In the Erfurt Programme we have seen that the task of the social democracy is to give form and unity to the struggle of the working class, and to point out its natural and necessary goal. This goal is the transformation of private property in the means of production into collective property, but the change will be accomplished not in the interest of a class but of the entire human race. The Erfurt Programme has been followed by others of a like nature in Belgium, Austria, France, and elsewhere. It may be regarded as the aim of the social democracy of all countries to obtain possession of political power in order to make the economic transformation which we have indicated.
A like aim has been set forth in the resolutions passed at International Congresses. In a previous chapter we have seen that International Congresses were held at Paris in 1889, at Brussels in 1891, at Zürich in 1893, and at London in 1896. These were followed by Congresses, at Paris for a second time in 1900, at Amsterdam in 1904, and at Stuttgart in 1907.
The disorders which prevailed at the Congressesof Brussels and London led to the adoption of measures for the better ordering of business and for the better organisation of the Congresses, ‘destined to become the parliament of the proletariat.’ We shall now give a brief statement of the new measures, which date in a general way from the Paris Congress of 1900.
As to terms of admission. All associations are admitted which adhere to the essential principles of socialism: socialisation of the means of production and exchange; international union and action of the workers; socialist conquest of political power by the proletariat organised as a class party. Also all the trade organisations which place themselves on the basis of the class struggle and recognise the necessity of political action, legislative and parliamentary. Anarchists are therefore excluded.
An International Socialist Bureau having its seat at Brussels has been established. It consists of two delegates from each country and has a permanent secretary. Among other functions the Bureau and its secretary have to organise the International Congresses and to arrange the order of business at them.
At former Congresses much time was spent in hearing verbal reports, in French, English, and German, of the progress of socialism in the various countries. The Bureau now invites and receives from the various national bodies reports, which are printed and laid before the Congress. These reports form a most valuable storehouse of information with regard to the development of socialism throughout the world.
The result of those measures was manifest at the Stuttgart Congress, where the business proceeded with dispatch and in comparative order. Delegates to the number of 886 were assembled from twenty-six nationalities, and discussed matters of importance relating to the international social movement. The revival of the International could be regarded as an accomplished fact. But it was a revival in a new form and under conditions which had undergone a marvellous change. The old International has been compared by Vandervelde to a brilliant general staff without an army. In many countries the socialist cause had hardly begun to move; in no country had it attained to any real strength. Now socialism had powerful and well-organised parties in most of the leading countries of Europe, and it counted its adherents by millions.
The Bureau at Brussels does not perform the functions of the general council of the old International. It has no commanding mind and will, like that of Karl Marx, to supply initiative and energy. It serves as a connecting link between the national parties; it tends to co-ordinate theories, tactics, and action. But the vitality and moving force of the new International are found in the different national groups.
We may say, then, that the new International only in a limited measure realises the thought of Marx. The idea of using political power as an instrument of social amelioration originated with the Chartists and L. Blanc. Marx in the communist manifestofirst made it international and revolutionary, and he claimed also to have made it scientific. It was scientific in so far as it was a reasoned and comprehensive expression of real forces. In the International as we now have it we may perceive an organisation of the real forces which Marx had the insight to foresee and enjoin.
A long series of resolutions have been passed by the various Congresses which have met since 1889. If we take those resolutions along with the elaborate programmes that have been formulated by the various national parties, and of which the Erfurt programme may be regarded as the type, we have a set of documents which may undoubtedly be considered official and authoritative. Both resolutions and programmes are the result of a long labour of thought and debate by their best minds. They agree generally in their exposition of principles and tactics. We may, therefore, have no doubt that they contain a reliable statement of the prevalent socialism. We give an abstract of the most important points on which socialists of all lands agree:—
(1) The goal of the whole movement is an economic revolution or transformation—the transference to society of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.
(2) The conquest of political power by the organised action of the working class of all lands is the chief means towards this great end.
(3) The great task of the socialist parties at presentis education, agitation, and organisation in the widest sense, with a view to the physical and moral regeneration of the working class, so as to fit it for its great mission. To rouse the class consciousness of the workers, to increase their capacity and efficiency for the class struggle, is the daily task of international socialism.
(4) The struggle for equal and direct universal suffrage, for the popular initiative and referendum, is an important phase of the political struggle, and is fitted to have a good influence on the political education of the workers.
(5) The more purely political struggle of the Socialist Parties should go hand in hand with the more purely economic struggle of the trade unions.
