FOOTNOTES:

Two other important actions were taken at the congress. One was to introduce into the actual rules of the Association part of the resolution, which was passed by the conference in London the year before, dealing with political action, and this was adopted by thirty-six votes against five. The other action was to remove the seat of the General Council from London to New York. Although this was suggested by Marx, it was energetically fought on the ground that it meant the destruction of the International. By a very narrow vote the resolution was carried, twenty-six to twenty-three, a number of Marx's oldest and most devoted followers voting against the proposition. No really satisfactory explanation is given for this extraordinary act, although it has been thought since that Marx had arrived at the decision, perhaps the hardest of his life, to destroy the International in order to save it from the hands of the anarchists. To be sure, Bakounin was now out of it, and there was little to befeared from his faction, segregated and limited to certain places in the Latin countries; but everywhere the name of the International was being used by all sorts of elements that could only injure the actual labor movement. The exploits of Nechayeff, of Bakounin, and of certain Spanish and Italian sections had all conveyed to the world an impression of the International which perhaps could never be altogether erased. Furthermore, in Germany and other countries the seeds of an actual working-class political movement had been planted, and there was already promise of a huge development in the national organizations. What moved Marx thus to destroy his own child, the concrete thing he had dreamed of in his thirty years of incessant labor, profound study, and ceaseless agitation, will perhaps never be fully known, but in any case no act of Marx was ever of greater service to the cause of labor. It was a form of surgery that cut out of the socialist movement forever an irreconcilable element, and from then on the distinction between anarchist and socialist was indisputably clear. They stood poles apart, and everyone realized that no useful purpose would be served in trying to bring them together again.

Largely because of Bakounin, the International as an organization of labor never played an important rôle; but, as a melting pot in which the crude ideas of many philosophies were thrown—some to be fused, others to be cast aside, and all eventually to be clarified and purified—the International performed a memorable service. During its entire life it was a battlefield. In the beginning there were many separate groups, but at the end there were only two forces in combat—socialists and anarchists. When the quarrel began there was among the masses no sharply dividing line; their ideas wereincoherent; and their allegiance was to individuals rather than to principles. Without much discrimination, they called themselves "communists," "Internationalists," "collectivists," "anarchists," "socialists." Even these terms they had not defined, and it was only toward the end of the International that the two combatants classified their principles into two antagonistic schools, socialism and anarchism. Anarchism was no longer a vague, undefined philosophy of human happiness; it now stood forth, clear and distinct from all other social theories. After this no one need be in doubt as to its meaning and methods. On the other hand, no thoughtful person need longer remain in doubt as to the exact meaning and methods of socialism. This work of definition and clarification was the immense service performed by the International in its eight brief years of life. Throughout Europe and America, after 1872, these two forces openly declared that they had nothing in common, either in method or in philosophy. To them at least the International had been a university.

FOOTNOTES:[S]In the English report of the discussion Professor Hins's remarks are summarized as follows: "Hins said he could not agree with those who looked upon trade societies as mere strike and wages' societies, nor was he in favor of having central committees made up of all trades. The present trades unions would some day overthrow the present state of political organization altogether; they represented the social and political organization of the future. The whole laboring population would range itself, according to occupation, into different groups, and this would lead to a new political organization of society. He wanted no intermeddling of the State; they had enough of that in Belgium already. As to the central committees, every trade ought to have its central committee at the principal seat of manufacture. The central committee of the cotton trades ought to be at Manchester; that of the silk trades at Lyons, etc. He did not consider it a disadvantage that trade unions kept aloof more or less from politics, at least in his country. By trying to reform the State, or to take part in its councils, they would virtually acknowledge its right of existence. Whatever the English, the Swiss, the Germans, and the Americans might hope to accomplish by means of the present political State the Belgians repudiated theirs."—pp. 31-2.[T]These are almost the exact words that Aristide Briand uses in his argument for the general strike. See "La Grève Générale," compiled by Lagardelle, p. 95.[U]One of the resolutions prohibited the formation of sectarian groups or separatist bodies within the International, such as theAlliance de la Démocratie Socialiste, that pretended "to accomplish special missions, distinct from the common purposes of the Association." Another resolution dealt with what was called the "split" among the workers in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Still another resolution formally declared that the International had nothing in common with the infamies of Nechayeff, who had fraudulently usurped and exploited the name of the International. Furthermore, Outine was instructed to prepare a report from the Russian journals on the work of Nechayeff. Cf.ResolutionsII, XVII, XIII, XIV, respectively, of the Conference of Delegates of the International Working Men's Association, Assembled at London from 17th to 23d September, 1871.

[S]In the English report of the discussion Professor Hins's remarks are summarized as follows: "Hins said he could not agree with those who looked upon trade societies as mere strike and wages' societies, nor was he in favor of having central committees made up of all trades. The present trades unions would some day overthrow the present state of political organization altogether; they represented the social and political organization of the future. The whole laboring population would range itself, according to occupation, into different groups, and this would lead to a new political organization of society. He wanted no intermeddling of the State; they had enough of that in Belgium already. As to the central committees, every trade ought to have its central committee at the principal seat of manufacture. The central committee of the cotton trades ought to be at Manchester; that of the silk trades at Lyons, etc. He did not consider it a disadvantage that trade unions kept aloof more or less from politics, at least in his country. By trying to reform the State, or to take part in its councils, they would virtually acknowledge its right of existence. Whatever the English, the Swiss, the Germans, and the Americans might hope to accomplish by means of the present political State the Belgians repudiated theirs."—pp. 31-2.

[T]These are almost the exact words that Aristide Briand uses in his argument for the general strike. See "La Grève Générale," compiled by Lagardelle, p. 95.

[U]One of the resolutions prohibited the formation of sectarian groups or separatist bodies within the International, such as theAlliance de la Démocratie Socialiste, that pretended "to accomplish special missions, distinct from the common purposes of the Association." Another resolution dealt with what was called the "split" among the workers in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Still another resolution formally declared that the International had nothing in common with the infamies of Nechayeff, who had fraudulently usurped and exploited the name of the International. Furthermore, Outine was instructed to prepare a report from the Russian journals on the work of Nechayeff. Cf.ResolutionsII, XVII, XIII, XIV, respectively, of the Conference of Delegates of the International Working Men's Association, Assembled at London from 17th to 23d September, 1871.

