CHAPTER VIII

THE "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS SOCIALISM

"State Socialism" as I have described it will doubtless continue to be

the guiding policy of governments during a large part, if not all, of

the present generation. Capitalism, in this new collectivist form, must

bring about extremely deep-seated and far-reaching changes in society.

And every step that it takes in the nationalization of industry and the

appropriation of land rent would also be a step in Socialism, _provided_

the rents and profits so turned into the coffers of the State were not

used entirely for the benefit either of industry or of the community as

a whole, as it is now constituted, but were reserved in part _for the

special benefit of the less wealthy, less educated, and less

advantageously placed, so as gradually to equalize income, influence,

and opportunity_.

But what, as matter of fact, are the ways in which the new revenues are

likely to be used before the Socialists are either actually or

practically in control of the government? First of all, they will be

used for the further development of industry itself and of schemes which

aid industry, as by affording cheaper credit, cheaper transportation,

cheaper lumber, cheaper coal, etc., which will chiefly benefit the

manufacturers, since all these raw materials and services are so much

more largely used in industry than in private consumption.

Secondly, the new sources of government revenue will be used to relieve

certain older forms of taxation. The very moderately graduated income

and inheritance taxes which are now common, small capitalists have

tolerated principally on the ground that the State is in absolute need

of them for essential expenses. We may soon expect a period when the

present rapid expansion of this form of taxation as well as other direct

taxes on industry, building, corporations, etc., will be checked

somewhat by the new revenues obtained from the profits of government

enterprises and the taxation of ground values. Indirect taxation of the

consuming public in general, through tariffs and internal revenue taxes,

will also be materially lightened. As soon as new and larger sources of

income are created, the cry of the consumers for relief will be louder

than ever, and since a large part of consumption is that of the

capitalists in manufacture, the cry will be heard. This will mean lower

prices. But in the long run salaries and wages accommodate themselves to

prices, so that this reform, beneficial as it may be, cannot be accepted

as meaning, for the masses, more than a merely temporary relief. A third

form of tax reduction would be the special exemption of the poorer

classes from even the smallest direct taxation. But as employers and

wage boards, in fixing wages, will take this reduction into account, as

well as the lower prices and rents, such exemptions will effect no great

or lasting change in the division of the national income between

capitalists and receivers of salaries and wages.

A third way in which the new and vastly increased incomes of the

national and local governments can be expended is the communistic way,

as in developing commercial and technical education, in protecting the

public health, in building model tenements, in decreasing the cost of

traveling for health or business, and in promoting all measures that are

likely to increase industrial efficiency and profits without too great

cost.

A fourth way in which the new revenue may be expended, before the

Socialists are in actual or practical control, would be in somewhat

increasing the wages and somewhat shortening the hours of the State and

municipal employees, who will soon constitute a very large proportion of

the community. Here again it is impossible to expect any but a Socialist

government to go very far. As I have shown, it is to be questioned

whether any capitalistic administration, however advanced, would

increase real wages (wages measured by their purchasing power), except

in so far as the higher wages will result in a corresponding or greater

increase in efficiency, and so in the profits made from labor. And the

same law applies to most other governmental (or private) expenditures on

behalf of labor, whether in shortened hours, insurance, improved

conditions, or any other form.

The very essence of capitalist collectivism is that the share of the

total profits which goes to the ruling class should not be decreased,

and if possible should be augmented. In spite of material improvements

the economic gulf between the classes, during the period it dominates,

will either remain as it is, or become wider and deeper than before. On

the ground of the health and ultimate working efficiency of the present

and future generation, hours may be considerably shortened, and the

labor of women and children considerably curtailed. Insurance against

death, old age, sickness, and accident will doubtless be taken over by

the government. Mothers who are unable to take care of their children

will probably be pensioned, as now proposed in France, and many children

will be publicly fed in school, as in a number of the British and

Continental places. The most complete code of labor legislation is

practically assured; for, as government ownership extends, the State

will become to some extent the model employer.

A quarter of a century ago, especially in Great Britain and the United

States, but also in other countries, the method of allaying discontent

was to distract public attention from politics altogether by stimulating

the chase after private wealth. But as private wealth is more and more

difficult to attain, this policy is rapidly replaced by the very

opposite tactics, to keep the people absorbed in the political chase

after the material benefits of economic reform. For this purpose every

effort is being used to stimulate political interest, to popularize the

measures of the new State capitalism, to foster public movements in

their behalf, and finally to grant the reforms, not as a new form of

capitalism, but as "concessions to public opinion." At present it is

only the most powerful of the large capitalists and the most radical of

the small that have fully adapted themselves to the new policies. But

this will cause no serious delay, for among policies, as elsewhere, the

fittest are surely destined to survive.

Ten years ago it would have been held as highly improbable that we would

enter into such a collectivist period in half a century. Already a large

part of the present generation expect to see it in their lifetime. And

the constantly accelerated developments of recent years justify the

belief of many that we may find ourselves far advanced in "State

Socialism" before another decade has passed.

The question that must now be answered by the statesman as opposed to

the mere politician, by the publicist as opposed to the mere journalist,

is, not how soon the program of "State Socialism" will be put into

effect, but what is going to be the attitude of the masses towards it. A

movement exists that is already expressing and organizing their

discontent with capitalism in whatever form. It promises to fill this

function still more fully and vigorously in proportion as collectivist

capitalism develops. I refer to the international revolutionary movement

that finds its chief expression in the federated Socialist parties. The

majority of the best-known spokesmen of this movement agree that social

reform is advancing; yet most of them say, with Kautsky, that control of

the capitalists over industry and government is advancing even more

rapidly, partly by means of these very reforms, so that the

_Machtverhaeltnisse_, or distribution of political and economic power

between the various social classes, is even becoming less favorable to

the masses than it was before. The one thing they feel is that no such

capitalist society will ever be willing to ameliorate the condition of

the non-capitalists to such a degree that the latter will get an

increasing _proportion_ of the products of industry or of the benefits

of legislation, or an increased influence over government. The

capitalists will never do anything to disturb radically the existing

balance of power.

While Socialists have not always conceded that the capitalists will

themselves undertake, without compulsion, large measures of political

democracy and social reform,--even of the capitalistic variety,--nearly

all of the most influential are now coming to base their whole policy on

this now very evident tendency, and some have done so for many years

past. For instance, it has been clear to many from the time of Karl Marx

that it would be necessary for capitalist society itself to nationalize

or municipalize businesses that become monopolized, without any

reference to Socialism or the Socialists.

"These private monopolies have become unbearable," says Kautsky, "not

simply for the wage workers, but for all classes of society who do not

share in their ownership," and he adds that it is only the weakness of

the bourgeois (the smaller capitalist) as opposed to capital (the large

capitalist) that hinders him from taking effective action. Indeed, one

of the chief respects in which history has pursued a somewhat different

course from that expected by Marx has been in the failure of capitalist

society to attempt _immediately_ this solution of the trust problem

through government ownership. Marx expected that this attempt would

necessarily be made as soon as the monopolies reached an advanced state,

and that the resulting economic revolution would develop into a

Socialist revolution. But this monopolistic period has come, the trusts

are rapidly dominating the whole field of industry and government, and

yet it seems improbable that they will be forced to any final compromise

with the small capitalist investors and consumers for some years to

come. In the meanwhile, no doubt, the process of nationalization will

begin, but too late to fulfill Marx's expectation, for the large and

small capitalists will have time to become better united, and their

combined control over government will have had time to grow more secure

than ever. The new partnership of capitalism and the State will, no

doubt, represent the small capitalists as well as the large, but there

is no sign that the working people will be able to take advantage of the

coming transformation for any non-capitalist purpose. Nor did Marx

expect national ownership to increase the relative strength of the

workers _unless it was accompanied by a political revolution_.

Another vast capitalist reform predicted by Socialists since the

Communist Manifesto (1847) is nationalization or municipalization of the

ground rent or unearned increment of land. At first Kautsky and others

were inclined to expect that nothing would be done in this direction

until the working classes themselves achieved political power, but it

has always been seen from the days of Marx that the industrial

capitalists had no particular reason for wishing to be burdened with a

parasitic class of landlords that weighed on their shoulders as much as

on those of the rest of the people. Not only do industrial capitalists

pay heavy rents to landlords, but the rent paid by the wage worker also

has to be paid indirectly and in part by the industrial capitalist: "The

quantity of wealth that a landlord can appropriate from the capitalist

class becomes larger in proportion as the general demand for land

increases, in proportion as population grows, in proportion as the

capitalist class needs land, _i.e._ in proportion as the capitalist

system of production expands. In proportion with all this, rent rises;

that is to say, the aggregate amount of wealth increases which the

landlord class can slice off--either directly or indirectly--from the

surplus that would otherwise be grabbed by the capitalist class

alone."[90]

The industrial capitalists, then, have very motive to put an end to this

kind of parasitism, and to use the funds secured, through confiscatory

taxation of the unearned increment of land, to lessen their own

taxation, to nationalize those fundamental industries that can only be

made in this way to subserve the interests of the capitalist class as a

whole (instead of some part of it merely), and to undertake through

government those costly enterprises which are needed by all industry,

but which give too slow returns to attract the capitalist investor.

This enormous reform, in land taxation, which alone would put into the

hands of governments ultimately almost a third of the capital of modern

nations, was considered by Marx, in all its early stages, as purely

capitalistic, "_a Socialistically-fringed attempt to save the rule of

capitalism, and to establish it in fact on a still larger foundation at

present_."[91] Indeed, I have shown in a previous chapter that radical

reformers who advocated this single-tax idea, along with the

nationalization and municipalization of monopolies, do so with the

conscious purpose of reviving capitalism and making it more permanent,

precisely as Marx says. The great Socialist wrote the above phrase in

1881 (in a recently published letter to Sorge of New York) after reading

Henry George's "Progress and Poverty," which had just appeared. He calls

attention to the fact that James Mill and other capitalistic economists

had long before recommended that land rent should be paid to the State

so as to serve as a substitute for taxes, and that he, himself, had

advocated it in the Manifesto of 1847--among _transitional measures_.

Marx says that he and Engels "inserted this appropriation of ground rent

by the State among many other demands," which, as also stated in the

Manifesto, "are self-contradictory and must be such of _necessity_." He

explains what he means by this in the same letter. In the very year of

the Manifesto he had written (in his book against Proudhon) that this

measure was "a frank statement of the hatred felt by the industrial

capitalist for the landowner, who seems to him to be a useless,

unnecessary member in the organism of Capitalist society." Marx demanded

"the abolition of property in land, and the application of all land

rents to public purposes," _not because this is in any sense the

smallest installment of Socialism, but because it is a progressive

capitalistic measure_. While it strengthens capitalism by removing "a

useless, unnecessary member," and by placing it "on a still larger

foundation than it has at the present," it also matures it and makes it

ready for Socialism--ready, that is to say, as soon as _the working

people capture the government and turn the capitalists out, but not a

day sooner_.[92] Until that time even the most grandiose reform is

merely "a Socialistically-fringed attempt to save the rule of

capitalism."

Other "transitional measures" mentioned by Marx and Engels in 1847, some

of which had already been taken up as "Socialistically-fringed attempts

to save the rule of capitalism" even before their death were:--

The heavily graduated income tax.

The abolition of inheritance.

A government bank with an exclusive monopoly.

A partial nationalization of factories.

(No doubt, the part they would select would be that operated

by the trusts.)

Government cultivation of waste lands.

Here we have a program closely resembling that of "State capitalism." It

omits the important labor legislation for increasing efficiency, since

this was unprofitable under competitive and extra-governmental

capitalism, and in Marx's time had not yet appeared; _e.g._ the minimum

wage, a shorter working day, and workingmen's insurance. As Marx and

Engels mention, however, the substitution of industrial education for

child labor (one of the most important and typical of these reforms),

they would surely have included other measures of the same order, had

they been practicable and under discussion at the time.

