p In the well-known Paris newspaper L’Humanité,^^127^^ Comrade Jean Longuet recently called Ibsen a socialist.  But actually Ibsen was as remote from socialism as he was from any other doctrine with a social content. As evidence I would refer to a speech made by Ibsen at the Trondhjem Workers’ League on June 14, 1885.

p In this speech the aged dramatist describes the impressions which he had on returning to his native land after many years abroid. He saw much that pleased him, but also felt some disappointment. He noted with regret that the most essential rights of the individual had not yet received proper legal recognition in his country. The ruling majority arbitrarily restricts freedom of conscience and speech. In this respect a great deal remains to be done, but present-day democracy  [454•*  will not be able to solve this task. In order for it to be solved, the element of nobility must first be introduced into the government, into state life, the press and popular representation. "In saying this,” Ibsen explains, "I am thinking, of course, not of aristocratic nobility, not of the nobility of the moneyed aristocracy, not of the nobility of knowledge and not even of the nobility of ability or talent. I have in mind nobility of character, nobility of will and mood. Only this nobility will liberate us.” And this nobility will come, according to him, "from women and from the workers".

p This is extremely interesting. Firstly, the "ruling majority" with which Ibsen is displeased reminds one of the "compact majority" against which Doctor Stockmann fought. It too has earned the accusation of lacking respect for the rights of the individual in general, and for freedom of conscience and speech in particular. But unlike Doctor Stockmann, Ibsen does not say that "a lack of oxygen" condemns tho person from the “masses” to stupefaction. No, the working class here is one of the two social 455 groups from which Ibsen is expecting the revival of social life in Norway. This provides excellent confirmation of what I said above to the effect that Ibsen was by no means a conscious opponent of the working class. When he thinks about it as a specific constituent part of the “crowd”, which he did in Trondhjem, but which in general he did very rarely, he no longer seems to be satisfied with "milking the he-goat”, with liberation for the sake of liberation, the "revolt of. the spirit" for the sake of the "revolt of the spirit”, but points to a definite political task: the extension and strengthening of individual rights. But what path must be followed to solve this task, which, incidentally, must be regarded as one of the "partial revolutions" so bitterly condemned by Ibsen? One would think this path should lead through the political sphere. But Ibsen has always felt too uncomfortable in the political sphere. He hastens to retire into what is for him the incomparably more familiar and attractive sphere of morality: he expects great things from the introduction of the "element of nobility" into the political life of Norway. This is very obscure indeed. It sounds like his literary offspring, Johannes Rosmer, who also sets himself the aim of making all the people in the country into “noblemen” (Rosmersholm, first act). Rosmer hopes to achieve this noble aim by "freeing their minds" and "purifying their wills”. This is, of course, most praiseworthy. A free mind and a purified will are very desirable. But there is not a trace of politics here. And without politics there is no socialism either.

p It should be noted that there was a great deal of truth in what Ibsen told the Trondhjem workers about “nobility”. His poetic feeling, which could not abide the petty-bourgeois moderation that debased even the noblest transports of the soul, did not mislead him when it pointed to the workers as the social element that would introduce into the social life of Norway the element of nobility which it lacked. By striving energetically towards its great "final goal”, the proletariat really will liberate its spirit and purify its will. But Ibsen distorted the true relationship of things. In order for this moral regeneration to take place in the proletariat, it is essential that the latter should first set itself this great goal: otherwise it will not escape from the petty-bourgeois quagmire, in spite of all moral preaching. It is not the Rosmers, but the Marxes and Lassalles that bring the noble spirit of enthusiasm to the working masses.

p The moral “liberation” of the proletariat will be achieved only through its social liberation struggle. "In the beginning was the deed,” says Faust. But this is what Ibsen did not understand.

p True, there is one passage in his Trondhjem speech which would seem to confirm Jean Longuet’s statement. Here it is:

p “Tho transformation of social relations which is being prepared there, in Europe, is concerned mainly with the question of the 456 future position of the worker and women. I await this transformation, I put my trust in it, and I want to and shall do all I can for it throughout my life.” Here Ibsen would seem to be speaking as a convinced socialist. But, firstly, this passage suffers from being extremely vague. To say nothing of the fact that one cannot separate the so-called women’s question from the so-called workers’ question, Ibsen does not mention a single word about how he himself pictures the future "position of the workers”. And this shows that he is entirely unclear as to the final goal of the " transformation of social relations”. Expecting nobility from women did not prevent Ibsen from locking them in the nursery. How do we know that expecting nobility from the workers led him to realise that the worker must be freed from the yoke of capital? There is nothing to suggest this; Ibsen’s speech to the Women’s Rights League shows, on the contrary, that in his language "to transform social relations" meant only "to lift the people to a higher level”. Is this socialism?  [456•* 

p According to Ibsen it follows that one must first ennoble the people and then lift it to a higher level. Essentially this formula is the same as the notorious formula of our serf-owners of blessed memory: "first enlighten the people, then liberate them”. I repeat once again: there was nothing of the serf-owner in Ibsen. He is certainly not opposed to popular liberation. He is even, perhaps, prepared to work for the good of the people. But how is this to be done? How is one to go about it? He has not the slightest idea. And the reason why he has not the slightest idea is that in the petty-bourgeois society in which he grew up and against which he later fought bitterly, there was not and could not have been the slightest clue not only to a correct solution, but even to a correct formulation of such questions as the workers’ and women’s questions.

p Jean Longuet was mistaken. He was misled by the statement, to which I referred earlier, made by Ibsen in 1890 in connection with newspaper comments concerning Bernard Shaw’s lectures on the subject Ibsen and Socialism.

In this statement our author says that he has tried, as far as circumstance and ability permitted him, "to study SocialDemoeratic questions”, although he had "never had the time to study the great, extensive literature on the different socialist systems".  [456•**  But, as I have already remarked, everything shows 457 that Ibsen regarded "Social-Democratic questions" also from his usual, i.e., exclusively moral, and not political, point of view. How little he understood the modern movement of the proletariat can be seen from the fact that he had no idea of the great historical importance of the Paris Commune of 1871; he declared it to be a caricature of his own social theory, whereas in fact there was no place at all in his head for social theories.