After The Hague congress the socialists and anarchists, divided into separate and antagonistic groups—with principles as well as methods of organization that were diametrically opposed to each other—were forced to undergo a terrific struggle for existence. Marx had clearly enough warned the followers of Bakounin that their methods were suicidal. "The Alliance proceeds the wrong way," he declared. "It proclaims anarchy in the working-class ranks as the surest means of destroying the powerful concentration of social and political forces in the hands of the exploiters. On this pretext it asks the International, at the moment when the old world is striving to crush it, to replace its organization by anarchy."(1)And, as strange as it may seem, this was in fact what Bakounin was actually striving for. In the name of liberty he was demanding that the International be broken up into thousands of isolated, autonomous groups, which were to do whatever they pleased, in any way they pleased, at any time they pleased. This may have been, and doubtless was, in perfect harmony with the philosophy of anarchism, but it had nothing in harmony with the idea of a solidified, international organization of workingmen that Marx was striving to bring into existence. Anarchism when advocated as an ideal for some distant social order of the future, concerned Marx and Engels very little; indeed, they did not evendiscuss it from this point of view. It was only when Bakounin counseled anarchy as a method of working-class organization that both Marx and Engels protested, on the ground that such tactics could lead only to self-destruction. Neither Bakounin nor his followers were convinced, however, and they set out bravely after 1872 to put into practice their ideas. Their revolt against authority was carried to its ultimate extreme. How far the anarchists were prepared to go in their revolt is indicated by a letter which Bakounin wrote toLa Libertéof Brussels a few days after his expulsion from the International. Although not finished, and consequently not sent to that journal, it is especially interesting because he attacks the General Council as a new incarnation of the State. Here his lively imagination pictures the International as the germ of a new despotic social order, already fallen under the domination of a group of dictators, and he exclaims: "A State, a government, a universal dictatorship! The dream of Gregory VII., of Boniface VIII., of Charles V., and of Napoleon is reproduced in new forms, but ever with the same pretensions, in the camp of social democracy."(2)This is an altogether new point of view as to the character of the State. We now learn that it means any form of centralized organization; a committee, a chairman, an executive body of any sort is a State. The General Council in London was a State. Marx and Engels were a State. Any authority—no matter what its form, nor how controlled, appointed, or elected—is a State.

I am not sure that this marks the birth of the repugnance of the anarchists to even so innocent a form of authority as that of a chairman. Nor am I certain that this was the origin of those ideas of organization that make of an anarchist meeting a modern Babel, whereinall seems to be utter confusion. In any case, the Bakouninists, after The Hague congress, undertook to revive the International and to base this new organization on these ideas of anarchism. After a conference at Saint-Imier in the Jura, where Bakounin and his friends outlined the policies of a new International, a call was sent out for a congress to be held in Geneva in 1873. The congress that assembled there was not a large one, but, with no exaggeration whatever, it was one of the most remarkable gatherings ever held. For six entire days and nights the delegates struggled to create by some magic means a world-wide organization of the people, without a program, a committee, a chairman, or a vote. No longer oppressed by the "tyranny" of Marx, or baffled by his "abominable intrigues," they set out to create their "faithful image" of the new world—an organization that was not to be an organization; a union that was to be made up of fleeting and constantly shifting elements, agreeing at one moment to unite, at the next moment to divide. This was the insolvable problem that now faced the first congress of the anarchists. There were only two heretics among them. Both had come from England; but Hales was a "voice crying in the wilderness," while Eccarius sat silent throughout the congress.

The first great debate took place upon whether there should be any central council. The English delegates believed that there should be one, but that its power should be limited. Other delegates believed that there might be various commissions to perform certain necessary executive services. John Hales declared, in support of a central commission, that it will promote economy and facilitate the work, and that it will be easy to prevent such a commission from usurping power.(3)PaulBrousse, Guillaume, and others opposed this view with such heat, however, that Hales was forced to respond: "I combat anarchy because the word and the thing that it represents are the synonyms of dissolution. Anarchy spells individualism, and individualism is the basis of the existing society that we desire to destroy.... Let us suppose, for example, a strike. Can one hope to triumph with an anarchist organization? Under this régime each one, being able to do what he pleases, can, according to his will, work or not work. The general interest will be sacrificed to individual caprice. The veritable application of the anarchist principle would be the dissolution of the International, and this congress has precisely an opposite end, which is to reorganize the International. One should not confound authority and organization. We are not authoritarians, but we must be organizers. Far from approving anarchy, which is the present social state, we ought to combat it by the creation of a central commission and by the organization of collectivism. Anarchy is the law of death; collectivism, that of life."(4)This was, as Hales soon discovered, the very essence of heresy, and, when the vote was taken, he was overwhelmed by those opposed to any centralized organization.

The anarchists were not, however, content merely with having no central council, and they began to discuss whether or not the various federations should vote upon questions of principle. The commission that was dealing with the revision of the by-laws recommended that views should be harmonized by discussion and that any decisions made by the congress should be enforced only among those federations which accepted its decisions. Costa of Italy approved of these ideas. "For that which concerns theory, we can only discuss and seek topersuade each other, ... but we cannot enforce, for example, ... a certain political program."(5)Brousse vigorously opposed the process of voting in any form. It appeared to him that the true means of action was to obtain the opinion of everyone. "The vote," he declared, "simply divides an assembly into a majority and a minority.... The only truly practical means of obtaining a consensus of opinions is to have them placed in the minutes without voting."(6)That view seemed to prevail, and the amendment to this question suggested by Hales of England wasvoted down by the majority!

These two decisions of the congress will convey an idea of the anarchist conception of organization. There was to be no executive or administrative body. Nor were the decisions of the congress to have any authority. Anybody could join, believing anything he liked and doing anything he liked. Only those federations which voluntarily accepted the decisions of the congress were expected to obey them. Matters of principle were in no-wise to be voted upon, and each individual was allowed to accept or reject them according to his wishes. The actual rules, adopted unanimously, ran as follows: "Federations and sections, composing the Association, will conserve their complete autonomy, that is to say, the right to organize themselves according to their will, to administer their own affairs without any exterior interference, and to determine themselves the path they wish to follow in order to arrive at the emancipation of labor."(7)

It was fully expected that, in addition to its work of reorganization, if we may so speak of it, the congress would definitely devise some method, other than a political one, for the emancipation of labor. The generalstrike had been put down upon the agenda for discussion. In the report of the Jura section it was declared: "If the workers affiliated with the Association could fix a certain day for the general strike, not only to obtain a reduction of hours and a diminution[V]of wages, but also to find the means of living in the coöperative workshops, by groups and by colonies, we could not decline to lend them our assistance, and we would make appeal to the members of all nations to lend them both moral and material aid."(8)Unfortunately, the congress had little time to discuss this part of its program. In theCompte-Rendu Officielthere is no report of whatever discussion took place. But Guillaume, in hisDocuments et Souvenirs, gives us a brief account of what occurred. After two resolutions had been put on the subject they were withdrawn because of opposition, and finally Guillaume introduced the following:

"Whereas partial strikes can only procure for the workers momentary and illusory relief, and whereas, by their very nature, wages will always be limited to the strictly necessary means of subsistence in order to keep the worker from dying of hunger,

"The Congress, without believing in the possibility of completely renouncing partial strikes, recommends the workers to devote their efforts to achieving an international organization of trade bodies, which will enable them to undertake some day a general strike, the only really efficacious strike to realize the complete emancipation of labor."(9)All the delegates approved the resolution, excepting Hales, who voted against it, and Van den Abeele, who abstained from voting because the matter would be later discussed in Holland.