There can be little doubt that Marx and Engels, in this early

pronunciamento, were purposely ambiguous in their language. For example,

they demand "the extension of factories and instruments of production

owned by the state." This is plainly a conservatively capitalistic or a

revolutionary Socialist measure entirely according to the degree to

which, and the hands by which, it is carried out--and the same is

evidently true of the appropriation of land rent and the abolition of

inheritance. This is what Marx means when he says that every such

measure is "self-contradictory and must be such of necessity." Up to a

certain point they put capitalism on "a larger basis"; if carried beyond

that, they may, _in the right hands_, become steps in Socialism.

Marx and Engels were neither able nor willing to lay out a program which

would distinguish sharply between measures that would be transitional

and those that would be Socialist sixty or seventy years after they

wrote, but merely gave concrete illustrations of their policy; they

stated explicitly that such reforms would vary from country to country,

and only claimed for those they mentioned that they would be "pretty

generally applicable." Yet, understood in the sense in which it was

originally promulgated and afterwards explained, this early Socialist

program still affords the most valuable key we have as to what Socialism

is, if we view it on the side of its practical efforts rather than on

that of abstract theories. Marx and Engels recognize that the measures I

have mentioned must be acknowledged as "insufficient and untenable,"

because, though they involve "inroads on the rights of property," they

do not go far enough to destroy capitalism and establish a Socialistic

society. But they reassure their Socialistic critics by pointing out

that these "insufficient" and "transitory" measures, "in the course of

the movement, outstrip themselves, _necessitate further inroads on the

old social order_, and are indispensable as a means of entirely

revolutionizing the mode of production." (My italics.)

That is, "State Socialism" is indispensable as a basis for Socialism,

indeed necessitates it, provided Socialists look upon "State Socialist"

measures chiefly as transitory _means_ "to raise the proletariat to the

position of ruling class"; for this rise of the proletariat to the

position of ruling class is necessarily "the _first step_ in the

revolution of the working class."

From the day of this first step the whole direction of social evolution

would be altered. For, while the Socialists expect to utilize every

reform of capitalist collectivism, and can only build on that

foundation, their later policy would be diametrically opposed to it. A

Socialist government would begin immediately an almost complete reversal

of the statesmanship of "State Socialism." The first measure it would

undertake would be to begin at once to increase wages _faster than the

rate of increase of the total wealth of the community_. Secondly, within

a few years, it would give to the masses of the population, according to

their abilities, all the education needed to fill _from the ranks of the

non-capitalistic classes_ a proportion of all the most desirable and

important positions in the community, corresponding to their numbers,

and would see to it that they got these positions.

It is undoubtedly the opinion of the most representative figures of the

international Socialist movement that there is not the slightest

possibility that any of the non-Socialist reformers of to-day or of the

near future are following or will follow any such policy, or even take

the slightest step in that direction; and that there is nothing

Socialists can do to force such a policy on the capitalists until they

are actually or practically in power. Society may continue to progress,

but it is surely inconceivable to any close observer, as it is

inconceivable to the Socialists, that the privileged classes will ever

consent, without the most violent struggle, to a program which, viewed

as a whole, would lead, _however gradually or indirectly_, to a more

equitable distribution of wealth and political power.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] Kautsky, "The Capitalist Class" (pamphlet).

[91] Marx's letters to Sorge.

[92] Marx's letters to Sorge.

PART II

THE POLITICS OF SOCIALISM

CHAPTER I

"STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT

The Socialist movement must be judged by its acts, by the decisions

Socialists have reached and the reasoning they have used as they have

met concrete problems.

The Socialists themselves agree that first importance is to be attached,

not to the theories of Socialist writers, but to the principles that

have actually guided Socialist parties and their instructed

representatives in capitalist legislatures. These and the proceedings of

international and national congresses and the discussion that constantly

goes on within each party, and not theoretical writings, give the only

truthful and reliable impression of the movement.

In 1900 Wilhelm Liebknecht, who up to the time of his death was as

influential as Bebel in the German Party, pointed out that those party

members who disavowed Socialist principles in their _practical

application_ were far more dangerous to the movement than those who made

wholesale theoretical assaults on the Socialist philosophy, and that

political alliances with capitalist parties were far worse than the

repudiation of the teachings of Karl Marx. In his well-known pamphlet

_No Compromise_ he showed that this fact had been recognized by the

German Party from the beginning.

I have shown the Socialists' actual position through their attitude

towards progressive capitalism. An equally concrete method of dealing

with Socialist actualities is to portray the various tendencies _within_

the movement. The Socialist position can never be clearly defined except

by contrasting it with those policies that the movement has rejected or

is in the process of rejecting to-day. Indeed, no Socialist policy can

be viewed as at all settled or important unless it has proved itself

"fit," by having survived struggles either with its rivals outside or

with its opponents inside the movement.

If we turn our attention to what is going on within the movement, we

will at once be struck by a world-wide situation. "State Socialism" is

not only becoming the policy of the leading capitalistic parties in many

countries, but--in a modified form--it has also become the chief

preoccupation of a large group among the Socialists. "Reformist"

Socialists view most of the reforms of "State Socialism" as installments

of Socialism, enacted by the capitalists in the hope of diverting

attention from the rising Socialist movement.

To Marx, on the contrary, the first "step" in Socialism was the conquest

of complete political power by the Socialists. "The proletariat," he

wrote in the Communist Manifesto "will use _its political supremacy_ to

wrest, by degrees, all capital from the capitalists, to centralize all

instruments of production in the hands of the State, _i.e. of the

proletariat organized as the ruling class_." (My italics.) Here is the

antithesis both of "reformist" Socialism within the movement and of

"State Socialism" without. The working people are _not_ expected to gain

more and more political power step by step and to use it as they go

along. It is only _after_ gaining full political _supremacy_ by a

revolution (peaceful or otherwise) that they are to socialize industry

step by step. Marx and his successors do not advise the working people

to concentrate their efforts on the centralization of the instruments of

production in the hands of governments as they now are (capitalistic),

but only _after_ they have become completely transformed into the tools

of the working people "organized as the ruling class," to use Marx's

expression.[93]

The central idea of the "reformist" Socialists is, on the contrary, that

before Socialism has captured any government, and even before it has

become an imminent menace, it is necessary that Socialists should take

the lead in the work of social reform, and should devote their energies

very largely to this object. It is recognized that capitalistic or

non-Socialist reformers have taken up many of the most urgent reforms

and will take up more of them, and that being politically more powerful

they are in a better position to put them into effect. But the

"reformist" Socialists, far from allowing this fact to discourage them,

allege it as the chief reason why they must also enter the field. The

non-Socialist reformers, they say, are engaged in a popular work, and

the Socialists must go in, help to bring about the reforms, and claim

part of the credit. They then propose to attribute whatever success they

may have gained, not to the fact that they also have become reformers

like the rest, but to the fact that they happen to be Socialists. The

non-Socialist reformers, they say again, are gaining a valuable

experience in government; the Socialists must go and do likewise.

Reforms which were steps in capitalism thus become to them steps in

Socialism. It is not the fashion of "reformists" to try to claim that

they are very great steps--on the contrary, they usually belittle them,

but it is believed that agitation for such reforms as capitalist

governments allow, is the best way to gain the public ear, the best kind

of political practice, the most fruitful mode of activity.

One of the leading American Socialist weeklies has made a very clear and

typical statement of this policy:--

"_If we leave the field of achievement to the reformer, then it is

going to be hard to persuade people that reform is not sufficient.

If Socialists take every step forward as part of a general

revolutionary program_, and never fail to point out that these

things are but steps forward in a stairway that mean nothing save

as they lead to a higher stage of society, then the Socialist

movement will carry along with it all those who are fighting the

class struggle. The hopelessness of reform as a goal will become

apparent when its real position in social evolution is pointed

out."[94]

The leading questions this proposed policy arouses will at once come to

the reader's mind: Will the capitalist reformers in control of national

governments allow the Socialist "reformists" to play the leading part in

their own chosen field of effort? If people tend to be satisfied with

reform, what difference does it make as to the ultimate political or

social ideals of those who bring it about? If the steps taken by

reformers and "reformists" are the same, by what alchemy can the latter

transform them into parts of a revolutionary program?

Mr. Simons, nevertheless, presents this "reformism" as the proper policy

for the American Party at its present stage:--

"It has become commonplace," he says, "to say that the Socialist

movement of the United States has entered upon a new stage, and

that with the coming of many local victories and not a few in

State and nation, Socialist activity must partake of the character

of preparation for the control of society.

"Yet our propaganda has been slow to reflect this change. This is

natural. For more than a generation the important thing was to

advertise Socialism and to inculcate a few doctrinal truths. This

naturally developed a literature based on broad assertions,

sensational exposures, vigorous denunciations, and revival-like

appeals that resulted in sectarian organization.

"It has been hard to break away from this stage. It is easier to

make a propaganda of 'sound and fury' than of practical

achievement. Once the phrases have been learned, it is much simpler

to issue a manifesto than to organize a precinct. It always

requires less effort to talk about a class struggle than to fight

it; to defy the lightning of international class rule than to

properly administer a township. Yet, if Socialism is inevitable, if

the Socialist Party is soon to rule in State and nation, then it is

of the highest importance that Socialists should know something of

the forces with which they are going to deal; something of the

lines of evolution which they are going to further; something of

the government which they are going to administer; something of the

task which they profess to be eager to accomplish."

It might seem that, after the first stage has been passed, the next

promising way to carry Socialism forward, the way actually to "fight"

the class struggle and to achieve something practical is, as Mr. Simons

says, to talk less and to go in and "administer a township."

Revolutionary Socialists agree that advertising, the teaching of a few

basic doctrines, emotional appeals, and the criticism of present society

have hitherto taken up the principal share of the Socialist agitation,

and that all these together are not sufficient to enable Socialists to

achieve their aim, or even to carry the movement much farther. They

agree that activity is the best teacher and that the class struggle must

be actually fought. But they propose other activities and feel that a

whole intermediate stage of Socialist evolution, including the capture

of national governments, lies between the Socialist agitation of the

past and any administration of a township that can do anything to bring

recruits to Socialism and not merely to "State Socialist" reform.

This is the view of the revolutionary majority of the international

movement. But the "reformist" minority is both large and powerful, and

since it draws far more recruits than does the revolutionary majority

from the ranks of the book educated and capitalistic reformers, its

spokesmen and writers attract a disproportionately large share of

attention in capitalistic and reform circles, and thus give rise to

widespread misunderstanding as to the position of the majority.

Not only are both the more or less Socialistic parties in Great Britain

and the Labour parties of the British colonies "reformist" to the extent

that they are either entirely outside or practically independent of the

international movement, but the parties of Belgium, Italy, and South

Germany have, for a number of years, concentrated their attention almost

exclusively on such reforms as the capitalist governments of their

countries are likely to allow to be enacted--the dominant idea being to

obtain all that can be obtained for the working classes at the present

moment, even when, for this purpose, it becomes necessary to subordinate

or to compromise entirely the plans and hopes of the future. And it is

only within the last year or two that the revolutionary wing in these

last-named countries has begun to grow rapidly again and promises to

regain control.

There can be no doubt that Socialist "reformism" has become very

widespread. President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, who

had every facility of meeting European Socialists and unionists on a

recent tour, made some observations which are by no means without a

certain foundation.[95] He says that he talked to these people about

Socialism and, though they all knew "the litany, service, and

invocation" and the Socialist text for the coming revolution, they

preserved this knowledge for their speech making, while in conversation

it all faded away into the misty realms of the imagination.

"Positively," writes Mr. Gompers, "I never found one man in my trip

ready to go further into constructive Socialism than to repeat

perfunctorily its time-worn generalities. On the other hand, I met men

whom I knew years ago, either personally or through correspondence or by

their work, as active propagandists of the Socialists' theoretical

creed, who are now devoting their energies to one or other of the

practical forms of social betterment--trade unionism, coöperation, legal

protection to the workers--and who could not be moved to speak of

utopianism [Mr. Gompers's epithet for Socialism]." It is doubtless true,

as Mr. Gompers says, that the individuals he questioned have practically

abandoned their Socialism, even though they remain members of the

Socialist parties. For if such activities as he mentions could be

claimed as "Socialism," then there is very little public work an

intelligent and honest workingman can undertake, no matter how

conservative it may be, which is not to go by that name.