(6) The right of association, of combination, of free meeting, of free speech, and of a free press, is an essential part of the worker’s claim of rights.
(7) The demonstration of the 1st of May is specially recommended in all countries as a means of securing an eight-hours’ working day. The eight-hours’ day is most desirable for improving the family life, the education, the health, energy, intelligence, and morality of the working class.
(8) But the eight-hours’ day is only the most urgent part of a large system of protective legislation in favour of the working class. Besides an eight-hours’ day for adults, they demand special legislation for children, young people, and women; proper rest for all ages; restriction of night work; abolition of the sweatingsystem; effective inspection of factories, shops, and of domestic labour, as well as of agriculture.
(9) They are very strongly opposed to militarism, which they consider due not so much to national or political differences, as to the struggle of the capitalist classes for new markets. They believe that war will end only with the ending of capitalism. The present standing armies are the instruments of the ruling and exploiting class, and should be abolished. Their place should be taken by a citizen army or the armed nation; that is, the entire able-bodied manhood of the people should be trained and equipped on a democratic basis, like the Swiss army. The Socialist Parties of the various countries are recommended to vote against expenditure for existing army and navy.
(10) The majority at Congresses has without reserve condemned the colonial system as being merely an extension of the field of exploitation of the capitalist class. But this majority has consisted mainly of nations that have little knowledge of colonies and little interest in them. It has ignored the colonial system of England, which has so largely consisted in the development of self-governing communities; and it has also ignored or misunderstood the beneficent work of England in establishing conditions of peace, order, and progress in India. The colonial system as understood by the majority simply means the exploitation of native and coloured races for the profit of the capitalist class. A large minority, while condemning the present colonial policy, think that it might be made beneficial.
The goal of the whole movement is collectivism; but little or nothing is said as to the forms it will take or how it will be realised. That task is left to the future. On the other hand, much is said of the means by which political power may be gained. Among these we should observe that the two points which are most essential, and may be regarded as the key of the whole position, are universal suffrage and the right of combination, the former being necessary for the purely political development of socialism, the latter for the development of labour in trade unions. For these two rights socialism and labour are prepared to put forth the greatest efforts and to make the greatest sacrifices. For them the orderly and well-disciplined Social Democracy of Germany is ready to adopt in the last resort the drastic measure of the general strike.[1]Demonstrations in favour of universal suffrage have been frequent events during recent years in many European countries. The Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party has declared itself ready to accept as a field of agitation a constituent assembly elected on a thoroughly democratic basis and embodying the sovereign will of the people.
The rights of the trade union have quite recently been a supreme interest to the Labour Party in Great Britain. And in America the use of the ‘injunctions’ to hinder the development of labour combinations has been a chief grievance among the workmen. This grievance took a foremost place in the discussion ofmatters which went to form the platforms of candidates at the Presidential election of 1908. Universal suffrage and the right of combination, with all that these two great rights involve, may be regarded as the central points in the present tactics and policy of international socialism.
The other points in the above statement may here be left to speak for themselves. But if we note that the most deeply resented grievance of the workmen is the use of the police and the military by the executives of various countries to repress agitation, we shall the better understand many incidents of recent history in Italy, Russia, and even America.
It will be seen that the task which lies before the social democracy is a vast one. As yet even the political part of it is only to a small extent realised. At present the working class, though forming the vast majority of the people, has no corresponding representation in legislatures or influence in government. In England the ruling class has long been, and still is, an aristocracy, slowly changing in the course of generations into a plutocracy which has the wisdom to yield to the ever-growing pressure of democracy. France is now nearer to a real democracy than any other great European state. In Germany the executive depends on the Emperor; but his Chancellor has to find a majority for legislation and for the budgets in the Reichstag, which is elected by universal suffrage with an antiquated distribution of seats. The German executive is really a bureaucracy with the Emperor aschief. Government in Austria and Russia is also a bureaucracy of which the Emperor is the head. In Italy the democracy is slowly growing. It has very little real influence in Spain.