It was of course inevitable that such an "organization" should soon disappear. Vigorous efforts were made by a few of the devoted to keep the movement alive, but it is easy to see that an aggregation so loosely united, and without any really definite purpose, was destined to dissolution. During the next few years various small congresses were held, but they were merely beating a corpse in the effort to keep it alive. And, while the Bakouninists were engaged in this critical struggle with death, the spirit that had animated all their battles with Marx withdrew himself. Bakounin was tired and discouraged, and he left his friends of the Jura without advice or assistance in their now impossible task. Thus precipitately ended the efforts of the anarchists to build up a new International. George Plechanoff illuminates the insolvable problem of the anarchists with his powerful statement: "Error has its logic as well as truth. Once you reject the political action of the working class, you are fatally driven—provided you do not wish to serve the bourgeois politicians—to accept the tactics of the Vaillants and the Henrys."(10)That this is terribly true is open to no question whatever. And the anarchists now found themselves in a veritablecul-de-sac. Like the poor in Sidney Lanier's poem, they were pressing

"Against an inward-opening doorThat pressure tightens evermore."

"Against an inward-opening door

That pressure tightens evermore."

The more they fretted and stormed and crushed each other, the more hopelessly impossible became the chance of egress. The more desperately they threw themselves against that door, the more securely they imprisoned themselves. It was the very logic of their tactics that they could not circumvent so small an obstacle as that inward-opening door. It meant self-destruction. Andthat, of course, was exactly what happened, as we know, to those who followed the vicious round of logic from which Bakounin could not extricate himself. Their struggle for an organized existence was brief, and at the end of the seventies it was entirely over.

Naturally, the complete failure of all their projects did not improve their temper, and they lost no opportunity to assail the Marxists. The JuraBulletinof December 10, 1876, translated an article entitledPoco à Poco, written by Andrea Costa, who labeled the "pacific" socialists "apostles of conciliation and ambiguity." They wish, said Costa, to march slowly on the road of progress. "Otherwise, indeed, what would become of them and their newspapers? For them the field of fruitful study and of profound observations on the phenomena of industrial life would be closed. For the journalists the means of earning money would have likewise disappeared.... Finding the satisfaction of their own aspirations in the present state of misery, they end by becoming, often without wishing it, profoundly egotistic and bad.... While calling themselves socialists, they are more dangerous than the declared enemies of the popular cause."(11)About this time a new journal appeared at Florence under the name ofl'Anarchiaand announced the following program: "We are notarmchair (Katheder) socialists. We will speak a simple language in order that the proletariat may understand once for all what road it must follow in order to arrive at its complete emancipation.L'Anarchiawill fight without truce not only the exploiting bourgeoisie, but alsothe new charlatans of socialism, for the latter are the most dangerous enemies of the working class."(12)

The following year Kropotkin wrote two articles in theBulletin, July 22 and 29, which vigorously attackedsocialist parliamentary tactics. "At what price does one succeed in leading the people to the ballot boxes?" he asks in the first article. "Have the frankness to acknowledge, gentlemen politicians, that it is by inculcating this illusion, that in sending members to parliament the people will succeed in freeing themselves and in bettering their lot, that is to say, by telling them what one knows to be an absolute lie. It is certainly not for the pleasure of getting their education that the German people give their pennies for parliamentary agitation. It is because, from hearing it repeated each day by hundreds of 'agitators,' they come to believe that truly by this method they will be able to realize, in part at least, if not completely, their hopes. Acknowledge it for once, politicians of to-day, formerly socialists, that we may say aloud what you think in silence: 'You are liars!' Yes, liars, I insist upon the word, since you lie to the people when you tell them that they will better their lot by sending you to parliament. You lie, for you yourselves, but a few years since, have maintained absolutely the contrary."(13)

What infuriated the anarchists was the amazing growth of the socialist political parties. It was only after The Hague congress that the socialist movement was in reality free to begin its actual work. With ideas diametrically opposed to those of the anarchists, the socialists set out to build up their national movements by uniting the various elements in the labor world. There were now devoted disciples of Marx in every country of Europe, and in the next few years, in France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Germany, the foundations were laid for the great national movements that exist to-day. In France, Jules Guesde, Paul Lafargue, and Gabriel Deville launched a socialist labor party in1878. A Danish socialist labor party was formed the same year by an agreement with the trade unions. In the early eighties the Social-Democratic Federation was founded in England, and in 1881 a congress of various groups of radicals, socialists, and republicans launched a political movement in Italy. In Germany the socialists had already built up a great political organization. This had been done directly under the guidance of Marx and Engels through Liebknecht and Bebel. Marx's ideas were there perfectly worked out, and nothing so much as that living, growing thing incensed the anarchists. Indeed, they seemed to be convinced that there was more of menace to the working class in these growing organizations of the socialists than in the power of the bourgeoisie itself.

The controversial literature of this period is not pleasant reading. The socialists and anarchists were literally at each other's throats, and the spirit of malignity that actuated many of their assaults upon each other is revolting to those of to-day who cannot appreciate the intensity of this battle for the preservation of their most cherished ideas. And in all this period the socialist and labor movement was overrun withagents provocateurs, and every variety of paid police agents sent to disrupt and destroy these organizations. And, as has always been the case, these "reptiles," as they were called, were advocating among the masses those deeds which the chief anarchists were proclaiming as revolutionary methods. Riots, insurrections, dynamite outrages, the shooting of individuals, and all forms of violence were being preached to the poor and hungry men who made up the mass of the labor movement. Under the guise of anarchists, these "reptiles" were often looked upon as heroic figures, and everywhere, even when they did notsucceed in winning the confidence of the masses, they were able to awaken suspicion and distrust that demoralized the movement. The socialists were assailed as traitors to the cause of labor, because they were preaching peaceable methods. They were accused of alliances with other parties, because they sought to elect men to parliament. They were denounced as in league with the Government and even the police, because they disapproved of dynamite.

On the other hand, the socialists were equally bitter in their attacks upon the anarchists. They denounced their methods as suicidal and the Propaganda of the Deed as utter madness. InLa Période Tragique, when Duval, Decamps, Ravachol, and the other anarchists in France were committing the most astounding crimes, Jules Guesde and other socialist leaders condemned these outrages and protested against being associated in the public mind with those who advocated theft and murder as a method of propaganda. Indeed, the anarchists in the late seventies and in the eighties lost many who had been formerly friendly to them. Guesde and Plechanoff, both of whom had been influenced in their early days by the Bakouninists, had broken with them completely. Later Paul Brousse and Andrea Costa left them. And, in fact, the anarchists were now incapable of any effective action or even education. Without committees, executives, laws, votes, or chairmen, they could not undertake any work which depended on organized effort, and, except as they managed from time to time to gain a prominent position in some labor or radical organization built up by others, they had no influence over any large body of people. They were fighting desperately to prevent extinction, and in their struggle a number of extraordinarily brilliant and daring characters came to thefront. But during the next decade their tragic desperation, instead of advancing anarchism, served only to strengthen the reactionary elements of Europe in their effort to annihilate the now formidable labor and socialist movements.