The chief characteristic of the reformists is, indeed, frankly to claim,

either that all the capitalist-collectivist reforms of the period are

Socialist in origin, or that they cannot be put into execution without

Socialist aid, or that such reforms are enacted only as concessions, for

fear that Socialism would otherwise sweep everything before it.

Rev. Carl D. Thompson, formerly a Socialist member of the Wisconsin

Legislature, and now Town Clerk of Milwaukee, for example, claims

Millerand as a Socialist minister, though the French Socialist Party

agreed by an almost unanimous vote that he is not to be so considered,

and attributes to this minister a whole series of reforms in which he

was only a single factor among many others. Many important legislative

changes which have taken place in Italy since 1900, Mr. Thompson

accredits to the opportunist Socialist leader, Turati, with his handful

of members of the chamber, though it is certain that even at the present

moment the Socialists have not yet arrived at a position where they can

claim that they are shaping governmental action as strongly as their

Radical allies. Mr. Thompson states that the "Socialist Independent

Labour Party" of Great Britain had thirty-four representatives in

Parliament at a time when the larger non-Socialist Labour Party, which

included it, had only this number. He claimed that a majority of this

latter party were Socialists, when, as a matter of fact, only a minority

were members of any Socialist party even in the ultra-moderate sense in

which the term is employed in England, and he accredits all the chief

reforms brought about by the Liberal government to this handful of

"Socialists," including even the old age pensions which were almost

unanimously favored by the old parties.[96] He even lists among his

signs of the progress of Socialism the fact that, at the time of

writing, fifty-nine governments owned their railways, while a large

number had instituted postal savings banks.

The same tendency to claim everything good as Socialism is very common

in Great Britain. Even the relatively advanced Socialist, Victor

Grayson, avoids the question whether there is any social reform which is

not Socialism,[97] and it seems to be the general position of British

Socialists that every real reform is Socialism--more or less.

August Bebel, on the contrary, is quoted as saying, "_It is not a

question of whether we achieve this or that; for us the principal thing

is that we put forward certain claims which no other party can put

forward._" The great German Socialist sees clearly that if Socialism is

to distinguish itself from the other parties it must rest its claims

solely on demands which are made exclusively by Socialists. This is what

those who claim that every reform is Socialism, or is best promoted by

Socialists, fail to see. By trying to make the word, "Socialism" mean

everything, they inevitably make it mean nothing.

It is true that for a time the very advertisement of the word

"Socialism," by this method, and even the widest and loosest use of

Socialist phrases had the effect of making people think about Socialist

principles. But this cannot be long continued before the public begins

to ask questions concerning the exact meaning of such expressions as

applied to everyday life. The Socialist paper, _Justice_, of London,

urged that "the very suggestion that any of the Liberal members of

Parliament were connected with the Socialist movement created a more

profound impression than all they ever said or did." This is doubtless

true, but when the novelty has once worn off of this situation it is

what so-called Socialists do that alone will count.

For example, the leading reformist Socialist of Great Britain, Mr. J. R.

MacDonald, wishes to persuade the Socialists of America to carry on "a

propaganda of immediately practicable changes, justified and enriched by

the fact that they are the realization of great ideals."[98] Such a

reduction of the ideal to what is actually going on, or may be

immediately brought about, makes it quite meaningless. Evidently the

immediately practicable changes that Mr. MacDonald suggests are

themselves his ideal, and what he calls the ideal consists rather of

phrases and enthusiasms that are useful, chiefly, for the purpose of

advertising his Party and creating enthusiasm for it.

The underlying motive of the "reformists" when they claim non-Socialist

reforms as their own, and relegate practically all distinctively

Socialist principles and methods to the vague and distant future, is

undoubtedly their belief that reforms rather than Socialism appeal to

the working class.

"The mass of workingmen will support the Socialist Party," a Socialist

reformer wrote recently, "not because they are being robbed under

capitalism, but because they are made to understand that this party can

be relied upon to advance certain measures which they know will benefit

them and their families here and now.

"The constructive Socialist believes that the coöperative commonwealth

will be realized, not by holding it up in contrast to capitalism,--but

only by the working class fighting first for this thing, then for that

thing, until private enterprise is undermined by its rewards being eaten

up by taxes and its incentive removed by the inroads made upon profits."

The working people, that is, are not intelligent enough to realize that

they are "robbed under capitalism," and are not getting their

proportionate share of the increase of wealth, nor courageous enough to

take up the fight to overthrow capitalism; they appreciate only small

advances from day to day, and every step by which "private capitalism"

is replaced by State action is such an advance, while these advances are

to be secured chiefly through a Socialist Party. In a word, the

Socialist Party is to ask support because it can accomplish more than

other parties for social reform under capitalism, which at the present

period means "State Socialism."

For while "reformist" Socialists are taking a position nearly identical

with that of the non-Socialist reformers, the latter are coming to adopt

a political policy almost identical with that of the reformist

Socialists. I have noted that one of America's leading economists

advises all reformers, whether they are Socialists or not, to join the

Socialist Party. Since both "reformist" Socialists and "Socialistic"

reformers are interested in labor legislation, public ownership,

democratic political reforms, graduated taxation, and the governmental

appropriation of the unearned increment in land, why should they not

walk side by side for a very considerable distance behind "a somewhat

red banner," and "without troubling themselves about the unlike

goals"--as Professor John Bates Clark recommends? The phrases of

Socialism have become so popular that their popularity constitutes its

chief danger. At a time when so many professed anti-Socialists are

agreeing with the New York _Independent_ that, though it is easy to have

too much Socialism, at least "we want _more_" than we have, it becomes

exceedingly difficult for non-Socialists to learn what Socialism is and

to distinguish it from innumerable reform movements.

Less than a decade ago the pros and cons of Socialism were much

debated. Now it is usually only a question of Socialism sooner or later,

more or less. Socialism a century or two hence, or in supposed

installments of a fraction of a per cent, is an almost universally

popular idea. For the Socialists this necessitates a revolutionary

change in their tactics, literature, and habit of thought. They were

formerly forced to fight those who could not find words strong enough to

express their hostility; they are rapidly being compelled to give their

chief attention to those who claim to be friends. The day of mere

repression is drawing to a close, the day of cajolery is at hand.

Liebknecht saw what was happening years ago, and, in one of the most

widely circulated pamphlets the Socialists have ever published (_No

Compromise_), issued an impressive warning to the movement:--

"The enemy who comes to us with an open visor we face with a smile;

to set our feet upon his neck is mere play for us. The stupidly

brutal acts of violence of police politicians, the outrages of

anti-Socialist laws, penitentiary bills--these only arouse feelings

of pitying contempt; the enemy, however, that reaches out the hand

to us for a political alliance, and intrudes himself upon us as a

friend and a brother,--_him and him alone have we to fear_.

"Our fortress can withstand every assault--it cannot be stormed nor

taken from us by siege--it can only fall _when we ourselves open

the doors to the enemy and take him into our ranks as a fellow

comrade_."

"We shall almost never go right," says Liebknecht, "if we do what our

enemies applaud." And we find, as a matter of fact, that the enemies of

Socialism never fail to applaud any tendency of the party to compromise

those acting principles that have brought it to the point it has now

reached. For Liebknecht shows that the power which now causes a

Socialist alliance to be sought after in some countries even by

Socialism's most bitter enemies would never have arisen had the party

not clung closely to its guiding principle, the policy of "no

compromise."

There is no difficulty in showing, from the public life and opinion of

our day, how widespread is this spirit of political compromise or

opportunism; nor in proving that it enters into the conduct of many

Socialists. Such an opposition to the effective application of broad and

far-sighted plans to practical politics is especially common, for

historical reasons, in Great Britain and the United States. In this

country it has been especially marked in Milwaukee from the earliest

days of the Socialist movement there. In 1893 the _Milwaukee Vorwaerts_

announced that "if you demand too much at one time you are likely not to

get anything," and that "nothing more ought to be demanded but what is

attainable at a given time and under given circumstances."[99] It will

be noticed that this is a clear expression of a principle of action

diametrically opposite to that adopted by the international movement as

stated by Bebel and Liebknecht. Socialists are chiefly distinguished

from the other parties by the fact that they concentrate their attention

on demands beyond "what is attainable at a given time and under given

circumstances." They might _attempt_ to distinguish themselves by

claiming that they stand for the _ultimate_ goal of Socialism, though

their immediate program is the same as that of other parties, but any

politician can do that--as has been shown recently by the action of

Briand, Millerand, Ferri, and other former Socialists in France and

Italy--and the day seems near when hosts of politicians will follow

their example.

Any static or dogmatic definition of Socialism, like any purely

idealistic formulation, no matter how revolutionary or accurate it may

be, necessarily invites purely opportunist methods. A widely accepted

static definition declares that Socialism is "the collective ownership

of the means of production and distribution under democratic

management." As an ultimate ideal or a theory of social evolution, this

is accepted also by many collectivist opponents of Socialism, and may

soon be accepted generally. The chief possibility for a difference of

opinion among most practical persons, whether Socialists or not, must

come from the questions: How soon? By what means?

Evidently such a social revolution is to be achieved only by stages.

What are these stages? Many are tempted to give the easy answer, "More

and more collectivism and more and more democracy." But progress in

political democracy, if it came first, might be accompanied by an

artificial revival of small-scale capitalism, and a new majority made up

largely of contented farmer capitalists might put Socialism farther off

than it is to-day. Similarly, if installments of collectivism came

first, they might lead us in the direction of the Prussia of to-day. And

finally, even a combination of democracy and collectivism, up to a

certain point, might produce a majority composed in part of small

capitalists and favored government employees. Collectivist democracy

completed or far advanced would insure the coming of Socialism. But a

policy that merely gave us _more_ collectivism plus _more_ democracy,

might carry us equally well either towards Socialism or in the opposite

direction. The ultimate goal of present society does not give us a

ready-made plan of action by a mathematical process of dividing its

attainment into so many mechanical stages.

A very similar political shibboleth, often used by Party Socialists, is

"Let the nation own the trusts." Let us assume that the constitution of

this country were made as democratic as that of Australia or

Switzerland, and the suffrage made absolutely universal (as to adults).

Let us assume, moreover, that the "trusts," including railways, public

service corporations, banks, mines, oil, and lumber interests, the

steel-making and meat-packing industries, and the few other important

businesses where monopolies are established, were owned and operated by

governments of this character. Taken together with the social and labor

reforms that would accompany such a régime, this would be "State

Socialism," but it would not _necessarily_ constitute even a _step

towards_ Socialism--and this for two reasons.

The industries mentioned employ probably less than a third of the

population, and, even if we add other government employments, the total

would be little more than a third. The majority of the community would

still be divided among the owners or employees of the competitive

manufacturing establishments, stores, farms, etc.,--and the professional

classes. With most of these the struggle of Capital and Labor would

continue and, since they are in a majority, would be carried over into

the field of government, setting the higher paid against the more poorly

paid employees, as in the Prussia of to-day.

And, secondly, even if we supposed that a considerable part or all of

the government employees received what they felt to be, on the whole, a

fair treatment from the government, and if these, together with

shopkeepers, farm owners, or lessees, and satisfied professional and

salaried men, made up a majority, we would still be as far as ever from

a social, economic, or industrial democracy. What we would have would be

a class society, based on a purely political democracy, and

economically, on a partly private (or individualist) and partly public

(or collectivist) capitalism.

"Equal opportunities for all" would also mean Socialism. But equal

opportunities for a limited number, no matter if that number be much

larger than at present, may merely strengthen capitalism by drawing the

more able of the workers away from their class and into the service of

capitalism. Or opportunities _more_ equal for all, without a complete

equalization, may merely increase the competition of the lower classes

for middle-class positions and so secure to the capitalists cheaper

professional service. So-called steps towards equal opportunities, even

if rapid enough to produce a very large surplus of trained applicants

for whom capitalism fails to provide and so increase the army of

malcontents, may simply delay the day of Socialism.