If the American people do not exert themselves very effectively in the immediate future, the Republic seems destined to be a plutocracy. A power which appears to be incompatible with a real commonwealth has arisen in a marvellously short time. The oil industry in America goes back only to 1859. Mr. J. D. Rockefeller entered the trade in 1865. It was organised by him and his associates into the Standard Oil Company; and the Company has been the type of further organisation, has provided the men, the methods, and the capital, by which other great industries have been transformed. That is to say, Mr. J. D. Rockefeller and the men trained in his methods have gained control of railways, of finance and insurance, and even of the basic industries of steel and coal. The process has naturally gained enormously in momentum as it has gone on; the capital accumulated, and still more the capital controlled by the Trusts, the interests they have absorbed or brought within their orbit are gigantic, and continually increasing. Even the American Senate is declared to be in their pay. Most evil of all symptoms, when an eminent American senator, Mr. Tillman, lately undertook to speak for his order, a main point in his defence was, that the House of Representatives was worse than the Senate! Thus we see the industrial and economic power, which is also the money power,subordinating to itself the political, and, indeed, threatening all that is articulate and organic in the American people. In 1908, at the Chicago Convention, Senator Lodge went to the heart of the matter: ‘It is the huge size of private fortunes and the vast extent of the power of modern combinations of capital which have brought upon us in these later years problems portentous in their possibilities, and threatening not only our social and political welfare, but even our personal freedom if they are not boldly met and wisely solved.’
Warnings have been given by some observers, including the present writer, that such a condition of things was coming. In myInquiry into Socialism, published in 1887, I said: ‘In crossing the ocean the colonists left behind them the monarchy and aristocracy, and many other social forms hoary with venerable abuse; but they carried with them an institution older and more fundamental than royalty or a hereditary legislature—human nature itself.’ The old evils of Europe grew out of human nature. On the other side of the Atlantic men will still be human. ‘Freedom in America seems threatened by the domination of great corporations, combining to obtain the control of industrial operations, of governments, and courts of justice. If unchecked by the healthy public opinion, and by the collective will of the American people, such corporations may establish an economic, social, and political tyranny quite as oppressive as anything existing in Europe. It will be a miserable thing for the world if triumphantdemocracy, and a material prosperity unexampled in the annals of mankind, end in a fiasco such as this.’[2]
The struggle to curb the corporations and bring them within the limits prescribed by the public good will not be an easy one. Waves of popular enthusiasm are apt to be fitful and transient, whilst the pull of organised wealth is steady, continuous, incessant. The favourite rhetorical figure of the octopus spreading its gigantic tentacles over American society gives but a faint impression of the subtle and insidious activity of the Trusts. Even in Russia the problem is a simple one compared with that in America; the contest with the Tzardom is merely one of force striving against force by all available means. Vastly simpler was the earliest struggle of historic civilisation, when the Greeks met the clumsy hosts of Persia. The Americans may consider themselves as the foremost champions, at the most critical point, in the most momentous struggle now going forward on the planet.
Noblesse obligewas the maxim of a caste that is vanishing. It is still an imperative call on all truly noble men and nations. The American colonies were founded by the noblest pioneers of freedom, from the best and strongest races of Europe. Such a high ancestry lays men under a special obligation to acquit themselves well in the warfare against organised wealth. One of the main causes of the present situation is that in the eager race for wealth or for a living the Americans have had no leisure to be good citizens, in the sensecontemplated by the founders of the Republic. They have left their own proper civic work to professional politicians. In the combination of professional politicians ready to be bought and of wealthy capitalists ready to buy lies the supreme danger to American freedom. The danger will be averted when the people take care duly to think the matter out, and to enter upon a course of resolute organised action suitable to the time and its needs.
One of the first duties of the people will obviously be to simplify the cumbrous machinery of the Constitution, and to make it a more efficient organ of their will. In the two great crises of American history, nothing strikes us so forcibly as the high standard of character and intelligence which was shown. It may be regarded as a symptom of a really strong race, that they were so slow and reluctant to take decisive measures in the struggle for Independence and at the time of the Civil War. We may now see the same natural hesitation in deciding how to handle a problem of surpassing gravity. Such crises are the severest and truest tests of national character. All friends of freedom in every part of the world will fervently hope that the people of America may display their historic qualities of insight, high principle, energy, and resolution in the mighty struggle of Commonwealth against Wealth upon which they are entering.
According to Liebknecht, late leader of the German socialists, ‘the social democracy is the party of the whole people, except 200,000 large proprietors, squires,middle-class capitalists, and priests.’ We need not discuss the exactitude of such figures in relation either to Germany or any other country. It is a fact which no reasonable man can dispute that economic and political power is in most civilised countries actually wielded by a very small minority. Nor need we stay here to inquire into the methods by which such power has been gained. Even as regards England we have not yet an impartial and comprehensive account of the rise of the present economic and political order since the liquidation of the mediæval system began about the middle of the fourteenth century. How labour legislation was carried on by the ruling class in its own interests for five centuries after 1349; how Henry VIII. took his courtiers and privy councillors into partnership for the dividing of the church lands; how commons were inclosed; how even the poor-law became an occasion for the subjection and degradation of labour; how for generations bribery was a normal instrument of government; how wealth was gained in the slave-trade, in the East Indies, in the jobbing of government loans and contracts, and by the imposition of corn-laws—all these we vaguely know, but they have not yet been presented in a form which can satisfy the canons of scientific history.
