socialism aver that their aim is to transform society, to suppress all its abuses and to provide everyone the greatest possible pleasures with a minimum of work.To obtain to this desirable result, they propose to establish equality of wealth. That is the dream !

  The dream is beautiful. The only question is how to realize it. Here is the difficulty. No one is in any hurry to start.
  Go ahead and begin, my dear Grégoire, and you'll receive all my blessings. Begin, without hesitation, to give the example to these big socialist capitalists whose virtue your newspaper proclaims daily, the Jaurès, the Antides Boyer, the Berteaux,Vaillant, Millerand and others millionaires. For those people, the exploitation of socialism has been far more profitable than all the mines of the Klondike.

  Let's put aside the questions of personalities. Socialism may well be a dream, it is no less a quite complex doctrine, all the more difficult to understand as it has as many interpreters as leaders : Karl Marx, Bebel, J.Guesdes,Jaurès, to name but the most famous. It's a real Tower of Babel, from the top to the bottom.
For you Grégoire, it's very simple. You baptize yourself a socialist and the job is done. But if you can't explain your faith in this new doctrine, except with the stupid arguments that one can hear in any bar on the eve of election day, you are behaving like a sheep, following the herd.
  That's the reason why I want to give you some a lesson in the socialist catechism.
  We are not going to explain collectivism, blanquist socialism, marxist, and proudhonnian; let us consider only the most important, state socialism.
  State socialism, it is the state controling all the means of production to make profits for the community, the state substituting itself for the individual, the family, for everything.
  To reach that point, property needs to be nationalized, in other words, the state must grab factories, mines, fields, houses, woods, vinyards. This can't be done in only one election, regardless of the horrible prestige of the law in France. Because there are 33 million people interested in keeping their property — and you are part of that people, Grégoire, I even count you twice, don't you own quite a lot of things under the sun ?

  We'll eventually reach that goal, by small steps, by means of successive laws and a series of painless operations.
  They've started already. It's the iniquitous liquidation of the possessions of the congregation. It's the state's appropriationof the Church's property, invoking the law of separation of Churchand State, so fervently defended by Briand the collectivist. It is the repurchase of the West and later of the large Companies. It is the establishment of the tax on income and pensions. It is the compulsory labour pensions. It will be tomorrow the suppression of inheritance for the benefit of the state, and so on and so forth. One pulls teeth only one at a time...
  When the state will have taken everything, or to speak honestly, nationalized everything, it will naturally have to provide everything to everyone. Each morning, the state will ask itself :"I have 40 million guests for breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc."To satisfy that job, it will proclaim compulsory work.

  Now, let me give you my vision of things. The inventory accountant will be back. He'll be back just for you. Don't be afraid, he'llbe making an inventory of your vinyard with exquisite courtesy, perfect tact. Then, in the meantime, the proud civil servants will come with forms for the nationalization operation. You know how to sign ? That's all you need to do! You'll do it without grumbling, because Mr the Inspector (always with exquisite tact) will explain to you that because you owned thatvinyard, the fruit of your economy and inheritance of our parents,you were committing an horrible theft to the detriment of the community. He will make you clean out both your vinyards and your conscience. However, like the daddy state his boss, the good Mr Inspecteur won't force you to cultivate sugar beets in the North (always for the community benefits). He will allow you to watch your vinyards, which your are used to. He will only ask you to cultivate it , for your brothers' benefit, which you had forgotten a little until now. He will invite you with such insistence that you won't be able to do anything else. The civil servant will stay here, forever !

  Fortunately, don't worry, you will lack nothing. The state is a good father. It will feed you. If you are ill, it will provide you with a doctor, if you are old, the old people's home. If you are dead, a suitable burial. You won't need to write a last will and testament.
  Of course, nobody will have any direct interest in working, we'll need an army of warders to look after the work. The state doesn't accept idleness in its workers. So, one half of the French will be civil servants and decorated, the other half will be slaves. If you obeyed, Grégoire, some noble and disinterested sentiment as you became socialist, you will be join the latter category.
Farewell to private initiative, so fruitful in results !Farewell to the fatherland !

  Goodbye to the little plot of land we loved, because it came from our parents, and because we saw in it, our own children continuing !
  Goodbye to everything ! the sweet dream collapses ! The nation will starve in monotonous boredom, where, through the cracks of the collapsed dream, the enemy will enter...

  We've had enough time to think, now, Grégoire,so I will conclude : I was going to give you (I'm old) my pretty farm which I received from my parents, because you're my most hard-working nephew. However, I don't want you to give it to the state along with your vinyards. I will try to sell it and give the best price to those who have been the first victims of the Socialist experiment.
  I hope you won't hold a grudge against me.

JEAN-PAUL, your uncle.

All rights reserved

  This article was taken from the Parish Almanac of Saint-Martin-en-Genevois (now renamed Saint-Martin-Bellevue,Haute-Savoie by the French Republic), published in the year of our Lord 1910.
  Nota bene for innocents : do not confuse Socialism (commonly called Communism), with "socialismFrench style" (Fluctuat nec mergitur...)

  Next available : A letter to my Capitalist^™ cousin.