I have spoken of Socialists whose underlying object is opportunistic--to

obtain immediate results in legislation no matter how unrelated they may

be to Socialism. Others are impelled either by an inactive idealism, or

by attachment to abstract dogma for its own sake. Their custom is in the

one instance to make the doctrine so rigid that it has no immediate

application, and in the other to "elevate the ideal" so high, to remove

it so far into the future, that it is scarcely visible for the

present-day purposes, and then to declare that present-day activity,

even if theoretically subject to an ideal or a doctrine, must be guided

also by quite other and "practical" principles, which are never clearly

defined and sometimes are scarcely mentioned. Mr. Edmond Kelly, for

instance, puts his "Collectivism Proper," or Socialism, so far into the

future that he is forced to confess that it will be attained only

"ultimately," or perhaps not at all, while "Partial Collectivism may

prove to be the last stage consistent with human imperfection."[100] He

acknowledges that this Partial Collectivism ("State Socialism") is not

the ideal, and it is evident that his ideal is too far ahead or too

rigid or theoretical, to have any connection with the ideals of the

Socialist movement, which arise exclusively out of actual life.

This opportunism defends itself by an appeal to the "evolutionary"

argument, that progress must necessarily be extremely slow. Progress in

this view, like Darwin's variations, takes place a step at a time, and

its steps are infinitesimally small. _The Worker_ of Brisbane,

Australia, says: "The complicated complaint from which society suffers

can only be cured by the administration of _homeopathic_ doses....

Inculcate Socialism? Yes, but grab all you can to be going on with.

Preach revolutionary thoughts? Yes, but rely on the ameliorative

method.... The minds of men are of slow development, and we must be

content, we fear, to accomplish our revolution piecemeal, bit by bit,

till a point is come to when, by accumulative process, a series of small

changes amounts to the Great Change. The most important revolutions are

those that happen quietly without anything particularly noticeable

seeming to occur."

What is a Great Change depends _entirely_, in the revolutionist's view,

on how rapidly it is brought about, and "revolutionary thoughts" are

empty abstractions unless accompanied by revolutionary methods. Once it

is assumed that there is plenty of time, the difference between the

conservative and the radical disappears. For even those who have the

most to lose realize in these days the inevitability of "evolution." The

radical is not he who looks forward to great changes after long periods

of time, but he who will not tolerate unnecessary delay--who is

unwilling to accept the so-called installments or ameliorations offered

by the conservative and privileged (even when considerable) as being

satisfactory or as necessarily contributing to his purpose at all. The

radical spirit is rather that of John Stuart Mill, when he said, "When

the object is to raise the permanent condition of a people, small means

do not merely produce small effects; they produce no effect at all."

Some political standard and quantitative measure is as necessary to

social progress as similar standards are necessary in other relations.

If the political standard of the Socialists is so low as to regard

social reform programs which on the whole are more helpful to the

capitalists than to other classes--and therefore "produce no effect at

all" as far as the Socialist purpose is concerned--as if they were

_concessions_, then it follows naturally that the Socialists will be

ready to pay a price for such concessions. They will not only view as a

relative gain over the capitalists measures which are primarily aimed at

advancing capitalist interests, but they will inevitably be ready at a

price to relax to some extent the intensity of their opposition to other

measures that are capitalistic and antipopular. For instance, if old age

pensions are considered by the workers to be an epoch-making reform and

a concession, they may be granted by the capitalists all the more

readily. But if thus overvalued, advantage will be taken of this

feeling, and they will in all probability be accompanied by restrictions

of the rights of labor organizations. On the other hand, if such

pensions, however desirable, are considered as a reform which will

result indirectly in great savings to the capitalist classes, to public

and private charitable institutions, to employers, etc., then the

Socialists will accept them and, if possible, hasten their

enactment,--but, like the French, will refuse to pay for them out of

their own pockets (even through indirect taxation, as the British

workingmen were forced to do) and will allow them neither to be used as

a cloak for reaction, nor as a substitute for more fundamental reforms.

In other words, a rational political standard would teach that a certain

measure of political progress is normal in capitalist society as a

result of the general increase of wealth and the general improvement in

political and economic organization, especially now that the great

change to State capitalism is taking place; while reforms of an entirely

different character are needed if there is to be any relative advance of

the political and economic power of the masses, any tendency that might

lead in the course of a reasonable period of time to economic and social

democracy.

"A new and fair division of the goods and rights of this world should be

the main object of all those who conduct human affairs," said De

Tocqueville. The economic progress and political reforms of this

capitalistic age are doubtless bringing us nearer to the day when a new

and fair division of goods and rights _can_ take place, and they will

make the great transformation easier when it comes, but this does not

mean that in themselves they constitute even a first step in the new

dispensation. That they do is denied by all the most representative

Socialists from Marx to Bebel.

The most bitter opponents of Socialism, like its most thoroughgoing

advocates, have come to see that the whole character of the movement has

grown up from its unwillingness to compromise the aggressive tactics

indispensable for the revolutionary changes it has in view, until it has

become obvious that, _just as Socialism as a social movement is the

opposite pole to State capitalism, so Socialism as a social method is

the opposite pole to opportunism_.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] The Communist Manifesto.

[94] _The Coming Nation_, Sept. 9, 1911.

[95] Mr. Gompers's articles in the _Federationist_ have recently

appeared in book form.

[96] Carl D. Thompson, "The Constructive Program of Socialism"

(pamphlet).

[97] Victor Grayson and G. R. S. Taylor, "The Problem of Parliament," p.

56.

[98] Editorial in the _Socialist Review_ (London), May, 1910.

[99] _Vorwaerts_ (Milwaukee), Jan. 3, 1893.

[100] Edmond Kelly, "Individualism and Collectivism," p. 398.

CHAPTER II

"REFORMISM" IN FRANCE, ITALY, AND BELGIUM

The Socialist parties in Italy, Belgium, and France, where "reformism"

is strong, are progressing less rapidly than the Socialists of these

countries had reason to expect, and far less rapidly than in other

countries. It would seem that in these cases the same cause that drives

the movement to abandon aggressive tactics also checks its numerical

growth.

For example, it is a matter of principle among Socialists generally to

contest every possible elected position and to nominate candidates in

every possible district. The revolutionary French Socialist, Jules

Guesde, even stated to the writer that if candidates could be run by the

party in every district of France, and if the vote could in this way be

increased, he would be willing to see the number of Socialists in

Parliament reduced materially, even to a handful--the object being to

teach Socialism everywhere, and to prepare for future victories by

concentrating on a few promising districts rather than to make any

effort to become a political factor, at the present moment. Similarly,

August Bebel declared that he would prefer that in the elections of 1912

the Socialists should get 4,000,000 votes and 50 Reichstag members

rather than 3,000,000 votes and 100 members. In the latter case, of

course, the Socialist members would have been elected largely on the

second ballot by the votes of non-Socialists.

The policy actually carried out in both Italy and France has of late

been exactly the opposite to that recommended by Guesde and Bebel. In

the elections of 1909, the Socialist Party of Italy put up 114 less

candidates for Parliament than they had in the election of 1904, while

the number of candidates nominated in France was 50 less in 1910 than it

had been in 1906. The consequence was that the French Party received an

increase of votes less absolutely than that gained by the conservative

republicans and scarcely greater than that of the radicals, while in

Italy the Socialists actually cast a smaller _percentage_ of the total

vote in 1909 than they did in 1904, while the party membership

materially decreased.

This policy had a double result; it sent more Socialists to the

Parliaments, in each case increasing the number of members by about 50

per cent; on the other hand, it helped materially those radical and

rival parties most nearly related to the Socialists, for in many

districts where the latter had withdrawn their candidates these parties

necessarily received the Socialist vote. A vast field of agitation was

practically deserted, and even when the agitation was carried on, the

distinction between the Socialist Party and the parties it had favored,

and which in turn favored it, became less marked, and the chances of the

spread of Socialism in the future were correspondingly diminished.

In France it is this policy which has brought forward the so-called

"independent Socialists" of the recent Briand ministry. Being neither

Socialists nor "Radicals," they are in the best position to draw

advantages from the "rapprochement" of these forces, and it was thus

that Millerand came into the ministry in 1900, that Briand became prime

minister in 1910, and Augagneur minister in 1911. These are among the

most formidable opponents of the Socialist movement in France to-day. It

will seem from this and many other instances that the opportunist policy

which leads at first to a show of success, later results in a weakening

of the immediate as well as the future possibilities of the movement.

The opportunist policy leads not only to an abandonment of Socialist

principle, an outcome that can never be finally determined in any case,

but sometimes to an actual betrayal or desertion, visible to all eyes,

as, for instance, when Ferri left the movement in Italy, or Briand and

Millerand in France. That such desertions must inevitably result from

the looseness taught by "reformist" tactics is evident. Yet all through

Briand's early political career, Jaurès was his intimate associate, and

even after the former had forsaken the party, the latter confessed that,

like the typical opportunist, he had still expected to find in Briand's

introductory address as minister "reasons for hoping for the progress of

social justice."

The career of Briand is typical. "One must understand how to manage

principles," he had said in 1900 at the very time he was making the

revolutionary declarations I shall quote (in favor of the general strike

and against the army). Two years later when he made his first speech in

the Chamber, the conservative "Temps" said that Briand was

"ministrable"; that is, that he was good material for some future

capitalistic ministry. Now Briand was making in this speech what

appeared to be a very vigorous attack against the government and

capitalism, but, like some prominent Socialists to-day, he had succeeded

in doing it in such a way that he allowed the more far-seeing of the

capitalistic enemy to understand clearly what his underlying principles

were.[101]

At his first opportunity he became connected with the government, and

justified this step on the ground of "his moral attitude," since he was

the proposer of the famous bill for separating the Church and the State.

He was immediately excluded from the party, since at the time of

Millerand's similar step a few years before the party had reached the

definite conclusion that Socialists should not be allowed to participate

in their opponent's administrations.

When Briand became minister, and later (in 1909) prime minister, he did

not fail at once to realize the worst fears of the Socialists, elevating

military men and naval officers to the highest positions, and promoting

that minister who had been most active in suppressing the post office

strike to the head of the department of justice. So-called collectivist

reforms that were introduced while he was minister, like the purchase of

the Western Railway, were carried through, according to conservative

Socialists like Jaurès, with a loss of 700,000,000 francs to the State.

So that now Jaurès, who had done so much to forward Millerandism and

Briandism felt obliged to propose a resolution condemning Briand and

Millerand and Viviani as traitors who had allowed themselves to be used

"for the purpose of 'capitalism.'"

"'Socialistic' ministers," says Rappoport, "have fallen below the level

of progressive capitalistic governments. No 'Socialistic' minister has

done near so much for democracy as honorable but narrow-minded democrats

like Combes. 'Socialistic' ministers have before anything else sought

the means of keeping themselves in office. In order to make people

forget their past, they are compelled to give continuously new proofs of

their zeal for the government."

In France, where strong radical, democratic, and "State Socialist"

parties already exist, ready to absorb those who put reform before

Socialism, the likelihood that such desertions will lead to any serious

division of the party seems small, especially since the Toulouse

Congress, when a platform was adopted unanimously. Of course, the

leading factor in this platform was Jaurès, who stands as strongly for

a policy of unity and conciliation within the party as he has for an

almost uninterrupted conciliation and coöperation with the more or less

radical forces outside of it.

If Jaurès was able to get the French Party to adopt this unanimous

program, it was because he is not the most extreme of reformists, and

because he has hitherto placed party loyalty before everything. In the

same way Bebel, voting on nearly every occasion with the revolutionists,

is able to hold the German Party together because he is occasionally on

the reformist side, as in a case to be mentioned below. Jaurès looks

forward, for instance, to a whole series of "successful general strikes

intervening at regular intervals," and even to the final use of a great

revolutionary general strike, whenever it looks as if the capitalists

can be finally overthrown and the government taken into Socialist

hands--though he certainly considers that the day for such a strike is

still many years off. Nor does he hesitate to extend the hand of

Socialist fellowship to the most revolutionary Socialists and labor

unionists of his country, though he says to them, "The more

revolutionary you are, the more you must try to bring into the united

movement not only a minority, but the whole working class." He says he

is not against revolution, or the general strike, but that he is against

"a caricature of the general strike and an abortive revolution."

