Marxism, the Russian Revolution, and Dirty Hands

Dirty Hands & The Kid Gloves Metaphor

The dirty hands problem is one version of the paradox of critical and conventional morality. It consists in this. Individual morality consists of a set of requirements that tell us above all not to harm other people. But when we think from the standpoint of politics and economic policy, we sometimes conclude that we ought to achieve a general good or avoid a general evil, where the circumstances are such that it seems the only way of doing this is to violate the requirements of individual morality. And so--to save the republic, or to defend the people from mass devastation, or to rid the world of a great injustice--civic-minded persons and public officials sometimes think that as necessary means to those goals, they must violate the requirements of individual morality: lie, cheat, steal, assault, imprison without charge, defame, torture, and murder.

Faced with such choices, people often demur. Must I really torture this suspect in order to save the republic and protect the people? The end can seem remote and abstract when the means contemplated are so immediate and awful. And yet, suppose that the end is in fact so morally urgent that it overrides the demands of individual morality. Who then are you to refuse the means because of your moral scruples? If you accept the end and agree the awful means are necessary to it, but refuse to use the means yourself, then you are free-riding on others' willingness to get their hands dirty. If you accept the end but deny those specific means are necessary to it, there is always the suspicion that you rejected the means because you did not want to dirty your own hands. If finally you deny that the end overrides individual morality, then you are morally wrong. That is the dilemma that dirty-hands reasoners press upon those with qualms.

To illustrate their reasoning, proponents of dirty means often use the metaphor of kid gloves. "Go ahead," they say to those who demur, "Stay out of it! Wear kid gloves!" Here they refer to the custom of men's wearing light-colored dress gloves with full dress: today's white tie and tails for evening and frock or morning coat for daytime. The custom, which lasted roughly from the beginning of the Victorian era until the Roaring Twenties, held that men in full dress should wear light-colored dress gloves indoors, and especially when dancing with gloved women in the evening. Full dress gloves had to be ivory, cream, or light yellow in color, and the finest and most expensive such gloves were made of kid leather, which is especially soft. Ivory-colored soft leather is difficult to keep clean, so the prudent wearer will avoid acts which might dirty them. (Cotton gloves were a much less expensive alternative, and much easier to clean.)

So by saying that the squeamish could or should wear kid gloves, the speaker implied that the squeamish was the sort of person who (i) would wear light-colored dress gloves (and thus probably full dress), (ii) choose to have those gloves made of kid leather, and (iii) be willing and able to pay the purchase and maintenance prices for such gloves. When uttered by a socialist to another socialist, then, the expression was probably meant to be insulting. For socialists of the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century made it a point of pride not to wear full dress on any occasion, deeming it the intentionally expensive and wasteful uniform of an oppressive ruling class.

Two Marxists Who Opposed the Bolshevik Revolution

Two Marxists Who Made the Bolshevik Revolution

How Lenin and Trotsky Saw What They Were up to

Boris Kustodiev, The Bolshevik (1920; Wikimedia Commons)

How their Anti-Communist Opponents (the Whites) Saw What They Were up to

Peace and Liberty in Sovdepia (Land of the Soviet Deputies), White Army propaganda poster, 1919 (Wikimedia Commons)

Note the anti-Semitism in the depiction of Trotsky and the anti-Asian racism in the depiction of the Bolsheviks' Asian members

How to grasp the clashing considerations in the dirty hands problem? A good way to do it is to read philosophical dialogues treating of it. An attractive such dialogue considers how the arguments of the dirty-handed Marxist-Leninist revolutionary oppose and are opposed by the arguments of a reluctant intellectual, like Kautsky or Marxism-Leninism's many liberal critics. The dialogue can be found in:

Leszek Kolakowski, "The Conspiracy of Ivory Tower Intellectuals," in The Essential Works of Marxism, ed. Arthur P. Mendel (1961): 347-360, pp. 350-356.