Apocalypse Soon: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 272-279

 

The problem with conspiracy theories like Webster’s is that the looming danger is always just around the corner. It’s coming, and probably tomorrow; so be prepared but also be afraid. During 2020, conspiracy theorists liked to claim that the Summer of Protests was evidence of the conspiracy. It was Soros funded antifa-BLM designed to disrupt society and cause a total collapse of the government. The thing you have to ignore is that none of the conspiracy theorists predicted it, it was always a post-hoc prediction. Take some vague statement about unrest the theorist made several years ago and then pretend that it links up to that Summer.

Webster makes the mistake of attempting an actual prediction. She describes “the Great Day of Revolution.” She describes cutting the telephone/telegraph wires, smashing stores, looting, burning, and sabotaging the railways. This will prompt police and military to respond with the hope that some of them will join the revolution. Then the capital will be starved out and the inhabitants of the city will turn on the government and the bourgeoisie. Webster emphasizes “bourgeoisie” but I don’t know why. It’s like an emphasis for effect, but we know, after a few hundred pages that the target of the Illuminati/Socialist is the rich, so any shock value is long gone.

What, you may think, would happen if the starving city dwellers turn against the revolutionaries instead? Well, that’s even better because then it will all be chaos and somehow that’s how the revolution wins. After all of this revolution, the aim of the Syndicalists will be complete. Which is the ruin of society. She doesn’t even do that obvious thing of concluding with and then the Sydnicalists/Socialists/Illuminati/Jews will take the head of society. It’s chaos for chaos’s sake which isn’t a plan. The Joker in Dark Knight had a more coherent plan than what Webster attributes to the all-knowing conspiracy.

She’s going to explain that only a lunatic would approve of this plan and then give us that lunatic in the form of Georges Sorel. Sorel’s work is characterized as the “dream of a neurasthenic negro king.” Which is a confusing insult which goes out of the way to be racist. For those of us not keeping up with early 20^th century diagnoses “neurasthenic” means weak nerved. Why does it have to be a “Negro King?” Was a weak nerved African King a trope back then? I know it’s racism but is there also a context where this would at least be something a English reader in the 1920s would understand?

There is plenty of talk about how this great day is coming, so much so that the anticipation seems almost sexual in how much she dreads/wants it. This is a trope in conspiracy literature. The notoriously racist “Turner Diaries” calls it the “Day of the Rope;” Alex Jones had the Summer of Rage promising race-based lockdowns. It’s almost like the desire to be right overwhelms the pile of bodies that will be produced.

The most telling of this is how she cannot imagine that anyone would strike or attempt to tear down a system for the benefit of the greater good. There must be an ulterior motive. She writes, “Thus playing on the simple camaraderie of the workers, and urging them to solidarity in the interests of Labour the Syndicalists hope to drive them onwards into the melee which is to end in no amelioration of the workers’ lot, but simply in the destruction of the social order.”

The implied meaning of this passage is that social order requires the suffering of the worker. Attempts to alleviate the worker’s lot is destroying society. She can’t fathom a world in which the worker doesn’t suffer for the benefit of their social betters. We should also pay attention to the fact that she is not arguing that the laborer isn’t suffering in their social role. That suffering is something she’s cool with.

We are treated to a long section where Socialist groups attempted general strikes in the past, and this is useless information that argues against her point. None of these strikes upturned the social order. They don’t even appear to be that violent. There was some sabotage but nothing like the body count she promised. In fact, some of these strikes she cites seem to have worked. It’s a good system which is very easy to do and organize.

Interestingly she provides two different methods that are neither violent or obvious. The first was used by the dockworkers of Glasgow which is called “going slow.” I don’t think this requires explanation. The second is that called “Obstructionism.” Obstructionism gained a little internet fame a few years ago in an OSS field manual on how to stop the Nazis in Europe. They recommended following every rule to the letter, never taking short cuts, prolonging group meetings, always going through official channels, etc. Anyone who has ever been to a corporate meeting knows the middle manager who flexes on this kind of thing. There is an entire subreddit R/Maliciouscompliance dedicated to it. This type of protest is difficult to understand from the management/owner perspective because they can’t honestly fire the employees for following the rules that they instituted. It’s a very low risk type of protest but one that can have large scale effects if progress grinds to a halt.

We flash forward several pages as Webster gets into the most boring pedantry regarding internal disputes between followers of Sorel, Marx, and various Syndicalists. I don’t know who finds this interesting. I suppose that an actual historian of Socialist movements, or responses to Socialist movements might get into this but for anyone else including the intended readers of this book, cannot be interested in this. All it does is communicate the impression of strife and that’s not even a little interesting.

“It will probably never come off, but just as the early Christians maintained their religious ardour by looking forward to the second advent, so the people must be taught to centre all their hopes on the coming cataclysm.”

I wonder if Webster understands how self-referential she’s being. It would be a masterclass of unawareness. Sure, part of Socialism is the reliance on the coming revolution making everything better, but the whole deal with Webster and her kind is the fear of that revolution. I’ve pointed out the numerous times (including in this section) where she undermines herself with statements about how unsuccessful or unscary the demands of the people became. Without the emotional fear, conspiracy theories fail to be compelling. She, herself needs that second advent to keep readers paying attention.