It is only by actions, however, that men or parties may be judged, and

though Jaurès has occasionally been found with the revolutionists, in

most cases he acts with their rivals and opponents, the reformists, and

in fact is the most eminent Socialist reformer the world has produced.

No one will question that there are Socialists who are exclusively

interested in reform at the present period, not because they are opposed

to revolution, but because no greater movements are taking place at the

present moment or likely to take place in the immediate future--and

Jaurès may be one of these. But it is very difficult, even impossible,

to distinguish by any external signs, between such persons and those for

whom the idea of anything beyond the reforms of "State Socialism" is a

mere ideal, which concerns almost exclusively the next or some future

generation. Many of those who were formerly Jaurès's most intimate

associates, like the ministers Briand and Millerand, the recent

ministers Augagneur and Viviani, and many others, have deserted the

Party and are now proving to be its most dangerous opponents, while

several other deputies, who are still members like Brousse, recently

Mayor of Paris, are accused by a large part of the organization of

taking a very similar position. Surely this shows that, even if Jaurès

himself could be trusted and allowed to advocate principles and tactics

so agreeable to the rivals and enemies of Socialism, there are certainly

few other persons who can be safely left in such a compromising

position.

In view of these great betrayals on the part of Jaurès's associates, the

mere fact that his own position towards the Party has usually been

correct in the end--after the majority have shown him just how far he

can go--and will doubtless remain technically correct, becomes of

entirely secondary importance. He has openly and repeatedly encouraged

and aided those individuals and parties which later became the chief

obstacles in the way of Socialist advance, as other Socialists had

predicted. The result is, not that the Socialist Party has ceased to

grow, but that a large part of the enthusiasm for Socialism, largely

created by the party, has gone to elect so-called "Independent

Socialists" to the Chamber and to elevate to the control of the

government men like Briand, who, it was agreed by Socialists and

anti-Socialists alike, was the most formidable enemy the Socialists have

had for many years.

The program unanimously adopted by the French at the Congress of

Toulouse must be viewed in the light of this internal situation. "The

Socialist Party, the party of the working class and of the Social

Revolution," it begins, "seeks the conquest of political power for the

emancipation of the proletariat [working class] by the destruction of

the capitalist régime and the suppression of classes." The goal of

Socialism could not be more succinctly expressed than in these words:

"The destruction of the capitalist régime and the suppression of

classes." Any party that lives up to this preamble in letter and spirit

can scarcely stray from the Socialist road.

"It is the party which is most essentially, most actively reformist,"

continues another section, "the only one which can push its action on to

total reform; the only one which can give full effect to each working

class demand; the only one which can make of each reform, of each

victory, the starting point and basis of more extended demands and

bolder conquests...." Here we have the plank on which Jaurès

undoubtedly laid the greatest weight, and it was supported unanimously

partly because of the necessity of party unity. For this is as much as

to say that no reform will ever be brought to a point that wholly

satisfies the working people except through a working class government.

But it cannot be denied that there are certain changes of very great

importance to the working people, like those mentioned in previous

chapters, which are at the same time even more valuable to the

capitalists, and would be carried out to the end even if there were no

Socialists in existence. If the revolutionary wing of the French Party

once conceded to capitalism itself this possibility of bringing about

certain reforms, they would be in a position effectively to oppose the

reformist tactics of Jaurès within the Party. By giving full credit to

the semi-democratic and semi-capitalistic reform parties for certain

measures, they would go as far as he does in the direction of

conciliation and common sense in politics; by denying the possibility of

the slightest coöperation with non-Socialists on other and _still more

important questions_, they could constantly intensify the political

conflict, and since Jaurès is a perpetual compromiser, put him in the

minority in every contested vote within the party. By attacking the

capitalists blindly and on all occasions they have created the necessity

of a conciliator--the rôle that Jaurès so ably and effectively fills.

But, however friendly the Toulouse program may have seemed to Jaurès's

reform tactics, it is not on that account any less explicit in its

indorsement of revolutionary methods whenever the moment happens to be

propitious. It states that the Socialist Party "continually reminds the

proletariat [working class] by its propaganda that they will find

salvation and entire freedom only in a collectivist and communist

régime"; that "it carries on this propaganda in all places in order to

raise everywhere the spirit of demand and of combat," and that "the

Socialists not only indorse the general strike for use in economic

struggles, but also for the purpose of finally absorbing capitalism."

"Like all exploited classes throughout history," it concludes, "the

proletariat affirms its right to take recourse at certain moments to

insurrectionary violence."

The Toulouse Congress showed, not the present position of the French

Party or of the International, but the points on which Socialist

revolutionists and reformers, everywhere else at sword's point, can

agree. The reformers do not object to promising the revolutionaries that

they shall have their own way in the relatively rare crises when

revolutionary means are used or contemplated. The revolutionaries are

willing to allow the reformers to claim all the credit for all reforms

beneficial to the workers that happen to be enacted. Neither gives up

their first principle, whether it be revolution or reform, but in the

matter of secondary importance, reform or revolution, each side

tolerates in the party an attitude in diametrical opposition to its

principles and the tactics it requires. Both do this doubtless in the

belief that by this opportunism they will some day capture the whole

party, and that a split may thus be avoided in the meanwhile.

Since the Toulouse Congress the divisions within the French Party have

become much more acute. Briand's conduct in the great railway strike in

1911 is discussed below. Yet in spite of this experience of how much the

government is ready to pay for railways and how little it is ready to do

to their employees, Jaurès's followers at the Party Congresses of 1911

and 1912 stood again for the policy of nationalization, and Guesde was

impelled to warn the party that Briand's "State Socialism" was the

gravest danger to the movement.

Briand's positive achievements are also defended by Jaurès. The recent

workingmen's pension law, unlike that of England, demands a direct

contribution from the employees. Nevertheless, it contained some slight

advantages, and of the seventy-five Socialist members of the Chamber of

Deputies, only Guesde voted against it. Even when the Federation of

Labor was conducting a campaign against registration to secure these

"benefits," Jaurès's organ, _L'Humanité_ took the other side. The

working people, as usual, followed their unions. Less than 5 per cent

registered; in Paris only 2.5 per cent, and in Brest 22 out of 10,000.

The experience with Millerand and Briand has made it impossible for

Jaurès to tie the French Party to "reformism." But reformism has brought

it about that the Party is often split in its votes in the Chamber of

Deputies. In the Party Congresses, however, Jaurès is outvoted where a

clear difference arises, an outcome he does his best to avoid. The

Congress of 1911 (at St. Quentin) reaffirmed the international decision

at Amsterdam which prevents the party going in for reform as a part of a

non-Socialist administration. It declared that "Socialists elected to

office are the representatives of a party of fundamental and absolute

opposition to the whole of the capitalist class, and to the State, its

tool." And Vaillant said that since the Amsterdam Congress in 1904 the

question of participation in capitalist ministries had ceased to exist

in France.

It is true that Jaurès secured at this Congress, by a narrow majority,

an indorsement of his policy of accepting the government pension offer.

But the orthodox followers of Guesde and the revolutionary disciples of

Hervé joined to secure its condemnation first by the Paris organization,

and later by the National Council of the Party by the decisive vote of

87 to 51. This resolution which marks a great turning point in the

French Party, is in part as follows:--

"The National Council declares that each time a labor question is to be

decided, the Socialist Party should act in accord with the General

Confederation of Labor."

As the Confederation has indorsed Socialism both as an end and as a

means, few, if any, Socialist parties would object to this resolution.

But the Confederation is also revolutionary, and this policy, if adhered

to, marks an end to the influence of the "reformism" of Jaurès.

The precise objections to the government's insurance proposal are also

significant. The National Council protested against the following

features:--

(1) The compulsory contributions.

(2) The capitalization (of the fund).

(3) The ridiculous smallness of the pension.

(4) The age required to obtain the pension.

(5) The reëstablishment of workingmen's certificates.

Among the working people there is no doubt that the first feature was

the chief cause of unpopularity. But Socialists know that, through

indirect taxes or the automatic fall in wages or rise in prices, the

same object of charging the bill to the workers may be reached. The

capitalization refers to the investment and management of the large fund

required by a capitalist government, thereby increasing its power. The

last point has to do with the tendency to restrict the workers' liberty

in return for the benefits granted--a tendency more visible with the

pensions of the railway employees which were almost avowedly granted to

sweeten the bitter pill of a law directed against their organizations.

The same orthodox and revolutionary elements in the Party overthrew the

Monis Ministry by refusing to vote for it with Jaurès and his followers.

But this ministry, perhaps the most radical France has had, was in part

a creation of Jaurès, who had hailed it with delight in his organ,

_L'Humanité_. The fact that it only lived for three months and was

overthrown by Socialists was another crushing blow to Jaurès. As it came

simultaneously with his defeat in the National Council, it is highly

improbable that the reformists will succeed soon, if ever, in regaining

that majority in the movement which they held for a brief moment at the

time of the St. Quentin Congress and during the first days of the Monis

Ministry.

It is now in Belgium and Italy only that "reformism" is dominant and

still threatens to fuse the Socialists with other parties. In the last

election in Italy the Socialists generally fused with the Republicans

and Radicals, while the Belgian Party has decided to allow the local

political organizations to do this wherever they please in the elections

of 1912.

In Belgium, Vandervelde, who has usually represented himself as an

advocate of compromise between the two wings in international

congresses, has now come out for a position more reformistic than that

of Jaurès and only exceeded by the British "Labourites." He was one of

the movers of the Amsterdam resolution (see Chapter VII), which he now

declares merely repeated the previous one of Paris (1900) which, he

says, merely "forbids an individual Socialist to take a part in a

capitalist government without the consent of the Party." On the

contrary, this Amsterdam resolution, as Vaillant says, forbids Socialist

Parties to allow their members to become members of capitalist

ministries except under the most extraordinary and critical

circumstances.[102]

We are not surprised after this to hear Vandervelde say that the Belgian

Party has not decided whether it will take part in a future Liberal

government or not, because, though the occasion for this might occur

this year (1912), he considers it too far off in the future for present

consideration--surely a strange position for a Party that pretends to be

interested in a future society. We are also prepared to hear from him

that Socialists might be ready to accept representation in such a

ministry, not in proportion to their numerical strength, or even their

votes, but in proportion to the number of seats an unequal election law

gives them in Parliament. Whether, when the question actually presents

itself, the Party will follow Vandervelde is more than questionable.

In Italy "reformism" has reached its furthermost limit. When last year

(1911) Bissolati was offered a place in the Giolitti Ministry he

hesitated for weeks and was openly urged by a number of other Socialist

deputies to accept. After consultations with Giolitti and the king he

finally refused, giving as a pretext that, as minister, he would be

forced to give some outward obeisance to monarchy, but really because

such an action would split the Socialist Party and perhaps, also,

because he might not be able altogether to support Giolitti on the one

ground of the military elements of his budget. Far from condemning

Bissolati, the group of Socialist deputies passed a resolution that

expressed satisfaction with his conduct and even appointed him to speak

in their name at the opening of the new Parliament. All the deputies

save two then voted confidence in the new ministry and approbation of

its program.

The opinion of the revolutionary majority of the international movement

on this situation was reflected in the position of the revolutionaries

of the two chief cities of the country, Milan and Rome. At the former

city where they had a third of the delegates to the local Socialist

committee they moved that the Socialist Party could neither authorize

its deputies to represent it in a capitalist ministry or give that

ministry its support, "except under conditions determined, not by

Parliamentary artifices, but by the needs and mature political

consciousness of the great mass of workers." At Rome two thirds of the

Socialist delegates voted a resolution condemning the action of

Bissolati as "the direct and logical consequence of the thought,

program, and practical action of the reformist group," and reproved both

the proposal of immediate participation in a capitalist government and

"the theoretical encouragement of such a possibility" as being opposed

to all sound and consistent Socialist activity.