Turning now to the struggle for existence of the socialist parties of the various countries, there is one story that is far too important in the history of socialism to be passed over. It was a magnificent battle against the terrorists above and the terrorists below, that ended in complete victory for the socialists. Strangely enough, the greatest provocation to violence that has ever confronted the labor movement and the greatest opportunity that was ever offered to anarchy occurred in precisely that country where it was least expected. Nowhere else in all Europe had socialism made such advances as in Germany; and nowhere else was the movement so well organized, so intelligently led, or so clear as to its aims and methods. An immense agitation had gone on during the entire sixties, and working-class organizations were springing up everywhere. Besides possessing the greatest theorists of socialism, Marx and Engels, the German movement was rich indeed in having in its service three such matchless agitators as Lassalle, Bebel, and Liebknecht. Lassalle certainly had no peer, and those who have written of him exhaust superlatives in their efforts to describe this prodigy. He, also, was a product of that hero-producing period of '48. He had been arrested in Düsseldorf at the same time that Marx and his circle had been arrested at Cologne. He was then only twenty-three years of age. Yet his defense of his actions in court is said to have been a masterpiece. Even the critic George Brandes has spoken of it as the mostwonderful example of manly courage and eloquence in a youth that the history of the world has given us.

Precocious as a child, proud and haughty as a youth, gifted with a critical, penetrating, and brilliant mind, and moved by an ambition that knew no bounds, Lassalle, with all his powerful passion and dramatic talents, could not have been other than a great figure. When a man possesses qualities that call forth the wonder of Heine, Humboldt, Bismarck, and Brandes, when Bakounin calls him a "giant," and even George Meredith turns to him as a personality almost unequaled in fiction and makes a novel out of his career, the plain ordinary world may gain some conception of this "father of the German labor movement." This is no place to deal with certain deplorable and contradictory phases of his life nor even with some of his mad dreams that led Bismarck, after saying that "he was one of the most intellectual and gifted men with whom I have ever had intercourse, ..." to add "and it was perhaps a matter of doubt to him whether the German Empire would close with the Hohenzollern dynasty or the Lassalle dynasty."(14)Such was the proud, unruly, ambitious spirit of the man, who, in 1862, came actively to voice the claims of labor.

Setting out to regenerate society and appealing directly to the working classes, Lassalle lashed them with scorn. "You German workingmen are curious people," he said. "French and English workingmen have to be shown how their miserable condition may be improved; but you have first to be shown that youarein a miserable condition. So long as you have a piece of bad sausage and a glass of beer, you do not notice that you want anything. That is a result of your accursed absence of needs. What, you will say, is this, then, a virtue? Yes, in the eyes of the Christian preacher of morality it iscertainly a virtue. Absence of needs is the virtue of the Indian pillar saint and of the Christian monk, but in the eyes of the student of history and the political economist it is quite a different matter. Ask all political economists what is the greatest misfortune for a nation? The absence of wants. For these are the spurs of its development and of civilization. The Neapolitan lazaroni are so far behind in civilization, because they have no wants, because they stretch themselves out contentedly and warm themselves in the sun when they have secured a handful of macaroni. Why is the Russian Cossack so backward in civilization? Because he eats tallow candles and is happy when he can fuddle himself on bad liquor. To have as many needs as possible, but to satisfy them in an honorable and respectable way, that is the virtue of the present, of the economic age! And, so long as you do not understand and follow that truth, I shall preach in vain."(15)Other nations may be slaves, he added, recalling the words of Ludwig Börne; they may be put in chains and be held down by force, but the Germans are flunkies—it is not necessary to lay chains on them—they may be allowed to wander free about the house. Yet, while thus shaming the working classes, he pleaded their cause as no other one has pleaded it, and, after humiliating them, he held them spellbound, as he traced the great rôle the working classes were destined to play in the regeneration of all society.

The socialism of Lassalle had much in common with that of Louis Blanc, and his theory of coöperative enterprises subsidized by the State was almost identical. Chiefly toward this end he sought to promote working-class organization, although he also believed that the working classes would eventually gain control of the entire State and, through it, reorganize production. Heagitated for universal suffrage and even plotted with Bismarck to obtain it. He was confident that an industrial revolution was inevitable. The change "will either come in complete legality," he said, "and with all the blessings of peace—if people are only wise enough to resolve that it shall be introduced in time and from above—or it will one day break in amid all the convulsions of violence, with wild, flowing hair, and iron sandals upon its feet. In one way or the other it will come at all events, and when, shutting myself from the noise of the day, I lose myself in history—then I hear its tread. But do you not see, then, that, in spite of this difference in what we believe, our endeavors go hand in hand? You do not believe in revolution, and therefore you want to prevent it. Good, do that which is your duty. But I do believe in revolution, and, because I believe in it, I wish, not to precipitate it—for I have already told you that according to my view of history the efforts of a tribune are in this respect necessarily as impotent as the breath of my mouth would be to unfetter the storm upon the sea—but in case it should come, and from below, I will humanize it, civilize it beforehand."(16)Thus Lassalle saw that "to wish to make a revolution is the foolishness of immature men who have no knowledge of the laws of history."(17)Yet he stated also that, if a revolution is imminent, it is equally childish for the powerful to think they can stem it. "Revolution is an overturning, and a revolution always takes place—whether it be with or without force is a matter of no importance ... when an entirely new principle is introduced in the place of the existing order. Reform, on the other hand, takes place when the principle of the existing order is retained, but is developed to more liberal or more consequent and just conclusions.Here, again, the question of means is of no importance. A reform may be effected by insurrection and bloodshed, and a revolution may take place in the deepest peace."(18)

Through the agitation of Lassalle, the Universal German Working Men's Association was organized, and it was his work for that body that won him fame as the founder of the German labor movement. Not a laborer himself, nor indeed speaking to them as one of themselves, he led a life that would probably have ended disastrously, even to the cause itself, had it not been for his dramatic ending through the love affair and the duel. Fate was kind to Lassalle in that he lived only so long as his influence served the cause of the workers, and in that death took him before life shattered another idol of the masses. "One of two things," said Lassalle once before his judges. "Either let us drink Cyprian wine and kiss beautiful maidens—in other words, indulge in the most common selfishness of pleasure—or, if we are to speak of the State and morality, let us dedicate all our powers to the improvement of the dark lot of the vast majority of mankind, out of whose night-covered floods we, the propertied class, only rise like solitary pillars, as if to show how dark are those floods, how deep is their abyss."(19)With such marvelous pictures as this Lassalle created a revolution in the thought and even in the action of the working classes of Germany. At times he drank Cyprian wines, and what might have happened had he lived no one can tell. But he was indeed at the time a "solitary pillar," rising out of "night-covered floods," a heroic figure, who is even to-day an unforgettable memory.