It is too soon, therefore, to determine how far the business of the Standard Oil Company has been built up on its merits; how far its success is due to efficient management and organisation by the shrewdest and ablest men, and how far due to the illegal and immoralmethods of which they are accused. At the Chicago Convention in 1908 Senator Lodge said that the great body of the people had come to believe more and more that these vast fortunes, these vast combinations of capital, were formed and built up by tortuous and dishonest means and with a cynical disregard of the very laws which the mass of the people were compelled to obey. On the other hand theReminiscencesof Mr. Rockefeller reveal a rare combination of insight and energy in founding and consolidating a new industry which of itself is sufficient to account for success. In any case, we in England, looking back on our history, have no right to point the finger of reproach at our American kinsmen. There is indeed a cynical theory that our ruling classes are free from such reproach only because they have been sated with the wealth they have already gained. With us the struggle has long been decided; whereas in America the dust and heat of battle still blind the eyes of men.
The motives and merits of the agents by which great historic changes are accomplished, whether they be Julius Cæsar, Henry VIII., or J. D. Rockefeller, form a most interesting and important subject of study. But far more important is the problem we must face regarding the forces and the issues which they set in movement. Here we are concerned with live forces and urgent issues.
Briefly we may describe the situation with which we have to deal as the struggle now proceeding between various forms of autocracy, bureaucracy, and plutocracy,on the one hand, and a social democracy which claims to represent the mass of the people, on the other. The features of the former powers we all know. The social democracy is still in its giant and untried youth. Not very long ago, as we have seen, the German working men had neither voice nor organisation nor insight into their position and prospects. France, after the failures of 1848, was hardly better. In most countries labour was dumb, or moaning under its burden of hardship and sorrow. Now much is changed. The working men have the foremost orators in the world to speak with their enemies in the gate, and they have an organisation which the strongest statesmen have been unable to break up or weaken. In previous chapters we have had frequent occasion to characterise the democracy of which the workers are the vast majority. We shall understand it better if we duly consider a few special points.
On the 28th November 1905 the city of Vienna saw a new sight. The gay city on the Danube has been the scene of many stirring events. It was twice in vain besieged by the Turks, and twice taken by Napoleon. It was the seat of two congresses which met to rearrange the map of Europe after the downfall of the French conqueror. It witnessed many of the most dramatic incidents of the mad year (des tollen jahres)—the year of revolution, 1848.
To those who can see beneath the surface of things, the scene of November 1905 was vastly more significant than any of the events we have mentioned. A processionof working men and women, estimated by the correspondent of theMorning Postat 300,000, and by socialist organs at 250,000, marched under the red flag through the streets. Work ceased and traffic was stopped, while the serried ranks passed on. But there was no tumult, no call for the interference of the police or the display of military force. Not a shout was raised or song sung or voice heard above a whisper. The silence, order, and discipline shown by this vast host, which was about equal to either of the great armies that lately contended in Manchuria, were even more striking than its numbers. Members of parliament who witnessed the demonstration from the Reichsrath declared that they were more impressed by it than by any political event since Austria became a parliamentary state. Even the most stubborn adherent of the old order was bound to feel that a new era had come, and that the demand for universal suffrage, which was the object of the demonstration, could no longer be refused. That very day legislation based on universal suffrage was announced by the government.
The great demonstration was, indeed, a fit subject for meditation in Austria, but not in that country only. The monition contained in such an event should be taken to heart by all concerned in all lands. In the ordering and organising intelligence, in the self-restraint and force of character displayed by the working men of Vienna on that day, we see qualities which are replete with meaning in their relation to the great problems of the present century.