The "reformists," led by Turati, were of the opinion merely that the

time was not yet ripe for the action Bissolati had contemplated. But the

grounds given in the resolution proposed by Turati on this occasion show

that it was not on principle that he went even this far. He declared

that "in the present condition of the organization and the present state

of mind of the Party" a participation in the government which was "not

imposed by a real popular movement, would profoundly weaken Socialist

action, aggravating the already existing lack of harmony between purely

parliamentary action and the development of the political consciousness

and the capacity for victory on the part of the great mass of the

workers."[103] In other words, as in France, the working people,

especially those in the unions, will not tolerate a further advance in

the reformist direction, but Turati and Bissolati, like Jaurès and

Vandervelde are striving to compromise, just as far as they will be

allowed to do so. There is thus always a possibility of splits and

desertions in these countries, but none that the party will abandon the

revolutionary path.

The tactics of the Italian "reformists" were immensely clarified at the

Congress of Modena (October, 1911). For the question of supporting a

non-Socialist ministry and of participating in it was made still more

acute by the government's war against Tripoli, while the Bissolati case

above mentioned was also for the first time before a national Party

Congress. Nearly all Socialists had opposed the war, as had also many

non-Socialists--but after war was declared, the majority of the

Socialist members of Parliament voted against the general twenty-four

hours' strike that was finally declared as a demonstration against it.

This majority had finally decided to support the strike only after it

was declared by a _unanimous_ vote of the executive of the Federation of

Labor, and then its chief anxiety had been lest the strike go too far.

The revolutionary minority in the parliamentary group, however, which

had consisted of only two at the time of the Bissolati affair, was now

increased to half a dozen of the thirty-odd members, while the

revolutionary opposition to "reformism" in the Modena Congress, as a

result of these two issues, rose to more than 40 per cent of the

delegates.

At this Congress the reformists were divided into three groups,

represented by Bissolati, Turati, and Modigliani. All agreed that it was

necessary not only to vote for certain reforms--to this the

revolutionists are agreed--but also at certain times to vote for the

whole budget and to support the administration. Modigliani, however,

declared (against Bissolati) that no Socialist could _ever_ become a

member of a capitalist ministry; Turati, that while this principle held

true at the present stage of the movement, he would not bind himself as

to the future; while Bissolati was unwilling to make any pledge on this

question. As Bissolati did not propose, however, that the Socialists

should take part in the present ministry _at the present moment_, this

question was not an immediate issue. What had to be decided was

whether, in order to hasten and facilitate the introduction of universal

suffrage and other social reforms, the government is to be supported at

the present moment--when it is waging a war of colonial conquest to

which all Socialists are opposed.

The resolution finally adopted by the Congress was drawn up by Turati

and others who represented the views of the majority of reformists.

While purely negative, it was quite clear, and the fact that it was

finally accepted both by Bissolati and by Modigliani is highly

significant. It concluded that "the Socialist group in Parliament ought

not any longer to support the government _systematically_ with their

votes." It did not declare for any systematic _opposition_ to the

administration, even at the time when it is waging this war. It did not

even forbid occasional support, and it left full discretion in the hands

of the same parliamentary group whose policy I have been recording.

As a consequence the Italian Party at this juncture intentionally

tolerated two contradictory policies. Turati declared: "We are in

opposition unless in some exceptional case, in which some situation of

extreme gravity might present itself." Rigola, who was one of the three

spokesmen appointed for the less conservative reformists (with Turati

and Modigliani) said: "We have been ministerialists for ten years, but

little or nothing has been done for the proletariat. Some laws have been

approved, but it is doubtful if they are due to us rather than to the

exigencies of progress itself." In other words, Turati and Rigola

thought there could be occasions for supporting capitalist ministries,

though the present was not such an occasion; while the latter

practically confessed that the policy had always been a failure in

Italy. But in the face of all criticism Bissolati announced that he

refused absolutely _to pass over to the opposition to the ministry of

Giolitti_. Turati and his followers, now in control of the Party, might

tolerate this position; the large and growing revolutionary minority

would not. This could only mean that Socialist group in the Italian

Parliament, like that of France, and even of Germany, would divide its

votes on many vital matters, or at least that the minority would abstain

from voting. Which could only mean that on many questions of the highest

importance there was no longer one Socialist Party, but two.[104]

Turati himself wrote of the Modena Congress:--

"Only two tendencies were to be seen in the discussion and the voting;

_two parties in their bases and principles_: the Socialist Party as a

party of the working people, a class party, a party of political,

economic, and social reorganization, and on the other side a bourgeois

radical party as a completion of, and perhaps also as a center of new

life force for, the sleeping and half moribund bourgeois democratic

radicalism."[105] That is, the "reformist" Turati denied that there is

anything Socialistic about Bissolati's "ultra-reformist" faction. To

this Bissolati answered that compromise and the political collaboration

of the working people with other classes, was not to be reserved, as

Turati had said, for accidental and extraordinary cases, but was "the

very essence of the reformist method."[106] The revolutionaries, of

course, agree with Bissolati that, if the Socialists hold that their

prime function is to work for reforms favored by a large part of the

capitalists, compromises and the habit of fighting with the capitalists

instead of against them are inevitable.

Turati now began to approach the revolutionaries, said that they had

given up their dogmatism, immoderation, and justification of violence,

and that he only differed from them now on questions of "more or less."

The revolutionaries, however, have made no overtures to Turati, and

Turati's overtures to the revolutionaries have so far been rejected.

Turati's "reformism" seems to be less opportunistic than it was, but as

long as he insists, as he does to-day, that it is only conditions that

have changed and not his reformist tactics, that the revolutionaries are

moving towards the reformists, the relation of the two factions is

likely to remain as embittered as ever. Only if the revolutionaries

continue to grow more powerful, until Turati is obliged still further to

moderate his "reformist" principles and to abandon some of his tactics

permanently, instead of saying, as he does now, that he lays them aside

only temporarily, will there be any real unity in the Italian Socialist

Party.

Within a few weeks after the Modena Congress, Turati had already

initiated a movement in this direction when he persuaded the executive

committee of the Party, after a bitter conflict, and by a majority of

one (12 to 13), to enter definitely into opposition to the government,

which in the meanwhile had given a new cause for offense by delaying on

a military pretext the convocation of the Chamber of Deputies.[107]

Among the opportunist and ultra "reformists" who were still anxious to

take no definite action, were such well-known men as Bissolati,

Podrecca, Calda, and Ciotti. Bissolati deplored all agitation in

criticism of the war except a demand for the convocation of the Chamber.

Turati and others who had at last decided to go over definitely to the

opposition, did so on entirely non-Socialist and capitalist grounds such

as the expense of the war, the unprofitable nature of Tripoli as a

colony, the aid the war gave to clericals and other reactionaries

(elements opposed also by progressive capitalists), and the interference

it caused with other reforms (favored also by progressive capitalists).

Turati, indeed, was frank enough to say that he had Lloyd George's

successful opposition to the Boer War as a model, and called the

attention of his associates to the fact that Lloyd George became

Minister (it will be remembered that Turati is not on the whole opposed

to Socialists also becoming ministers--even in a capitalist cabinet).

Even now it was only the revolutionary Musatti who pointed out the true

Socialist moral of the situation, that failure of the non-Socialist

democrats to stand by their principles and to oppose the war, ought to

lead the party to separate from them, not only temporarily, but

permanently, and to make impossible forever either the participation of

the Socialists in any capitalist administration or even the support of

such an administration in the Chamber of Deputies.

It was only when Bissolati secured a majority of the Socialist deputies,

and this majority decided to _compel_ the minority to accept Bissolati's

neutral tactics as to the war and his readiness actively to support the

war government at every point where that government was in need of

support, that Turati rebelled and demanded that his minority, which

announced itself as willing as a unit to obey the decisions of the Party

Congress, should be recognized as its official representative in the

Chamber. Turati's position was the same as before, but Bissolati's

greater popularity among the voters, _including non-Socialists_, gave

the latter control of the Parliamentary group, and forced the former to

a declaration of war. The effect was to throw Turati and his followers

into the arms of the revolutionaries, where they form a minority.

And thus the situation becomes similar to that in France. The reformist

"leaders," Jaurès and Turati, do all that is possible to lead the

Socialist Parties of the two countries in the opposite direction from

that in which these organizations are going. But though these "leaders"

are turned in the direction of class conciliation, they are constantly

being dragged backwards in the direction of class war. Unconsciously

they are doing all they can to retard Socialism--short of leaving the

movement. But as long as they consent to go with Socialism when they are

unable to make Socialism go with them, their ability to retard the

movement is strictly limited.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] Charles Rappaport, "Das Ministerium Briand," _Die Neue Zeit_

(1910).

[102] See _Die Neue Zeit_, April, 1911, p. 46. Article by Vandervelde.

[103] The _Avanti_, April, 1911.

[104] The _Avanti_, Oct. 18, 1911.

[105] _Critica Sociale_, Nov. 1, 1911.

[106] _Azione Socialista_, Nov. 19, 1911.

[107] _Avanti_, Dec. 2 and 3, 1911.

CHAPTER III

"LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN

The British Socialist situation is almost as important internationally

as the German. The organized workingmen of the world are indeed divided

almost equally into two camps. Most of those of Australia, South Africa,

and Canada, as well as a large majority in the United States, favor a

Labour Party of the British type, and even the reformist Socialist

leaders, Jaurès in France, Vandervelde in Belgium, and Turati in Italy,

often take the British Party as model. On the other hand the majority of

the _Socialists_ everywhere outside of Great Britain, including the

larger part of all the _working people_ in every country of continental

Europe, look towards the Socialist Party of Germany as their model, the

political principles and tactics of which are diametrically opposed to

those of the British Labour Party.

Far from opposing their Socialism to the "State Socialism" of the

government, the British Socialists in general frankly admit that they

also are "State Socialists," and seem not to realize that the increased

power and industrial functions of the State may be used to the advantage

of the privileged classes rather than to that of the masses. The

Independent Labour Party even claims in its official literature that the

"degree of civilization which a state has reached may almost be measured

by the proportion of the national income which is spent collectively

instead of individually."[108]

"Public ownership is Socialism," writes Mr. J. R. MacDonald, until

lately Chairman of the Labour Party,[109] while Mr. Philip Snowden says

that the first principle of Socialism is that the interests of the State

stand over those of individuals.[110]

"I believe," says Mr. Keir Hardie, "the collectivist state to be a

preliminary step to a communist state. I believe collectivism or State

Socialism is the next stage of evolution towards the communist state."

"Every class in a community," he said in this same speech, "approves and

accepts Socialism up to the point at which its class interests are

being served." It would appear, then, that Mr. Hardie means by

"Socialism" a program of reforms a part of which at least is to the

benefit of every economic class. He contends only that this "Socialism"

could never be "fully" established until the working class intelligently

coöperate with other forces at work in bringing Socialism into

being.[111]

"State Socialism with all its drawbacks, and these I frankly admit,"

said Mr. Hardie, "will prepare the way for free communism." Mr. Hardie

considers it to be the chief business of Socialists in the present day

to fight for "State Socialism," and is fully conscious that this forces

him to the necessity of defending the present-day State, as, for

instance, when he writes elsewhere, "It is not the State which holds you

in bondage, it is the private monopoly of those means of life without

which you cannot live." Private property and war and not the State Mr.

Hardie believes to have been the "great enslavers" of past history as of

the present day, apparently ignoring periods in which the State has

maintained a governing class which consisted not so much of property

owners as of State functionaries; to periods which may soon be repeated,

when private property served merely as one instrument of an all-powerful

State.

Mr. MacDonald still more closely restricts the word "Socialism" to the

"State Socialist" or State capitalist period into which we are now

entering. "Socialism," says MacDonald, "is the _next_ stage in social

growth,"[112] and throughout his writings and policy leaves no doubt

that he means the very next stage, the capitalist collectivism of which

I have been speaking. The international brotherhood of the nations,

which many Socialist thinkers feel is an indispensable condition for the

establishment of anything like democratic Socialism, Mr. MacDonald

expects only in the distant future, while the end of government based on

force, which is also considered essential by the majority of Socialist

writers, Mr. MacDonald postpones to "some far remote generation."[113]

In other words, the position of the recent Chairman of the Labour Party

is that what the world has hitherto known as Socialism can only be

expected after a vast period of time, and his opinion accords with that

of many bitter critics and opponents of the movement, who avoid a

difficult controversy by admitting all Socialist arguments and merely

asking for time--"Socialism, a century or two hence--but not now,"--for

all practical purposes an endless postponement.