Bebel and Liebknecht appeared in the German movement as influential figures only after the disappearanceof Lassalle. And, while the labor movement was already launched, it was in a deplorable condition when these two began their great work of uniting the toilers and organizing a political party. One of the first difficult tasks placed before them was to root out of the labor movement the corruption which Bismarck had introduced into it. That great and rising statesman was a practical politician not excelled even in America. In the most cold-blooded manner he sought to buy men and movements. For various reasons of his own he wanted the support of the working-class; and, as early as 1864, he employed Lothar Bucher, an old revolutionist who had been intimately associated with Marx. Possessed of remarkable intellectual gifts and an easy conscience, Bucher was of invaluable service to Bismarck, both in his knowledge of the inside workings of the labor and socialist movement and as a go-between when the Iron Chancellor had any dealings with the socialists. Through Bucher, Bismarck tried to bribe even Marx, and offered him a position on the Government official newspaper, theStaats Anzeiger. Bucher was also an intimate friend of Lassalle's, and it was doubtless through him that Bismarck arranged his secret conferences with Lassalle. The latter left no account of their relations, and it is difficult now to know how intimate they were or who first sought to establish them. About all that is known is what Bismarck himself said in the Reichstag when Bebel forced him to admit that he had conferred frequently with Lassalle: "Lassalle himself wanted urgently to enter into negotiations with me."(20)It is known that Lassalle sent to the Chancellor numerous communications, and that one of his letters to the secretary of the Universal Association reads, "The things sent to Bismarck should go in an envelope" marked"Personal."(21)Liebknecht later exposed August Brass as in the employ of Bismarck, although he was a "red republican," who had started a journal and had obtained Liebknecht's coöperation. Furthermore, when he was tried for high treason in 1872, Liebknecht declared that Bismarck's agents had tried to buy him. "Bismarck takes not only money, but also men, where he finds them. It does not matter to what party a man belongs. That is immaterial to him. He even prefers renegades, for a renegade is a man without honor and, consequently, an instrument without will power—as if dead—in the hands of the master."(22)"I do not need to say ... that I repelled Bismarck's offers of corruption with the scorn which they merited," Liebknecht continues. "If I had not done so, if I had been infamous enough to sacrifice my principles to my personal interest, I would be in a brilliant position, instead of on the bench of the accused where I have been sent by those who, years ago, tried in vain to buy me."(23)As early as 1865 Marx and Engels had to withdraw from their collaboration with Von Schweitzer in his journal, theSozialdemokrat, because it was suspected that he had sold out to Bismarck. This was followed by Bebel's and Liebknecht's war on Von Schweitzer because of his relations to Bismarck. Von Schweitzer, as the successor of Lassalle at the head of the Universal Working Men's Association, occupied a powerful position, and the quarrels between the various elements in the labor movement were at this time almost fatal to the cause. However, various representatives of the working class already sat in Parliament, and among them were Bebel and Liebknecht.

The exposures of Liebknecht and Bebel proved not only ruinous to Von Schweitzer, but excessively annoying to Bismarck, and as early as 1871 he wanted to begin awar upon the Marxian socialists. In 1874 he actually began his attempts to crush what he could no longer corrupt or control. He became more and more enraged at the attitude of the socialists toward him personally. Moreover, they were no longer advocating coöperative associations subsidized by the State; they were now propagating everywhere republican and socialist ideas. He tried in various ways to rid the country of the two chief malcontents, Bebel and Liebknecht, but even their arrests seemed only to add to their fame and to spread more throughout the masses their revolutionary views. He says himself that he was awakened to the iniquity of their doctrines when they defended the republican principles of the Paris workmen in 1871. At his trial in 1872 Liebknecht stated with perfect frankness his republican principles. "Gentlemen Judges and Jurors, I do not disown my past, my principles, and my convictions. I deny nothing; I conceal nothing. And, in order to show that I am an adversary of monarchy and of present society, and that when duty calls me I do not recoil before the struggle, there was truly no need of the foolish inventions of the policemen of Giessen. I say here freely and openly:Since I have been capable of thinking I have been a republican, and I shall die a republican.(24)... If I have had to undergo unheard of persecutions and if I am poor, that is nothing to be ashamed of—no, I am proud of it, for that is the most eloquent witness of my political integrity. Yet, once more, I am not a conspirator by profession.Call me, if you will, a soldier of the Revolution—I do not object to that.

"From my youth a double ideal has soared above me: Germany free and united and the emancipation of the working people, that is to say, the suppression of classdomination, which is synonymous with the liberation of humanity. For this double end I have struggled with all my strength, and for this double end I will struggle as long as a breath of life remains in me. Duty wills it!"(25)

Such doctrines must of course be suppressed, and the exposure of those who had relations with Bismarck made it impossible for him longer to deal even with a section of the labor movement. The result was that persecutions were begun on both the Lassalleans and the Marxists. And it was largely this new policy of repression that forced the warring labor groups in 1875 to meet in conference at Gotha and to unite in one organization. In the following election, 1877, the united party polled nearly five hundred thousand votes, or about ten per cent. of all the votes cast in Germany. It now had twelve members in the Reichstag, and Bismarck saw very clearly that a force was rising in Germany that threatened not only him but his beloved Hohenzollern dynasty itself.

For years most of its opponents comforted themselves with the belief that socialism was merely a temporary disturbance which, if left alone, would run its course and eventually die out. Again and again its militant enemies had discussed undertaking measures against it, but the wiser heads prevailed until 1877, when the socialists polled a great vote. And, of course, when it was once decided that socialism must be stamped out, a really good pretext was soon found upon which repressive measures might be taken. I have already mentioned that on May 11, 1878, Emperor William was shot at by Hödel. It was, of course, natural that the reactionaries should make the most possible of this act of the would-be assassin, and, when photographs of several prominentsocialists were found on his person, a great clamor arose for a coercive law to destroy the social democrats. The question was immediately discussed in the Reichstag, but the moderate forces prevailed, and the bill was rejected. Hardly, however, had the discussion ended before a second attempt was made on the life of the aged sovereign. This time it was Dr. Karl Nobiling who, on June 2, 1878, fired at the Emperor from an upper window in the main street of Berlin. In this case, the Emperor was severely wounded, and, in the panic that ensued, even the moderate elements agreed that social democracy must be suppressed. Various suggestions were made. Some proposed the blacklisting of all workmen who avowed socialist principles, while others suggested that all socialists should be expelled from the country. To exile half a million voters was, however, a rather large undertaking, and, in any case, Bismarck had his own plans. First he precipitated a general election, giving the socialists no time to prepare their campaign. As a result, their members in the Reichstag were diminished in number, and their vote throughout the country decreased by over fifty thousand. When the Reichstag again assembled, Bismarck laid before it his bill against "the publicly dangerous endeavors of social-democracy." The statement accompanying the bill sought to justify its repressive measures by citing in the preamble the two attempts made upon the Emperor, and by stating the conviction of the Federal Government that extraordinary measures must be taken. A battle royal occurred in the Reichstag between Bismarck on the one side and Bebel and Liebknecht on the other. Nevertheless, the bill became a law in October of that year.