Or let us consider the matter from another point of view. It is now about half a century since the socialist agitation began in Germany. During that time the German workmen have received an education in social politics such as no university in the world can furnish. They have been accustomed to the freest and most thorough discussion of the widest variety of topics in books and pamphlets, at public meetings and debates, in private talks over their beer and coffee. Great strikes, elections, and demonstrations have been object-lessons to them of the most vivid and forcible description. A new move on the part of the Kaiser, a new speech of Bebel or Liebknecht has given fresh food for reflection and discourse. Above all, the matters so handled have come near to their hearts, have touched them in their everyday life in the closest and most real way. They were no hearsay, conventional, or traditional subjects that thus appealed to them! Need we wonder that the teaching of Marx, Lassalle, and Engels has become a possession to them, a theme for mind and heart? The seed has taken root among millions of men and women remarkable for intelligence, thoroughness, and earnestness. And the process that has thus gone on in Germany goes on more or less all over the world.
The men and women of the labouring democracy, let us remember, have, many of them, known hunger and privation in every form, not only as an exceptionally severe occurrence in times of strike and unemployment, but as a chronic experience. Mothers have been obliged to work hard too long before child-bearing, and too soonafter it, to eke out a scanty family income. For a society that has shown so little respect even for the sacred function of motherhood, what can we say but that it is time to repent? The children in the same competitive society have cried for bread when there was none to give them, and have not had rags enough decently to cover their nakedness.
In a moment of feeling at the Jena meeting of his party Bebel confessed that for years it was his ideal for once to eat his fill of bread and butter. During the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking our countrymen had a new experience; they found out what it meant never to have enough to eat, to be always hungry. The leader of one of the strongest organisations in the world, one of the foremost orators in Europe, to whom all men listen when he makes a speech, had the experience for years in the very heart of modern civilisation.
The same children who were thus early acquainted with hunger have gone to be racked at the mill of labour before they were eight, or even six years of age. We need not wonder that they were stunted and dwarfed in growth, that they were wrinkled, deformed, attenuated, grey, and decrepit before their time; and they have suffered all this hunger and privation through a long agony of years, they and their fathers and mothers before them, while the classes which have held economic and political power have wasted the means so much needed for worthier uses in war and in the preparation for war, in the luxury and extravagance of society and of courts.
Nor has this condition of rags, hunger, and privation come to an end. We may see it in the course of a casual walk in almost any quarter of any of the towns of Great Britain to-day.
In many countries the democracy assumes a more serious and a menacing form. Among the trade unions of France there is a pronounced distrust in the efficacy of parliamentary action and a predilection for more direct and energetic methods. We see a like tendency in a stronger form in Italy. The new Italy has endeavoured to play a rôle as a great military and naval power, for which she was hardly fitted by her natural resources or her economic development. A large majority of her people suffer all the miseries that flow from extreme ignorance, poverty, and degradation. Strikes, riots, and other tumultuary outbreaks have been put down by the police and the soldiers with a rough hand. The misery of the people of Italy finds expression in a very large emigration. In a single year as many as 270,000 go abroad, chiefly to the countries of Central Europe, for a period of six months, while 350,000 leave the country as permanent emigrants, chiefly to America. We must regard them as driven by poverty and hunger rather than impelled by the spirit of enterprise.
But the most active revolutionary centre of Europe has now shifted eastwards. In Russia the development of modern methods of industry has only added to the depth and intensity of the struggle. Great capitalists have joined the great landlords in giving support tothe Czardom and the bureaucracy in the mighty conflict with the growing revolutionary parties which represent rural and town workers. It has been an appalling struggle, in which the oldest forms of rule have contended with the newest forces of change. What the end may be no man can foresee. So long as the Czardom receives adequate support from the military forces it may continue to survive, but the course of the revolution has shown that the loyalty of army and fleet has been seriously shaken. The Socialist Revolutionary Party contemplate a victory of the working class led by them, and in case of necessity the provisional establishment of its revolutionary dictatorship. But we may fear that the anarchy which might ensue on the overthrow of the Czardom might lead to the supremacy of a military chief. In either case the danger to the neighbouring countries, and especially to South-Eastern Europe, already distracted by racial differences, is only too obvious.
In a well-informed article on the rising of the Roumanian peasantry in 1907 theSpectatorsaid that their cause was the cause of a hundred million of peasantry in Eastern Europe. The remark was a true one. The revolt of labour in Russia is for the most part a rising of peasants for ‘land and liberty.’ It has been a rising full of terror, of omen, and of warning to all who undertake the rule and guidance of men. In Eastern Europe Enceladus has risen. Long buried under heavy mountain loads of privation, of oppression, and of neglect even worse than oppression, he has risen to claim hisrights. If well guided he might have been a kindly and beneficent giant, for the Russian peasant is essentially good-humoured and well-disposed. But the powers that be have contented themselves with the exaction of recruits and taxes, of labour and rent. They have otherwise done nothing for him, and have given him no scope for doing anything for himself. With little light or guidance, too frequently suffering the worst privations of cold and famine, and goaded by the sense of immemorial wrong, he could not be expected to resist the fiery draughts from the winepress of the revolution, and he committed such excesses as we know! The Czardom and its servants have prevailed. The giant has been driven back to his prison. He is neither dead nor asleep, but lies moaning and restless on his bed of pain. He will rise again!
