Recently I have found myself reacting rather strangely to the word ‘socialism’. Whenever I meet an ardent socialist, or for that matter a keen anti-socialist, I immediately feel an urge to ask ironic questions. It would appear from this that my socialism lacks fervent enthusiasm. No doubt the reason is that I do not live in oppression or poverty, but more or less comfortably.

The origin and precondition of all socialism is sensitivity to injustice and hatred of villains. But sensitivity and hatred cannot flourish side by side. Hatred is a gut feeling, while sensitivity demands awareness, attentiveness, scepticism, a critical frame of mind, an inclination to probe and scrutinise, and, first and foremost, a sense of humour. Consequently the socialist psyche is fed at once on fire and ice. A difficult diet. A cosy, fireless socialism gradually develops into torpid liberalism. Hatred, on the other hand, breeds more hatred, and if it seizes the reins of power it discloses a fist of iron, arrogant, authoritarian, armed with formulas, slogans and shackles, hectoring and merciless.

To be a socialist means to fight for the right of individuals and societies to control their own destinies up to that point beyond which men are incorrigibly ruled by fate. It is helpful, however, not to lose sight of the fact that social injustice, political wrong and economic inequity are only one battlefield in the wider arena of human existence, and that we are hemmed in on at least three sides by our pitiful frailty, the pain of our mortality, sexual injustice and the misery of our fate.