The anti-socialist law was intended to cut off every legal and peaceable means of advancing the socialistcause. It was determined that the German social democrats must be put mentally, morally, and physically upon the rack. Even the briefest summary of the provisions of the anti-socialist law will illustrate how determined the reactionaries were to annihilate utterly the socialist movement. The chief measures were as follows:

I. Prohibitory

1. The formation or existence of organizations which sought by social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic movements to subvert the present State and social order was prohibited. The prohibition was also extended to organizations exhibiting tendencies which threatened to endanger the public peace and amity between classes.2. The right of assembly was greatly restricted. All meetings in which social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic tendencies came to light were to be dissolved. Public festivities and processions were regarded as meetings.3. Social-democratic, socialistic, and communistic publications of all kinds were to be interdicted, the local police dealing with home publications and the Chancellor with foreign ones.4. Stocks of prohibited works were to be confiscated, and the type, stones, or other apparatus used for printing might be likewise seized, and, on the interdict being confirmed, be made unusable.5. The collection of money in behalf of social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic movements was forbidden, as were public appeals for help.

2. The right of assembly was greatly restricted. All meetings in which social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic tendencies came to light were to be dissolved. Public festivities and processions were regarded as meetings.

3. Social-democratic, socialistic, and communistic publications of all kinds were to be interdicted, the local police dealing with home publications and the Chancellor with foreign ones.

4. Stocks of prohibited works were to be confiscated, and the type, stones, or other apparatus used for printing might be likewise seized, and, on the interdict being confirmed, be made unusable.

5. The collection of money in behalf of social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic movements was forbidden, as were public appeals for help.

II. Penal

1. Any person associating himself as member or otherwise with a prohibited organization was liableto a fine of 500 marks or three months' imprisonment, and a similar penalty was incurred by anyone who gave a prohibited association or meeting a place of assembly.2. The circulation or printing of a prohibited publication entailed a fine not exceeding one thousand marks or imprisonment up to six months.3. Convicted agitators might be expelled from a certain locality or from a governmental district, and foreigners be expelled from federal territory.4. Innkeepers, printers, booksellers, and owners of lending libraries and reading rooms who circulated interdicted publications might, besides being imprisoned, be deprived of their vocations.5. Persons who were known to be active socialists, or who had been convicted under this law, might be refused permission publicly to circulate or sell publications, and any violation of the provision against the circulation of socialistic literature in inns, shops, libraries, and newsrooms was punishable with a fine of one thousand marks or imprisonment for six months.

2. The circulation or printing of a prohibited publication entailed a fine not exceeding one thousand marks or imprisonment up to six months.

3. Convicted agitators might be expelled from a certain locality or from a governmental district, and foreigners be expelled from federal territory.

4. Innkeepers, printers, booksellers, and owners of lending libraries and reading rooms who circulated interdicted publications might, besides being imprisoned, be deprived of their vocations.

5. Persons who were known to be active socialists, or who had been convicted under this law, might be refused permission publicly to circulate or sell publications, and any violation of the provision against the circulation of socialistic literature in inns, shops, libraries, and newsrooms was punishable with a fine of one thousand marks or imprisonment for six months.

III. Power conferred upon authorities.

1. Meetings may only take place with the previous sanction of the police, but this restriction does not extend to meetings held in connection with elections to the Reichstag or the Diets.2. The circulation of publications may not take place without permission in public roads, streets, squares, or other public places.3. Persons from whom danger to the public security or order is apprehended may be refused residence in a locality or governmental district.4. The possession, carrying, introduction, and sale of weapons within the area affected are forbidden, restricted, or made dependent on certain conditions. All ordinances issued on the strength of this section were to be notified at once to the Reichstag and to be published in the officialGazette.(26)

1. Meetings may only take place with the previous sanction of the police, but this restriction does not extend to meetings held in connection with elections to the Reichstag or the Diets.

2. The circulation of publications may not take place without permission in public roads, streets, squares, or other public places.

3. Persons from whom danger to the public security or order is apprehended may be refused residence in a locality or governmental district.

4. The possession, carrying, introduction, and sale of weapons within the area affected are forbidden, restricted, or made dependent on certain conditions. All ordinances issued on the strength of this section were to be notified at once to the Reichstag and to be published in the officialGazette.(26)

When this law went into effect, the outlook for the labor movement seemed utterly black and hopeless. Every path seemed closed to it except that of violence. Immediately many places in Germany were put under martial law. Societies were dissolved, newspapers suppressed, printing establishments confiscated, and in a short time fifty agitators had been expelled from Berlin alone. A reign of official tyranny and police persecution was established, and even the employers undertook to impoverish and to blacklist men who were thought to hold socialist views. Within a few weeks every society, periodical, and agitator disappeared, and not a thing seemed left of the great movement of half a million men that had existed a few weeks before. There have been many similar situations that have faced the socialist and labor movements of other countries. England and France had undergone similar trials. Even to-day in America we find, at certain times and in certain places, a situation altogether similar. In Colorado during the recent labor wars and in West Virginia during the early months of 1913 every tyranny that existed in Germany in 1879 was repeated here. Infested with spies seeking to encourage violence, brutally maltreated by the officials of order, their property confiscated by the military, masses thrown into prison and other masses exiled, even the right of assemblage and of free speech denied them—these are the exactly similar conditions which haveexisted in all countries when efforts have been made to crush the labor movement.

And in all countries where such conditions exist certain minds immediately clamor for what is called "action." They want to answer violence with violence; they want to respond to the terrorism of the Government with a terrorism of their own. And in Germany at this time there were a number who argued that, as they were in fact outlaws, why should they not adopt the tactics of outlaws? Should men peaceably and quietly submit to every insult and every form of tyranny—to be thrown in jail for speaking the dictates of their conscience and even to be hung for preaching to their comrades the necessity of a nobler and better social order? If Bismarck and his police forces have the power to outlaw us, have we not the right to exercise the tactics of outlaws? "All measures," cried Most from London, "are legitimate against tyrants;"(27)while Hasselmann, his friend, advised an immediate insurrection, which, even though it should fail, would be good propaganda. It was inevitable that in the early moments of despair some of the German workers should have listened gladly to such proposals. And, indeed, it may seem somewhat of a miracle that any large number of the German workers should have been willing to have listened to any other means of action. What indeed else was there to do?

