of the spectacular achievements of the billion human beings in
socialist-communist countries.

The majority of mankind has been unprepared for revolutionary change.
When change came they resented it, maybe resisted it at the outset.

Those who have a vested interest in capitalist imperialism--the real
backbone of the counter-revolution--join and support counter-revolutionary
organizations and take part in counter-revolutionary activities.

Planners and organizers of the counter-revolution have the bourgeois
state generally on their side and enjoy the backing of the bourgeois
establishment, its organizations and its facilities. Since their object
is defense, they have no constructive program. Instead they stumble,
fumble and bungle as their system flounders into one disastrous crisis
after another.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WESTERN CIVILIZATION ATTEMPTS SUICIDE (1914-1945)

Each bit of handiwork, each artifact, tool and machine is an expression
of man's wish and will. Each transcends nature and is an affirmation
that takes its place in the vast storehouse of human culture.

Cities, the building blocks of civilization, not only transcend nature;
they replace her. Up to a certain point man lived more or less
consciously as a part of nature. Bit by bit and step by step man shifted
from the stream, the glade, the tree and the cave to the hut, the
village, the city, the nation, the empire, the civilization.

Early in this study I wrote of civilization as an experiment: an
aspiration, a creative urge, a concept, a purpose, a unity of thought
and act, a conscious sequence of related actions, a construct of
multiplying complexity.

These terms, by and large, are constructive and, to a degree, creative.
I might have written a parallel series of words associated with
destructiviness. In every social situation construction and destruction
are Siamese twins. One does not appear without the other. The same
forces, the same implements, the same institutions and practices that
construct can be used to destroy.

Through ages, men learned how to establish, maintain and perpetuate
community and organize society. At every stage of the building process
it was necessary to check, to question, to evaluate, unlearn, tear down,
make a new start. Pushing up and tearing or wearing down is implicit in
nature. It is an essential aspect of human society.

Each human being is a living example of production and destruction. Each
generation