The Socialist Revolutionary Party declare that it is from no love for sanguinary methods that they have taken up arms. It was their stern duty before the revolution, before the cause of the workers. It was a decision serious and full of responsibility. The party ‘will not cease to employ terrorist tactics in the political struggle till the establishment of institutions which will make the will of the people the source of power and of legislation.’
Its task has been to lead the masses of the people in revolt, and it has done so with a resolution and self-sacrifice seldom equalled in history. Its members have been ready to kill and to be killed. There can be no doubt that the revolutionary feeling in Russia has increased enormously in depth and width since the days of Alexander II. The composition of the secondDuma, which was probably the most revolutionary assembly that has ever met on this planet, was a proof and symptom of the extent to which the spirit of revolt had spread. Out of 500 members 200 belonged to the left, and of these 60 were social democrats, 40 socialist revolutionaries, 15 populist socialists, and 60 were labour men, the small remainder being independent radicals. But the same spirit of revolution has pervaded rural and town workers, has penetrated to fleet and army, to the teachers and the intellectual classes. We may be assured that the drama of the revolution is not ended. The revolution has been spreading among a population of 135,000,000 having racial affinities with numerous peoples in Central and South-Eastern Europe. The Ukase of November 1906, which gave the right to every member of a village community to claim complete possession of his present allotment as permanent private property, will, so far as it is operative, tend greatly to aggravate the unrest. It will disintegrate the village community, break up old forms of life, give more power to the village usurer, and in many ways add to the violence of the revolutionary forces. Enceladus will rise again, with results to Russia and to Europe that no man can forecast.
The division into two nations of Rich and Poor, which the Earl of Beaconsfield described in his novel,Sybil, as existing in England, has become international. A chasm more or less wide and abrupt extends throughout the civilised world. Even Japan now has an active socialist party, and when the industrialrevolution has fairly begun to run its course in China we may expect to see its people among the foremost in the social revolution. The real economic and political power still lies in the hands of a small minority, while over against it stands the democracy composed of workers who are every day advancing in intelligence, in organisation, and in the resolute endeavour towards a common goal. Wealth, power, and enjoyment go together. Labour is attended by poverty and privation.
A great struggle is going on, and there can be no doubt that it will go on. How is it to be fought out? This is the supreme question which the twentieth century must try to solve.
It is of unspeakable importance that it should take a wise and peaceful course. In all countries which have a genuine system of universal suffrage fairly carried out, a peaceful solution is practicable. But for such a peaceful solution it will be necessary that all autocratic and bureaucratic government should cease, and that an executive, not only formally responsible to the people but really responsive to their wishes, and in close touch with them, should be established. Such a government could accomplish a beneficent social and economic transformation without violence, without spoliation or confiscation, without even giving an undue shock to the reasonable claims and habits of any section of the people. This might be effected by a truly democratic government, or by the steady pressure of the democracy on the old governments,which would be gradually changed. So much for the peaceful transformation of the State.
May we not also expect that socialists will take a more serious and enlightened view of their responsibilities in aspiring to lead organised labour, and may we not in the course of time hope for a modification of their aims and methods? If these were more reasonable, they would obviously be more convincing, and the prospects of a peaceful as well as a successful issue would be vastly increased. At present their demands are often so put in elaborate programmes, in language more or less technical, that they repel the sympathy even of reasonable men. To use a common saying, socialism as frequently presented is such ‘a big order,’ expressed in alien language, that men with the best will in the world cannot give it a hospitable welcome to their minds.
In fact, it is not a paradox but the plain truth that socialists are now the greatest obstacle to the progress of their ideal. Nor is this at all strange. The same thing has happened in the development of all great ideals; men are too little for them, and in their love for forms and dogmas forget and even repudiate or suppress the spirit. For the progress of socialism the thing most needful now is to throw off the technical dogmatic and ultra-revolutionary form which it has inherited from the past, and to study the real needs and live issues of the present.