It is too long a story to go into the discussions over this question. Perhaps a principle of Bebel's gives the clearest explanation of the thought which eventually decided the tactics of the socialists. Bebel has said many times that he always considered it wise in politics to find out what his opponent wanted him to do, and then not to do it. And, to the minds of Bebel, Liebknecht, and others of the more clear-headed leaders, there was nodoubt whatever that Bismarck was trying to force the socialists to commit crimes and outrages. Again and again Bismarck's press declared: "What is most necessary is to provoke the social-democrats to commit acts of despair, to draw them into the open street, and there to shoot them down."(28)Well, if this was actually what Bismarck wanted, he failed utterly, because, as a matter of fact, and despite every provocation, no considerable section of the socialist party wavered in the slightest from its determination to carry on its work. There was a moment toward the end of '79 when the situation seemed to be getting out of hand, and a secret conference was held the next year at Wyden in Switzerland to determine the policies of the party. In the report published by the congress no names were given, as it was, of course, necessary to maintain complete secrecy. However, it seemed clear to the delegates that, if they resorted to terrorist methods, they would be destroyed as the Russians, the French, the Spanish, and the Italians had been when similar conditions confronted them. In view of the present state of their organization, violence, after all, could be merely a phrase, as they were not fitted in strength or in numbers to combat Bismarck. One of the delegates considered that Johann Most had exercised an evil influence on many, and he urged that all enlightened German socialists turn away from such men. "Between the people of violence and the true revolutionists there will always be dissension."(29)Another speaker maintained that Most could be no more considered a socialist. He is at best a Blanquist and, indeed, one in the worst sense of the word, who had no other aim than to pursue the bungling work of a revolution. It is, therefore, necessary that the congress should declare itself decidedly against Most and should expel himfrom the party.(30)The word "revolution" has been misunderstood, and the socialist members of the Reichstag have been reproved because they are not revolutionary. As a matter of fact, every socialist is a revolutionist, but one must not understand by revolution the expression of violence. The tactics of desperation, as the Nihilists practice them, do not serve the purpose of Germany.(31)As a result of the Wyden congress, Most and Hasselmann were ejected from the party, and the tactics of Bebel and Liebknecht were adopted.

After 1880 there developed an underground socialist movement that was most baffling and disconcerting to the police. Socialist papers, printed in other countries, were being circulated by the thousands in all parts of Germany. Funds were being raised in some mysterious manner to support a large body of trusted men in all parts of the country who were devoting all their time to secret organization and to the carrying on of propaganda. The socialist organizations, which had been broken up, seemed somehow or other to maintain their relations. And, despite all that could be done by the authorities, socialist agitation seemed to be going on even more successfully than ever before. There was one loophole which Bismarck had not been able to close, and this of course was developed to the extreme by the socialists. Private citizens could not say what they pleased, nor was it allowed to newspapers to print anything on socialist lines. Nevertheless, parliamentary speeches were privileged matter, and they could be sent anywhere and be published anywhere. Bismarck of course tried to suppress even this form of propaganda, and two of the deputies were arrested on the ground that they were violating the new law. However, the Reichstag could not be induced to sanction this interference with the freedomof deputies. Bismarck then introduced a bill into the Reichstag asking for power to punish any member who abused his parliamentary position. There was to be a court established consisting of thirteen deputies, and this was to have power to punish refractory delegates by censuring them, by obliging them to apologize to the House, and by excluding them from the House. It was also proposed that the Reichstag should in certain instances prevent the publicity of its proceedings. This bill of Bismarck's aroused immense opposition. It was called "the Muzzle Bill," and, despite all his efforts, it was defeated.

The anti-socialist law had been passed as an exceptional measure, and it was fully expected that at the end of two years there would be nothing left of the socialists in Germany. But, when the moment came for the law to expire, Emperor Alexander II. of Russia was assassinated by Nihilists. The German Emperor wrote to the Chancellor urging him to do his utmost to persuade the governments of Europe to combine against the forces of anarchy and destruction. Prince Bismarck immediately opened up negotiations with Russia, Austria, France, Switzerland, and England. The Russian Government, being asked to take the initiative, invited the powers to a council at Brussels. As England did not accept the invitation, France and Switzerland also declined. Austria later withdrew her acceptance, with the result that Germany and Russia concluded an extradition and dynamite treaty for themselves, while on March 31, 1881, the anti-socialist law was reënacted for another period. In 1882 the Niederwald plot against the Imperial family was discovered. Various arrests were made, and three men avowedly anarchists were sentenced to death in December, 1884. In 1885 a high police official at Frankfort was murdered, and an anarchist named Lieske wasexecuted as an accomplice. These terrorist acts materially aided Bismarck in his warfare on the social democrats. Again and again large towns were put in a minor state of siege, with the military practically in control. Meetings were dispersed, suspected papers suppressed, and all tyranny that can be conceived of exercised upon all those suspected of sympathy with the socialists. Yet everyone had to admit that the socialists had not been checked. Not only did their organization still exist, but it was all the time carrying on a vigorous agitation, both by meetings and by the circulation of literature. Papers printed abroad were being smuggled into the country in great quantities; socialist literature was even being introduced into the garrisons; and there seemed to be no dealing with associations, because no more was one dissolved than two arose to take its place.

Von Puttkamer himself reported to the Reichstag in 1882, "It is undoubted that it has not been possible by means of the law of October, 1878, to wipe social-democracy from the face of the earth or even to shake it to the center."(32)Indeed, Liebknecht was bold enough to say in 1884: "You have not succeeded in destroying our organization, and I am convinced that you will never succeed. I believe, indeed, it would be the greatest misfortune for you if you did succeed. The anarchists, who are now carrying on their work in Austria, have no footing in Germany—and why? Because in Germany the mad plans of those men are wrecked on the compact organization of social-democracy, because the German proletariat, in view of the fruitlessness of your socialist law, has not abandoned hope of attaining its ends peacefully by means of socialistic propaganda and agitation. If—and I have said this before—if your law were notpro nihilo, it would bepro nihilismo. If the Germanproletariat no longer believed in the efficacy of our present tactics; if we found that we could no longer maintain intact the organization and cohesion of the party, what would happen? We should simply declare—we have no more to do with the guidance of the party; we can no longer be responsible. The men in power do not wish that the party should continue to exist; it is hoped to destroy us—well, no party allows itself to be destroyed, for there is above all things the law of self-defense, of self-preservation, and, if the organized direction fails, you will have a condition of anarchy, in which everything is left to the individual. And do you really believe—you who have so often praised the bravery of the Germans up to the heavens, when it has been to your interest to do so—do you really believe that the hundreds of thousands of German social-democrats are cowards? Do you believe that what has happened in Russia would not be possible in Germany if you succeeded in bringing about here the conditions which exist there?"(33)Both Bebel and Liebknecht taunted the Chancellor with his failure to drive the socialists to commit acts of violence. "The Government may be sure," said Liebknecht in 1886, "that we shall not, now or ever, go upon the bird-lime, that we shall never be such fools as to play the game of our enemies by attempts ... the more madly you carry on, the sooner you will come to the end; the pitcher goes to the well until it breaks."(34)

