A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

Bismarck himself was a Prussian Junker who had become a great European statesman, but in many ways he remained a Junker to the end of his life. With rare sagacity and strength of will he had shaped the real forces of his time towards the great end of uniting the Fatherland and restoring it to its fitting place among the nations of Europe. To use his own words, he had lifted Germany into the saddle, and his task afterwards was to keep her there. The methods, however, by which he had accomplished the first part of his task, were scarcely so suitable for the accomplishment of the second.

In the now united Germany he found two enemies which appeared to menace the new structure which he had so laboriously reared, the Black International, or the Ultramontane party, and the Red International, or the Social Democrats. These enemies he tried to suppress by the high-handed methods which had been familiar to him from his youth. He was about fifty-six years of age when the German Empire was established. It was too much to expect of human nature that he should at so late a time of life break away from his antecedents as Prussian Junker and statesman, and adopt the methods which would make Germany a free as well as a united State.

Yet it is only right to say that he went a considerable distance on this desirable path. Both as realist statesman and as patriot he wished to have the German people on his side. When he attempted to suppress the Social Democracy by methods which are not worthy of a free and enlightened nation, he did so in all seriousness, as a German patriot. He was a man working under the human limitations of his birth, antecedents, and position. On the other hand, the Social Democrats had endured oppression for many generations from the classes which Bismarck represented. They had now risen in anger out of the lower depths of society as an organised party, demanding that the hereditary oppression should cease. Considered in this aspect the anti-socialist legislation of Bismarck was only a new phase in a secular process. Time has not yet fully revealed the means by which a process of this kind can be brought to a close.

The anti-socialist laws came into force in October 1878. Socialist newspapers and meetings were at once suppressed, and the organisation of the party was broken up. Generally, it may be said that during the operation of the laws the only place in Germany in which the right of free speech could be exercised by the socialists was the tribune of the Reichstag, and the only organisation permitted to them was that formed by the representatives of the party in the Reichstag. As time went on the minor state of siege was established in Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig, and other towns, and the police did not hesitate to exercise the power thereby put into their hands of expelling Social Democratic agitators and others who might be objectionable to them.

For some time confusion, and to some extent dismay, prevailed among the Social Democrats. But ere long they found that their union and their power did not depend on any formal organisation. As Marx had taught, the organisation of the factory necessarily brings with it the organisation of the proletariat. A well-drilled working class is a natural and inevitable result of modern industrial evolution, which no fiat of the law can disturb, if the workmen have the intelligence to understand their position and mission. Thus the German workman realised that the union in which he trusted was beyond the reach of repressive laws, however cunningly devised and however brutally exercised.

The want of an organ, however, was greatly felt, and accordingly, in September 1879, the Socialdemocrat, International Organ of the Socialdemocracy of German Tongue, was founded at Zürich. From 1880 it was edited by Eduard Bernstein with real ability and conscientious thoroughness. Every week thousands of copies were despatched to Germany, and, in spite of all the efforts of the police, were distributed among the Social Democrats in the Fatherland. In 1888 it was removed to London, whence it was issued till the repeal of the anti-socialist laws in 1890.

The efforts of Bismarck against socialism apparently had a temporary success, for in 1881, the first election after the passing of the laws, the voting power of the party sank to about 312,000. But it was only temporary, and probably it was more apparent than real. The elections in 1884 showed a marked increase to 549,000, and in 1887 to 763,000. These symptoms of growth, however, were vastly exceeded by the results of the poll in 1890, when the number of Social Democratic votes swelled to 1,427,000. They were now the strongest single party of the Empire.

In all the large towns of the Empire, and especially in the largest of all, such as Berlin, Hamburg, and Leipzig, where the minor state of siege had been proclaimed, the socialists could show an enormous increase of votes. Till about 1885 the Social Democrats had, by their own confession, made very little progress in country districts, or among the Catholic population either of town or country. At the election of 1890 there was evidence of a very considerable advance in both quarters. The election sounded the knell of Bismarck’s system of repression, and the anti-socialist laws were not renewed.

The Social Democrats thus came out of the struggle against Bismarck with a voting power three times as great as it had been when the anti-socialist laws were passed. The struggle had proved the extraordinary vitality of the movement. The Social Democrats had shown a patience, resolution, discipline, and, in the absence of any formal organisation, a real and effective organisation of mind and purpose which are unexampled in the annals of the labour movement since the beginning of human society. They had made a steady and unflinching resistance to the most powerful statesman since the first Napoleon, who wielded all the resources of a great modern State, and who was supported by a press that used every available means to discredit the movement; and, as a party, they had never been provoked to acts of violence. In fact, they had given proof of all the high qualities which fit men and parties to play a great rôle in history. The Social Democratic movement in Germany is one of the most notable phenomena of our time.

After the anti-social legislation had ceased the Social Democratic party found that its first task was to set its house in order. At a party meeting at Halle in 1890 an organisation of the simplest kind was adopted. The annual meeting forms the highest representative body of the party. The party direction was to consist of two chairmen, two secretaries, one treasurer, and also of two assessors chosen by a Board of Control of seven members. The Sozialdemokrat, which, as we have seen, had for some time been published in London, was discontinued, and the Vorwärts of Berlin was appointed the central organ of the party.