Socialism is still coloured to its detriment by excessive loyalty to Marx, and the views of Marx wereshaped by a time which has passed away. In the early forties, when the system of Marx was taking form, idealism had declined, and a very crude dogmatic materialism was in the ascendant. The very active speculation which had previously been directed to the ideal, attempted to work in the real and material without due preparation on a very inadequate basis of facts—with strange results! A fierce militant revolutionary spirit, which in the circumstances must be regarded as very natural, was preparing for the troubles of 1848. Ricardo, a man singularly deficient in the requisite historical and philosophical training, was the reigning power in economic theory. Under such influences the views of Marx were prematurely shaped into the dogmatic system which we know. He continued to hold and develop them without any real attempt at self-criticism in riper years, and he, an exile living in England, forcibly urged them from his study on the socialist groups and parties of the Continent.
In his manifesto of the Communist party, Marx declares that the proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains. It has been the unfortunate destiny of him and his school to forge new chains for the working class in the shape of dogmatic materialism, a rigid and abstract collectivism, and ultra-revolutionary views, which still hamper it in the task of emancipation. The promptitude with which the emancipators of the human race have provided new chains is strange enough. Still stranger is the readiness men have shown in putting them on! As we have seen in a previous chapter, thefollowers of Marx have gone further in this way than their chief.[3]
An ill service was done to the working class by utterances on marriage and the family, which gave the ruling classes who keep the workers out of their rights the plea that they were maintaining the fundamental principles of social order. The abstract collectivism which is the prominent economic feature of his school suggests two serious doubts: if by a revolutionary act they took the delicate and complex social mechanism to pieces, whether they would be able to put it together again; and if they did succeed in putting it together, whether it would work. The same devotion to abstract collectivism has made his followers unable to draw up a reasonable agrarian policy suitable to the peasantry. Their hostility to religion, expressed most freely in the early years of the agitation in Germany and elsewhere, has been a serious hindrance to their progress, both among Catholics and Protestants, especially the former.
Thus in many directions their propaganda has been an obstacle to their success in their proper task of emancipating the working class, and it has at the same time been a hindrance to the peaceful solution of the great struggle. The great central problem has been confused by side issues and irrelevant matter. We can best show how tragic has been the confusion of parts and of issues by reference to religion. Love, brotherhood, mutual service, and peace are most prominentnotes in the teaching of Jesus. They must be woven into the moral texture of socialism if it is to succeed and be a benefit to the world. If Marx and his school had merely attacked what we may call the official and professional representatives of the Christian Church, they would have been within their rights. As it has been, the religion of love, brotherhood, and mutual service has officially become part of a government system by which the hereditary oppressors of the poor in Germany and elsewhere claim to continue their unblest work. The professional representatives of Christ’s teaching support and encourage them in it, and so make themselves accomplices, not only in the oppression and degradation of the poor, but in war and militarism, and in all the waste, extravagance, and misdirection of class government. How many of them are conscious of the profound incongruity of their position?
In the history of human thought opinion has hardened often prematurely into dogma, and dogma has usually degenerated into pedantry. Dogma has often been simply the expression of egotism, which had not the saving grace either to be loyal to truth or really helpful to mankind. So it has been in the development of socialism. Its champions have too frequently failed in keeping a single eye and mind on a task which requires insight, self-restraint, loyalty, and consistency, as well as energy and enthusiasm. A great cause demands the best and noblest service. Such a cause as socialism demands from its supporters the self-denialwhich will suppress the many phases of an excessive, disorderly, morbid, and malignant egotism that has done so much harm in the past—no easy task for human nature.
It is a very serious result alike of the past history and of the present policy of socialists that the practical work of emancipating labour has to such a degree been postponed to a remote and hypothetical future. They form only a small minority in the legislatures of the leading European countries. This minority is increasing, and is likely to increase. But there is no present probability of an increase that would win political power by parliamentary action.
According to the prevalent socialism the goal of the whole movement is to acquire possession of the means of production. Such a conception lays excessive stress on the dead and passive instruments of labour. It ascribes too much importance to the economic factor. The economic factor is most important, but the cardinal thing in socialism is the living and active principle of association, and the essential thing for the working man to acquire is the capacity and habit of association. In other words, the motive power of socialism must be found in the mind and character of men guided by science and inspired by the highest ethical ideals, and who have attained to the insight and capacity requisite for associated action.