At the end of this year the reports given from the several states of the working out of the anti-socialist law were most discouraging to the Chancellor. From everywhere the report came that agitation was unintermittent, and being carried on with zeal and success. And Bebel said publicly that nowhere was the socialist party more numerous or better organized than in the districtswhere the minor state of siege had been proclaimed. The year 1886 was a sensational one. Nine of the socialists, including Bebel, Dietz, Auer, Von Vollmar, Frohme—all deputies—were charged with taking part in a secret and illegal organization. All the accused were sentenced to imprisonment for six or nine months, Bebel and his parliamentary associates receiving the heavier penalty. The Reichstag asked for reports upon the working of the law. Again the discouraging news came that the movement seemed to be growing faster than ever before.

The crushing by repressive measures did not, however, exhaust Bismarck's plans for annihilating the socialists. At the same time he outlined an extraordinary program for winning the support of the working classes. Early in the eighties he proposed his great scheme of social legislation, intended to improve radically the lot of the toilers. Compulsory insurance against accident, illness, invalidity, and old age was instituted as a measure for giving more security in life to the working classes. Insurance against unemployment was also proposed, and Bismarck declared that the State should guarantee to the toilers the right to work. This began an era of immense social reforms that actually wiped out some of the worst slums in the great industrial centers, replaced them with large and beautiful dwellings for the working classes, and made over entire cities. The discussions in the Reichstag now seemed to be largely concerned with the problem of the working classes and with devising plans to obliterate the influence of the socialists over the workers and to induce them once more to ally themselves to the monarchy and to theJunkers.

For some reason wholly mysterious to Bismarck, all his measures against the socialists failed. Every assaultmade upon them seemed to increase their power, while even the great reforms he was instituting seemed somehow to be credited to the agitation of the socialists. Instead of proving the good will of the ruling class, these reforms seemed only to prove its weakness; and they were looked upon generally as belated efforts to remedy old and grievous wrongs which, in fact, made necessary the protests of the socialists. The result was that tens of thousands of workingmen were flocking each year into the camp of the socialists, and at each election the socialist votes increased in a most dreadful and menacing manner. When the anti-socialist law was put into effect, the party polled under 450,000 votes. After twelve years of underground work as outlaws, the party polled 1,427,000 votes. Despite all the efforts of Bismarck and all the immense power of the Government, socialism, instead of being crushed, was 1,000,000 souls stronger after twelve years of suffering under tyranny than it was in the beginning. This of course would not do at all, and everyone saw it clearly enough except the Iron Chancellor. Infuriated by his own failure and unwilling to confess defeat, he pleaded once more, in 1890, for the reënactment of the anti-socialist law and, indeed, that it should be made a permanent part of the penal code of the Empire. He even sought further powers and asked the Reichstag to give him a law that would enable him to expel not only from districts proclaimed to be in a state of siege, but from Germany altogether, those who were known to hold socialist views. The Reichstag, however, refused to grant him either request, and on September 30, 1890, just twelve years after its birth, the anti-socialist law was repealed.

That night was a glorious one for the socialists, as well as a very dreadful one for Bismarck and thoseothers who had made prodigious but futile efforts to destroy socialism. Berlin was already a socialist stronghold, and its entire people that night came into the streets to sing songs of thanksgiving. Streets, parks, public places, cafés, theaters were filled with merrymakers, rejoicing with songs, with toasts to the leading socialists, and with boisterous welcomes to the exiles who were returning. All night long the red flag waved, and the Marseillaise was sung, as all that passion of love, enthusiasm, and devotion for a great cause, which, for twelve long years, had been brutally suppressed, burst forth in floods of joy. "He [Bismarck] has had at his entire disposal for more than a quarter of a century," said Liebknecht, "the police, the army, the capital, and the power of the State—in brief, all the means of mechanical force.We had only our just right, our firm conviction, our bared breasts to oppose him with, and it is we who have conquered! Our arms were the best. In the course of time brute power must yield to the moral factors, to the logic of things.Bismarck lies crushed to the earth—and social democracy is the strongest party in Germany!...The essence of revolution lies not in the means, but in the end. Violence has been, for thousands of years, a reactionary factor."(35)Certainly, the moral victory was immense. There had been a twelve-years-long torture of a great party, in which every man who was known to be sympathetic was looked upon as a criminal and an outlaw. Yet, despite every effort made to drive the socialists into outrages, they never wavered the slightest from their grim determination to depend solely upon peaceable methods. It is indeed marvelous that the German socialists should have stood the test and that, despite the most barbarous persecution, they should have been able to hold their forces together, to restrain theirnatural anger, and to keep their faith in the ultimate victory of peaceable, legal, and political methods. Prometheus, bound to his rock and tortured by all the furies of a malignant Jupiter, did not rise superior to his tormentor with more grandeur than did the social democracy of Germany.

Violence does indeed seem to be a reactionary force. The use of it by the anarchists against the existing régime seems to have deprived them of all sympathy and support. More and more they became isolated from even those in whose name they claimed to be fighting. So the violence of Bismarck, intended to uproot and destroy the deepest convictions of a great body of workingmen, deprived him and his circle of all popular sympathy and support. Year by year he became weaker, and the futility of his efforts made him increasingly bitter and violent. At last even those for whom he had been fighting had to put him aside. On the other hand, those he fought with his poisoned weapons became stronger and stronger, their spirit grew more and more buoyant, their confidence in success more and more certain. And, when at last the complete victory was won, it was heralded throughout the world, and from thousands of great meetings, held in nearly every civilized country, there came to the German social democracy telegrams and resolutions of congratulation. The mere fact that the Germany party polled a million and a half votes was in itself an inspiration to the workers of all lands, and in the elections which followed in France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and other countries the socialists vastly increased their votes and more firmly established their position as a parliamentary force. In 1892 France polled nearly half a million votes, little Belgium followed with three hundred and twenty thousand, whilein Denmark and Switzerland the strength of the socialists was quadrupled. Instead of a mere handful of theorists, the socialists were now numbered by the million. Their movement was world-wide, and the program of every political party in the various countries was based upon the principles laid down by Marx. The doctrines which he had advocated from '47 to '64, and fought desperately to retain throughout all the struggles with Bakounin, were now the foundation principles of the movement in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Britain, and even in other countries east and west of Europe.

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