Why, then, is it that Communist societies are not only Socialist societies, but also tyrannical, not only in the sense in which anything one disapproves of (Press Lords, or the National Coal Board) may be said to be tyrannical, but in the full-blooded traditional sense? What is it that has, so to speak, curdled the Socialist idealism of the Communists, and driven them into real police tyranny? The Western world is inclined to answer that it is the readiness of the Communist to be ruthless in his choice of means, to employ, in the name of ends at best desirable and at worst morally neutral, altogether inadmissible means. And no doubt this is the correct answer; but the situation is not as simple as it may seem. For the Communist will deny that he is any more ruthless than the democrat; and in fact can plausibly support his denial. For, given that he has in his understanding of the dialectic, secured the clue to historical development, what does he do but employ force to ensure that the birthpangs of the new society shall be as short as possible and as painless? He does not, like the Nazi, glorify violence for its own sake; he merely employs it to safeguard the revolution, knowing that thereby he is hastening the advent of the world-wide classless society, and therefore of perpetual peace and liberty. And, in so doing, how does he act differently from the democrat who resists Hitler, or drops atomic bombs on the cities of Japan? And if this is so, why should we suppose that his well-intentioned severities pervert his idealism, any more than the act of war perverts the idealism of the West? Is not the belief that he is so perverted unplausible, and does it not rest, not on the facts of the case, but solely on unprincipled propaganda in the capitalist press?
How are we to answer? We could admit part of the argument, and agree that on his premises, given his belief in the dialectic, his behaviour is not ruthless; it is merely painful but necessary severity. But to answer thus would be to betray the Christian tradition that the end does not justify the means, to betray it beguiled by what I have called the crude form of Utilitarianism.
(I. M. Crombie, "Social Clockwork and Utilitarian Morality," in Christian Faith and Communist Faith: A Series of Studies by Members of the Anglican Communion, ed. D. M. MacKinnon [London: Macmillan & Company, 1953], 98-113, at 107-8)
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 