A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

We shall now return to the history of the Universal Working Men’s Association which, as we have seen, was founded by Lassalle in 1863.[^[1]] At the death of the founder in 1864 the membership of the Association amounted to 4610, a small number, but we must recollect that it had existed for only about fifteen months.

Lassalle, in his will, had recommended as his successor Bernhard Becker, a man totally unqualified for such a difficult post. At the founding of the Association it had been thought good that the president should exercise a species of dictatorship. This arrangement might be suitable so long as the office was filled by a Lassalle. It was not easy to get a competent man of any kind. In such a novel organisation we need not say that there were hardly any members of ability and experience. Lassalle’s choice was therefore extremely limited. The most capable of his adherents undoubtedly was Von Schweitzer, a young man who belonged to a patrician house of Frankfort on the Main, but his reputation was so far from stainless that the German workmen for some time refused to have anything to do with him. Becker was elected, and conducted the affairs of the Association with more energy than wisdom, while the Countess Hatzfeldt, as the intimate friend of Lassalle, used her wealth and social position to control its fortunes in a way little calculated to satisfy the self-respecting German working men. It was a time of confusion and uncertainty in the Association; of suspicion, jealousy, and contention among its leading members. There would be no profit, however, in narrating the squabbles which disturbed the progress of the Association in its helpless infancy.

Indeed, if we consider the matter with some measure of sympathy and impartiality, it would hardly have been natural had it been otherwise. Let us try to realise from what low estate the German working men were now endeavouring to rise. We must remember that the German workman had no share or experience in government, either local or national. The right of combination, of free speech in a free meeting, and even of free movement, had been denied him for generations. He could hardly turn to the right hand or the left without coming into collision with the police and the courts of law. He had no leaders whom he could trust. The German working men, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, had in the sphere of social and political action everything to learn. Under conditions which were most trying and uncertain they had to shape out a policy which suited their interests and ideals; they had to learn to know each other and to work in union, and they had to find trustworthy and capable leaders.

Nameless misery and degradation prevailed in too many of the industrial regions on the Rhine in Saxony and Silesia. Men, women, and children were worked for fifteen hours a day. Hand labour was disappearing with the wonted unspeakable suffering before the machinery brought in by the industrial revolution. Both the hand labour and the factory labour of Germany suffered under the pressure of the competition of the more advanced mechanical industry of England.

In the lot of the German working man there had been neither light, leading, nor hope. The men who represented State and Church, law and learning, and who should have been responsible for his guidance, were too often found among his oppressors.

In view of facts like these need we wonder that Lassalle, with all his eloquence and energy, found it difficult to rouse the German working men out of their apathy and hopelessness? Under such depressing circumstances it was no particular disgrace for an ordinary man like Bernhard Becker to fail. Becker’s tenure of the presidency was of short duration. He was succeeded by Tölcke, a man of ability and energy; but at his entrance into office the prospects of the Association were not bright. The funds in its treasury amounted to only six thalers or eighteen shillings. If finance be the test of success the Association founded by Lassalle was indeed at a very low ebb.

The brightest feature in the early history of the Association was the Sozialdemokrat, a paper founded by Schweitzer at the end of 1864, and which had on its list of contributors the names of Marx and Engels. But even here the evil fortune of the Association clung to it. In a series of articles on Bismarck, Schweitzer had given expression to views regarding that statesman which were highly displeasing to the two revolutionists in England, and they publicly renounced all connection with the paper. Following Lassalle, Schweitzer had shown his readiness to join hands with the Conservatives of Prussia when circumstances made it advisable in the interests of the Social Democracy. Such a policy met with no favour in the eyes of Marx and Engels. They demanded from Schweitzer the same energetic opposition to the feudal and reactionary party as he showed to the Progressists. Schweitzer claimed the right to shape his tactics in accordance with the situation of affairs in Prussia, which he knew better than men living in exile. A socialist who could take a lucid and comprehensive view of the theories which he professed, a man of the world of real insight and tact, Schweitzer, by his articles in the Sozialdemokrat, rendered effectual service to the Association and to the socialist cause in Germany at a most critical time in their history.

During those years the political condition of Germany was most uncertain and chaotic, and the Association had to grope its way through the darkness as best it could. It was a new party composed of members who had no experience of common action, and who had with much labour and perplexity to work out a set of common convictions. Under the circumstances a clear line of policy was impossible. The first mighty step out of this political chaos was made in 1866, when Bismarck, after defeating Austria, established the North German Confederation. The elections to the North German Diet, which was now established, were based on universal suffrage. The first North German Diet met in 1867, and in the same year Schweitzer was elected president of the Association founded by Lassalle. How were the Social Democrats of Germany to relate themselves to the new order of things? Before answering this question we must say something of important movements which were proceeding on the Social Democratic side.

The adherents of the Universal Working Men’s Association were drawn chiefly from Prussia and North Germany. In Saxony and South Germany there had meanwhile grown up a new working men’s party, from which Schweitzer encountered the most strenuous opposition. Under the influence of the new life which prevailed in Germany in the years following 1860, many workmen’s unions were established. As it was dangerous to make too open a profession of a political object these unions adopted the name of workmen’s educative associations (Arbeiterbildungsvereine). Some of these working men’s associations had attached themselves to Lassalle, but from the first many had held aloof from him. Many of these associations had been founded and promoted under liberal democratic influences, and their aim may generally be described as political and educational rather than economical; but it would be more accurate still to describe them as having no clear aims, and as on the look-out for a policy rather than possessing one. It is certain that as Saxons and South Germans they were to a large degree inspired by the hatred to the growing ascendency of Prussia which prevailed around them.

Shortly after the founding of the Lassalle Association a Union of the working men’s associations which continued loyal to the Progressist party was founded at Frankfort in 1863, and was intended to form a bulwark against the influence of Lassalle. But this Union of associations speedily began to move in the direction of democracy and through democracy to socialism. Two men were chiefly responsible for this result, Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel.