Socialism and Democracy in Europe

by Samuel Peter Orth

In France and England we have seen Socialists take their places in the cabinet, to the chagrin of that portion of the Socialists who still regard social classes as natural enemies, and consider social co-operation among all the elements of society impossible.

In brief, Socialism has entered politics and has become mundane. You need a microscope to tell a Socialist from a Socialist-Radical in France, and a Laborite from a Radical-Liberal in England. Briand and Millerand may be voted out of the Socialist Party, and John Burns may be spurned by the I.L.P. But these men are teaching a double lesson: first, that there are no new ways to human betterment; second, that the old way is worth traveling, because it does lead to happier and easier conditions of toil. Socialists the world over will soon be compelled to realize that the political force which shrinks from the responsibility of daily political drudgery will never be a permanent factor in life. A political party that is afraid to assume the obligations of government for fear that it will lose its ideal, is too fragile for this world.

The Socialist Party wherever it exists is a labor party, with a labor program that is based on conditions which need to be remedied. Their practical demands as a rule are of such a nature that all of society would benefit by their enactment into law. The mystery has all gone out of the movement. It is not necromancy, it is plain parliamentary humdrum which you see. The threatened witchery is all words; the doing is intensely human, of the earth earthy.

The Socialist movement tends toward the latest phase of democracy, which is social democracy; the democracy that has ceased to toy with Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and the other tinsel abstractions of the bourgeois revolutions; the democracy that sees poverty and suffering increase as wealth and ease increase. It is the democracy of the human heart, that cares for the babe in the slums, the lad in the factory, the mother at the cradle, and the father in his old age. Against all these helpless ones society has sinned. And it is to a universal, sincere, social penance that the new democracy calls the rich, the powerful, and the comfortable.

Socialism is merging rapidly into this new democracy. In doing so it is abandoning its two great illusions. The first illusion is that the interests of the worker are somehow different from the interests of the rest of the community. Class war has been a resonant battle-cry, and has served its purpose. It is folly for any class to magnify its needs above those of the rest of society. Civilization and culture embrace the artisan and the artist, the poor and the powerful. Any class interest that clashes with the welfare of society as a whole cannot survive. Socialism is abandoning the tyranny of class war, is being mellowed by class co-operation. Socialists are now claiming that their interests are the interests of society. The social complexion of the party in the countries of its greatest advancement is an indication of this. Many of the party leaders are of middle-class origin. Some of them are rich. You call at their homes and servants open the door and receive your card on a silver tray. Multitudes of lawyers, physicians, journalists, and professors are in the movement. Dr. Frank of Mannheim, the leader of the Badensian Socialists, said to me that the degree to which Socialism can gain the support of the intellectual element is the measure of success of the movement. All this indicates that Socialism is breaking the bonds of self-limited class egoism. The peasant landowner, the small shopkeeper, the intellectualist, and occasionally a man or two of wealth and high social position are being drawn into this new democracy.

The question is now being seriously asked: Can there be a social co-operation? Must there always be industrial war? Von Vollmar, Millerand, Vandervelde, MacDonald proclaim the possibility of rational co-operation. MacDonald says: "The defense for democracy which is far and away the weightiest is that progress must spring, not from the generosity or enlightenment of a class, but from the common intelligence." "It must be pointed out that the labor legislation now being asked for is very much more than a sequel to that passed under the influence of Lord Shaftesbury. This differs from that as the working of the moral conscience differs from the motives of the first brute man who shaped his conduct under a contract of mutual defense with a friendly neighbor. To use the arm of the law to abolish crying evils, to put an end to an ever-present injustice, is one thing; to use that arm to promote justice and to keep open the road to moral advancement, to bring down from their throne in the ideal into a place in the world certain conceptions of distributive justice, is quite another thing. And yet this latter is now being attempted, and was certain to be attempted as soon as democracy came into power. When society is enfranchised, the social question becomes the political question."[1]

"The state is not the interest of a class, but the organ of society."[2] There can be no broader foundation for political action than this. All progress springs from the "common intelligence" to which every one contributes his quota.

The second great illusion of Socialism is the social revolution. No one except a few extremists any longer thinks of the revolution by blood. Engels, the friend of Marx, shows that everywhere violence is giving way to political methods. "Even in the Romance countries we see the old tactics revised. Everywhere the German example of using the ballots is being followed. Even in France the Socialists see more and more that no lasting victory is to be theirs unless they win beforehand the great masses of the people. The slow work of propaganda and parliamentary activity is here also recognized as the next step in party development."[3] Engels shows how Socialists have entered the parliaments of Belgium, Italy, Denmark, Bulgaria, Roumania, as well as the parliaments of the great powers. And he indicates that the revolution of the Socialist must come as a revolution by majorities—which is democracy.

Engels still believed that violence would follow the accession of democratic power. If he had lived another decade he would have discarded this last remnant of the theory of violence. In Germany the bourgeois are more frightened over the legal than over the illegal acts of the Socialist. They fear the results of elections more than rebellion. Violence they can suppress with a bayonet, but laws—they must be obeyed.

This is true in every country. The power of the ballot is infinitely greater than the power of the bullet, provided it is followed up with common sense and energy.