Mr. MacDonald, who is not only a leader of the Labour Party, but also

one of the chief organizers also of the leading Socialist Party of that

country, has given us by far the fullest and most significant discussion

of that party's policy. He says that an enlightened bourgeoisie will be

just as likely to be Socialist as the working classes, and that

therefore the class struggle is merely "a grandiloquent and aggressive

figure of speech."[114] Struggle of some kind, he concedes, is

necessary. But the more important form of struggle in present-day

society, he says, is the trade rivalry between nations and not the

rivalry between social classes.[115] Here at the outset is a complete

reversal of the Socialist attitude. Socialists aim to put an end to this

overshadowing of domestic by foreign problems, principally for the very

reason that it aids the capitalists to obscure the class struggle--the

foundation, the guiding principle, and the sole reason for the existence

of the whole movement.

Mr. MacDonald claims further that a class struggle, far from uniting the

working classes, can only divide them the more; in other words, that it

works in exactly the opposite direction from that in which the

international organization believes it works. The only "natural

conflicts" in the present or future, within any given society, according

to the spokesman of the Labour Party, represent, not the conflicting

interests of certain economic classes, but the "conflicting views and

temperaments" of individuals.[116] And the chief divisions of

temperament and opinion, he says, will be between the world-old

tendencies of action and inaction--a view which does not differ one iota

from that of Mr. Roosevelt.

Mr. MacDonald asserts that "it is the _whole_ of society which is

developing towards Socialism," and adds, "The consistent exponent of the

class struggle must, of course, repudiate these doctrines, but then the

class struggle is far more akin to Radicalism than to Socialism."[117] I

have already pointed out how the older Radicalism, or political

democracy, no matter how individualistic and anti-Socialist it may be,

is often, as Mr. MacDonald says, more akin to International Socialism

than that kind of "State Socialism" or State capitalism Mr. MacDonald

represents.

Mr. MacDonald typifies the majority of British Socialists also in his

opposition to every modern form of democratic advance, such as the

referendum and proportional representation. Far from being disturbed,

as so many democratic writers are, because minorities are suppressed

where there is no plan of proportional representation, he opposes the

second ballot, which has been adopted in the majority of the countries

of Continental Europe--and, in the form of direct primaries, also in the

United States. The principal thing that the electors are to do, he says,

is to "send a man to support or oppose a government."

Mr. MacDonald finds that there is quite a sufficiency of democracy when

the elector can decide between two parties; and far from considering the

members of Parliament as delegates, he feels that they fill the chief

political rôle, while the people perform the entirely subordinate task

either of approving or of disapproving what they have already done.

Parliament "first of all initiates ideas, suggests aims and purposes,

makes proposals, and educates the community in these things with a view

to their becoming the ideals and aims of the community itself."[118]

While Mr. MacDonald continues to receive the confidence of the trade

union party, including its Socialistic wing, the Trade Union Congress

votes down proportional representation by a large majority, apparently

because it does not desire its members to be constituted into a truly

independent group in Parliament, does not care to work for any political

principle however concrete, but prefers to take such share of the actual

powers of government as the Liberal Party is disposed to grant.

Proportional representation would send for the first time a few outright

Socialists to Parliament, but the election returns demonstrate that the

trade unionists, if more independent of the Liberals, would be fewer in

number than at present. A part of the Socialist voters desire this

result and, of course, believe it is their right. The majority of the

trade unionists, however, who have won a certain modicum of authority in

spite of the undemocratic constitution of their party, do not care to

grant it--as possibly conflicting with the relatively conservative plans

of "the aristocracy of labor."

The Fabian Society's "Report on Fabian Policy" says that the referendum,

"in theory the most democratic of popular institutions, is in practice

the most reactionary."[119] Mr. MacDonald refers to it as a "crude

Eighteenth Century idea of democracy," "a form of Village Community

government."[120] At the Conference of the Labour Party at Leicester in

1911 he declared that it was "anti-democratic" and that if the

government were to accept it, the Labour Party "would have to fight them

tooth and nail at every step of that policy." As opposed to any plans

for a more direct and more popular government, he defends the "dignity

and authority" of Parliament and bespeaks the "reverence and deference"

that the people ought to observe toward it.

Contrast with these views Mr. Hobson's presentation of the non-Socialist

Radical doctrine. "Under a professed and real enthusiasm for a

representative system," as opposed to direct government, Mr. Hobson

finds that there is concealed "a deep-seated distrust of democracy." He

acknowledges "that the natural conservatism of the masses of the people

might be sufficient to retard some reforms." "But this is safer and

better for democracy," he says, "than the alternative 'faking' of

progress by pushing legislation ahead of the popular will. It is upon

the whole far more profitable for reformers to be compelled to educate

the people to a genuine acceptance of their reform than to 'work it' by

some 'pull' or 'deal' inside a party machine."[121]

Mr. MacDonald not only puts a high value on British conservatism and a

low one on the French Revolution and the Declaration of Independence,

but declares that no change whatever in the mere structure of government

can aid idealists and reformers in any way, and expects politics and

parties to be much the same in the future as they are at the present

moment. It is this attitude that Mr. Hobson has in mind when he protests

that "the false pretense that democracy exists" in Great Britain has

proved "the subtlest defense of privilege"--and that this has been the

greatest cause of the waste of reform energy not only in England but

also in France and in the United States.[122] Mr. MacDonald says

explicitly, "The modern state in most civilized countries is

democratic," and adds impatiently that "the remaining anomalies and

imperfections" cannot prevent the people from obtaining their will.[123]

To dismiss in so few words the monarchy, the restrictions of the

suffrage, the unequal election districts and other shortcomings of

political democracy in Great Britain, and to insist that the government

is already democratic, is surely, as Mr. Hobson says, "the subtlest

defense of privilege."

Mr. MacDonald comes out flatly with the statement that under what he

calls the democratic parliamentary government of Great Britain it is

practically impossible to maintain a pure and simple Socialist Party. He

says proudly that "nothing which the Labour Parties of Australia or

Great Britain have ever done or tried to do under their constitutions

departs in a hair's breadth from things which the Liberal and the Tory

Parties in these countries do every day."[124] "Indeed, paradoxical

though it may appear," he adds, "Socialism will be retarded by a

Socialist Party which thinks it can do better than a Socialistic

Party."[125]

The Independent Labour Party, indeed, has had a program of reform that

is remarkably similar to that of Ministers Churchill and Lloyd George,

and is indorsed in large part by capitalists--as for example, by Andrew

Carnegie. The first measure of this program provided for a general

eight-hour day. Mr. Carnegie protests that to put the Socialist label on

this is as "frank burglary as was ever committed," and the trade union

movement in general would agree with him.[126]

The second demand was for a "workable unemployment act." The Labour

Party had previously introduced a more radical measure which very nearly

received the support of a majority of Parliament. The third measure

called for old-age pensions. Mr. Carnegie remarked of this with perfect

justice: "Mr. MacDonald is here a day behind the fair. These have been

established in Britain before this [Mr. Carnegie's "Problems of To-day"]

appears in print, both political parties being favorable." It is true

that the Labour party demands a somewhat more advanced measure than that

to which Mr. Carnegie alludes, but there is no radical difference in

principle, and the Labour Party accepted the present law as being a

considerable installment of what they want.

Of the fourth point the "abolition of indirect taxation (and the gradual

transference of all public burdens to unearned incomes)," Mr. Carnegie

remarks that "we must read the bracketed works in the light of Mr.

MacDonald's philosophy," and "that this is a consummation which cannot

be reached (in Mr. MacDonald's words) 'until the organic structure of

society has been completely altered.'" We have seen that Mr. Churchill

also aims at the _ultimate_ expropriation of the whole future unearned

increment of the land.

The fifth point of the program was similar,--a series of land acts

(aimed at the ultimate nationalization of the land).

The sixth point was the nationalization of the railroads and mines. Mr.

Carnegie reminds us that many conservative and reactionary governments

own their own railroads. We have seen that Mr. Churchill is in favor of

the same proposal. Mines also are now national property in several

countries, and there is nothing particularly radical or unacceptable to

well-informed conservatives in the proposal to nationalize them

elsewhere.

The seventh demand of the program was for "democratic political

reforms." While the Independent Labour Party and some of its leaders are

in favor of a complete program of democratic reforms, I have shown that

others like Mr. MacDonald are directly opposed even to many modern

democratic measures already won in other countries.

It would certainly seem that the social reformers, Mr. Carnegie and

others, have as much right as the Socialists to claim such measures as

all those outlined.

Many of the other reforms proposed by the Independent Labour Party are

such as might readily find acceptance among the most conservative.

Indeed in urging the policy of afforestation, as one means of helping in

the solution of the unemployed problem, the party actually uses the

argument that even Prussia, Saxony, and many other highly capitalistic

governments are undertaking it; though it does not mention the

reactionary purposes of these governments, as for example, in Hungary

where it is proposed to use the government's new army of labor to build

up a scientific system of breaking strikes. Afforestation would add to

the general wealth of the country in the future, and would be of

considerable advantage to the capitalist classes, which makes the

largest uses of lumber. Such a policy could undoubtedly be devised in

carrying out this work as would absorb a considerable portion of the

unemployed, and, since unemployment is a burden to the community and

troublesome in many ways, besides tending to bring about a general

deterioration of the efficiency of the working class, it is also to the

ultimate interest of the employers to adopt it.

A leading organ of British Socialism, the _New Age_, went so far as to

say of the Budget of 1910 that it was almost as good "as we should

expect from a Socialist Chancellor in his first year of office," and

said that if Mr. Philip Snowden, were Chancellor, the Budget would have

been little different from what it was.[127] And it is true that the

principles of the Budget as interpreted by Mr. Snowden only a few years

ago in his booklet, "The Socialist Budget," are in nearly every instance

the same, though they are to be somewhat more widely applied in this

Socialist scheme. Of course all Socialists would have desired a smaller

portion of the Budget to go to Dreadnoughts and a larger part to

education, though, in view of the popularity of the Navy, it is doubtful

whether Labour Party Socialist's would materially cut naval expenditure

(see Chapter V). It must also be noted that the Socialists are wholly

opposed to the increase of indirect taxation on tobacco and liquor, some

four fifths of which falls on the shoulders of the workingman. But aside

from these points, there is more similarity than contrast between the

two plans.

Mr. Snowden declared that it was the intention of the Socialists to make

the rich poorer and the poor richer, that they were going to use the

power of taxation for that purpose, and that the Budget marked the

beginning of the new era, an opinion in strange contrast with Premier

Asquith's statement _concerning the same Budget, for which he was

responsible_, that one of its chief purposes was "_to increase the

stability and security of property_."

Indeed the word "Socialism" has been extended in England to include

measures far less radical than those contemplated by the present

government. The Fabian Society, the chief advocate of "municipal

Socialism" and a professed and recognized Socialist organization,

considers even the post office and factory legislation as being

installments of Socialism, while the Labour Party would restrict the

term to the nationalization or municipalization of industries--but the

difference is not of very great importance. The latter class of reform

will undoubtedly mark a revolution in the policy of the British

government, but, as Kautsky says, this revolution may only serve "to

Prussianize it," _i.e._ to introduce "State Socialism."

"The best government," says Mr. Webb, "is no longer 'that which governs

least,' but 'that which can safely and advantageously administer most.'"

"Wherever rent and interest are being absorbed under public control

for public purposes, wherever the collective organization of the

community is being employed in place of individual efforts,

wherever in the public interest, the free use of private land or

capital is being further restrained--there one more step toward the

complete realization of the Socialist Ideal is being taken."

The fight of the British Socialists has thus been directed from the

first almost exclusively against the abstraction, "individualism," and

not against the concrete thing, the capitalist class. John Morley had

said that the early Liberals, Cobden, Bright, and others, were

systematic and constructive, because they "surveyed society and

institutions as a whole," because they "connected their advocacy of

political and legal changes with theories of human nature," because they

"considered the great art of government in connection with the character

of man, his proper education, his potential capacities," and could

explain "in the large dialect of a definite scheme what were their aims

and whither they were going."