But in making those criticisms let us remember that the social democracy is still in its unformed youth. The socialist parties of most European countries havesprung up since 1870. They have had, through much labour and tribulation, to shape their organisation, principles, and policy. How natural it was that they should follow a master mind like Marx, who had manfully and unsparingly devoted his entire life to their cause! And how natural too that they should have no trust in other classes, and refuse all manner of compromise with them!
And we should fail in an accurate presentation of our subject if we did not emphasise the fact that the present position of labour is the result of a vast effort of practical and constructive work. In all departments labour had to start from the very beginning not many years ago. The socialist parties with their programmes represent a strenuous and painful process of thought and organisation. Through the trade unions the ill-informed, untrained, suspicious, and turbulent democracy of labour has been drilled into habits of common action. How much of enthusiasm and high principle, of persevering toil and patient attention to detail has been put into the co-operative movement!
There are now most significant symptoms that all the diverse forms of working-class activity are being consolidated into one great movement. We have seen how in Belgium trade unions and co-operative societies work in harmony with the socialist party. So they also do in Denmark. In Italy the three classic forms of labour activity, trade unionism, co-operation, and the Friendly Society, have come to an understanding which is inspired by socialist aims. Generally we maysay that the tendency in all countries is for organised labour to become socialistic.
In nearly all countries the interests of the rural workers have been by socialists neglected or sacrificed for the industrial workers. This is particularly observable in agrarian questions and questions of tariff. They have not seen that at least temporary legislation has been required to save the rural workers from ruin by the exceptional competition of cheap farm products from America. Generally they have considered the interests of the workers as consumers rather than as producers. The Socialist Revolutionary Party in Russia have, however, seriously faced the agrarian problem in their programme in language of carefully calculated vagueness. Proceeding from the basis of the old communal ownership, they advocate the socialisation of all land under an administration of popular self-government, central and local. ‘The use of the land will be based on labour and the principle of equality, that is to say, it will guarantee the satisfaction of the needs of the producer, working himself individually or in society.’ Rent will be used for collective needs. The subsoil will belong to the State. In Finland, which is the most socialistic country of Europe, the Social Democratic Party has also specially dealt with the agrarian question.
While it has hitherto been the too general tendency of socialists to distrust and oppose the existing system of government and administration, they are now in point of fact taking a larger part in the work of state and commune. Such work, like all other practical work,will serve as a wholesome discipline for parties whose energies have been too much expended and wasted in sterile opposition and unprofitable criticism. And it may lead them to see that the antagonism of other parties may be due to honest ignorance or well-justified doubt. Even in Germany Bebel admits that so much intercourse in the Reichstag and its committees between Social Democrats and the other parties has led to a friendlier feeling among them. But the main point that we wish to bring out here is that organised and progressive labour in all countries and in all its departments, trade unions, co-operative societies, etc., is being more and more inspired by socialistic aims, and tends more and more to form a solid and organic movement on practical lines. How far the movement may in the future conform or attain to the collectivist type remains to be seen.
We must particularly emphasise the fact that nothing adverse to a reasonable patriotism, to religion, marriage, or the family, is now found in the programmes of parties or in the resolutions of congresses. The International and the Socialist Parties clearly recognise that their task is the emancipation of labour, and that it is of an economic and political nature. Those who mix up this great problem with questions of religion and marriage do so on their own responsibility. They have no right to speak on behalf of socialism, and have no influence or authority beyond what they may personally possess.
In our review we have had much to say of thepossibilities of revolution. To all who shrink from sudden change the experience of the Labour Party in Australia should be reassuring. The Labour Party of the Commonwealth attained to power in 1904 and again in 1908. But the Party when in power can do very little. It is only one of three or four parties. When in power it must depend on outside support. Thus do the desires and ideals of men find their limitations in human nature and in our environment. What men have most to fear as the greatest danger, particularly in English-speaking lands, is not sudden change, but the indifference and neglect which make change slow and inadequate. The efforts of labour to raise itself deserve our entire sympathy and our most careful study.
Force devoid of counsel, whether it be of the reaction or of the revolution, will only result in increase of evil. Evil in itself each tends to aggravate and perpetuate the other. We can avert the baneful consequences of both only by pursuing with temperate energy the course of well-considered and beneficent change. To guide the vast and ever-growing labour movement of the world into paths which shall be wise, righteous, peaceful, and happy, this is the task and, we hope, will be the achievement of the twentieth century. Happy the men who have the good-will, sympathy, and insight to make a worthy contribution to this great work!