"Is there," Mr. Morley had asked, "any approach to such a body of

systematic political thought in our own day?" Mr. Webb announced that

the Fabians proposed to fill in this void. It was primarily system and

order rather than any particular principle at which he aimed. The

keynote of his system was to be opposition to the individualistic

_theory_ of the philosophic Liberals whom the Fabians hoped to succeed

rather than opposition to the _principles_ of capitalism, which lend

themselves equally well either to an individualistic or to a

collectivistic application.

Just as Mr. Webb is the leading publicist, so Mr. Bernard Shaw is the

leading writer, among the exponents of Fabian Socialism. It is now more

than twenty years since he also began idealizing the State, and he is

doing the same thing to-day. "Who is the people? What is the people?" he

asked in the Fabian Essays in 1889. "Tom we know, and Dick; also Harry;

but solely and separately as individuals: as a trinity they have no

existence. Who is their trustee, their guardian, their man of business,

their manager, their secretary, even their stockholder? The Socialist is

stopped dead at the threshold of practical action by this difficulty,

until he bethinks himself of the State as the representative and trustee

of the people."[128] It will be noticed that Mr. Shaw does not say the

State may become the representative and trustee of the people, but that

it _is_ their representative. "Hegel," he continues, "expressly taught

the conception of the perfect State, and his disciples saw that nothing

in the nature of things made it possible or even difficult to make the

existing State if not absolutely perfect, at least trustworthy;" and

then, after alluding with the greatest brevity to the anti-democratic

elements of the British government, Mr. Shaw proceeds to develop at

great length the wonderful possibilities of the existing State as the

practically trustworthy trustee, guardian, man of business, manager,

secretary, and stockholder _of the people_.[129]

Yet Mr. Shaw says that a Social-Democrat is one "who _desires_ through

democracy _to_ gather the whole people into the State, so that the State

may be trusted with the rent of the country, and finally with the land

and capital and the organization of national industry." He reasons that

the transition to Socialism through gradual extensions of democracy and

State action had seriously begun forty-five years before the writing of

the Essays, that is, in the middle of the nineteenth century (when

scarcely one sixth of the adult male population of Great Britain had a

vote, and when, through the unequal election districts, the country

squires practically controlled the situation--W. E. W.). In Mr. Shaw's

reasoning, as in that of many other British Socialists, a very little

democracy goes a long way.[130]

Later Mr. Shaw repudiated democracy altogether, saying that despotism

fails only for want of a capable benevolent despot, and that what we

want nowadays is not a new or modern form of democracy, but only capable

benevolent representatives. He shelved his hopes for the old ideal,

government _by_ the people, by opposing to it a new ideal of a very

active and beneficent government _for_ the people. In "Fabianism and the

Empire" Shaw and his collaborators say frankly: "The nation makes no

serious attempt to democratize its government, because its masses are

still in so deplorable a condition that democracy, in the popular sense

of government by the masses, is clearly contrary to common sense."[131]

Mr. H. G. Wells, long a member of the Fabian Society, has well summed up

the character of what he calls this "opportunist Socialist group" which

has done so much to shape the so-called British Socialism. He says that

Mr. Sidney Webb was, during the first twenty years of his career "the

prevailing Fabian."

"His insistence upon continuity pervaded the Society, was re-echoed

and intensified by others, and developed into something like a

mania for achieving Socialism _without the overt change of any

existing ruling body_. His impetus carried this reaction against

the crude democratic idea to its extremest opposite. Then arose

Webbites to caricature Webb. From saying that the unorganized

people cannot achieve Socialism, they passed to the implication

that organization alone, without popular support, might achieve

Socialism. Socialism was to arrive as it were _insidiously_.

"To some minds this new proposal had the charm of a schoolboy's

first dark lantern. Socialism ceased to be an open revolution, and

become a plot. Functions were to be shifted, quietly,

unostentatiously, from the representative to the official he

appointed; a bureaucracy was to slip into power through the

mechanical difficulties of an administration by debating

representatives; and since these officials would, by the nature of

their positions, constitute a scientific government as

distinguished from haphazard government, they would necessarily run

the country on the lines of a _pretty distinctly undemocratic

Socialism_.

"The process went even farther than secretiveness in its reaction

from the _large rhetorical forms of revolutionary Socialism_. There

arose even a _repudiation of 'principles' of action_, and a type of

worker which proclaimed itself 'Opportunist-Socialist.' This

conception of indifference to the forms of government, of accepting

whatever governing bodies existed and using them to create

officials and '_get something done_,' was at once immediately

fruitful in many directions, and presently productive of many very

grave difficulties in the path of advancing Socialism." (Italics

mine.)[132]

Besides the obvious absurdities of such tactics, Mr. Wells points out

that they ignored entirely that reconstruction of legislative and local

government machinery which is very often an indispensable preliminary to

Socialization. He is speaking of such Socialism when he says:--

"Socialism has concerned itself only with the material

reorganization of Society and its social consequences, with

economic changes and the reaction of these changes on

administrative work; it has either accepted existing intellectual

conditions and political institutions as beyond its control or

assumed that they will obediently modify as economic and

administrative necessity dictates.... Achieve your expropriation,

said the early Fabians, get your network of skilled experts over

the country, and your political forms, your public opinion, your

collective soul will not trouble you."[133]

Here Mr. Wells shows that, while the practical difficulties of making

collectivism serve all the people were ignored on the one hand, the

first need of the people, political education, was neglected on the

other. It is true that during the first few years of its existence the

Fabian Society made a great and successful effort to educate public

opinion in a Socialist direction, but soon its leading members deserted

all such larger work, to support various administrative "experiments."

Mr. Wells referred to this same type of Socialism in his "Misery of

Boots":--

"Let us be clear about one thing: that Socialism means revolution,

and that it means a change in the everyday texture of life. It

_may_ be a very gradual change, but it will be a very complete one.

You cannot change the world, and at the same time not change the

world. You will find Socialists about, or at any rate men calling

themselves Socialists, who will pretend that this is not so, who

will assure you that some odd little jobbing about municipal gas

and water is Socialism, and backstairs intervention between

Conservative and Liberal the way to the millennium.... Socialism

aims to change, not only the boots on people's feet, but the

clothes they wear, the houses they inhabit, the work they do, the

education they get, their places, their honors, and all their

possessions. Socialism aims to make a new world out of the old. It

can only be attained by the intelligent, outspoken, courageous

resolve of a great multitude of men and women. You must get

absolutely clear in your mind that Socialism means a _complete

change, a break with history_, with much that is picturesque;

_whole classes will vanish_. The world will be vastly different,

with different sorts of houses, different sorts of people. All the

different trades and industries will be changed, the medical

profession will be carried on under different conditions,

engineering, science, the theatrical trade, the clerical trade,

schools, hotels, almost every trade, will have to undergo as

complete an internal change as a caterpillar does when it becomes a

moth ... a change as profound as the abolition of private property

in slaves would have been in ancient Rome or Athens." (The italics

are mine.)

Here is the exact opposite view to that which has been taught for many

years by the Fabian Society to no small audience of educated Englishmen

(and Americans). For there are comparatively few who have neither read

any of the Fabian pamphlets nor seen or read any of Bernard Shaw's plays

in which the same standpoint is represented.

Mr. John A. Hobson classes the Socialist and non-Socialist reformers of

Great Britain together as regards their opportunism. Though a Liberal

himself, he objects that some Socialists are not radical enough, and

that "the milder and more opportunist brand suffer from excessive

vagueness." Of the prevailing tendency towards opportunism, Mr. Hobson

writes:--

"This revolt against ideas is carried so far that able men have

come seriously to look upon progress as a matter for the

manipulation of wirepullers, something to be 'jobbed' in committee

by sophistical motions or other clever trickery. Great national

issues really turn, according to this judgment, upon the arts of

political management, the play of the adroit tactician and the

complete canvasser. This is the 'work' that tells; elections, the

sane expression of the national will, are won by these and by no

other means.

"_Nowhere has this mechanical conception of progress worked more

disastrously than in the movement towards Collectivism._ Suppose

that the mechanism of reform were perfected, that each little

clique of specialists and wirepullers were placed at its proper

point in the machinery of public life, will this machinery grind

out progress? Every student of industrial history knows that the

application of a powerful 'motor' is of vastly greater importance

than the invention of a special machine. Now, what provision is

made for generating the motor power of progress in Collectivism?

Will it come of its own accord? Our mechanical reformer apparently

thinks it will. The attraction of some present obvious gain, the

suppression of some scandalous abuse of monopolist power by a

private company, some needed enlargement of existing Municipal or

State enterprise by lateral expansion--such are the sole springs of

action. In this way the Municipalization of public services,

increased assertion of State control over mines, railways, and

factories, the assumption under State control of large departments

of transport trade, proceed without any recognition of the guidance

of general principles. Everywhere the pressure of special concrete

interests, nowhere the conscious play of organized human

intelligence!...

"My object here is to justify the practical utility of 'theory' and

'principle' in the movement of Collectivism by showing that

reformers who distrust the guidance of Utopia, or even the

application of economic first principles, are not thrown back

entirely upon that crude empiricism which insists that each case is

to be judged separately and exclusively on its own individual

merits."

Mr. Hobson then proposes his collectivist program, which he rightly

considers to be not Socialist but Liberal merely--and we find it more

collectivistic, radical, and democratic than that of many so-called

Socialists. Moreover it expresses the views of a large and growing

proportion of the present Liberal Party. Then he concludes as follows:--

"If practical workers for social and industrial reforms continue to

ignore principles, the inevitable logic of events will nevertheless

drive them along the path of Collectivism here indicated. But they

will have to pay the price which shortsighted empiricism always

pays; with slow, hesitant, and staggering steps, with innumerable

false starts and backslidings, they will move in the dark along an

unseen track towards an unseen goal. Social development may be

conscious or unconscious. It has been mostly unconscious in the

past, and therefore slow, wasteful, and dangerous. If we desire it

to be swifter, safer, and more effective in the future, it must

become the conscious expression of the trained and organized will

of a people not despising theory as unpractical, but using it to

furnish economy in action."[134]

Practically all "State Socialists" hold a similar view to that of Shaw

and Webb. Mr. Wells even, in his "First and Last Things," has a lengthy

attack on what he calls democracy, when he tells us that its true name

is "insubordination," and that it is base because "it dreams that its

leaders are its delegates." His view of democracy is strictly consistent

with his attitude toward the common man, whom he regards as "a

gregarious animal, collectively rather like a sheep, emotional, hasty,

and shallow."[135] Democracy can only mean, Mr. Wells concludes, that

power will be put into the hands of "rich newspaper proprietors,

advertising producers, and the energetic wealthy generally, as the

source flooding the collective mind freely with the suggestions on which

it acts."

The _New Age_, representing the younger Fabians, also despairs of

democracy and advocates compromise, because "the democratic party have

failed so far to be indorsed and inforced by popular consent." It

acknowledges that the power of the Crown is "great and even temporarily

overwhelming," but discourages opposition to monarchy for the reason

that monarchy rests on the ignorance and weakness of the people and not

on sheer physical coercion.[136] The _New Age_ opposes those democratic

proposals, the referendum and proportional representation, considers

that the representative may so thoroughly embody the ideals and

interests of the community as to become "a spiritual sum of them all,"

and admits that this ideal of a "really representative body of men"

might be brought about under an extremely undemocratic franchise.[137]

"Outside of a parish or hamlet the Referendum," it says, "is impossible.

To an Empire it is fatal."[138] And finally, this Socialist organ is

perfectly ready to grant another fifty million pounds for the navy,

provided the money is drawn from the rich, as it finds that "a good,

thumping provision for an increased navy would do a great deal to

sweeten a drastic budget for the rich, as well as strengthen the appeal

of the party which professes to be advancing the cause of the poor."

Imperialism and militarism, which in most countries constitute the chief

form in which capitalism is being fought by Socialists, are actually

considered as of secondary importance, on the ground that through

acquiescing in them it becomes possible to hasten a few reforms, such as

have already been granted by the capitalists of several other countries

without any Socialist surrender and even without Socialist pressure of

any kind.