A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

According to Liebknecht, late leader of the German socialists, ‘the social democracy is the party of the whole people, except 200,000 large proprietors, squires, middle-class capitalists, and priests.’ We need not discuss the exactitude of such figures in relation either to Germany or any other country. It is a fact which no reasonable man can dispute that economic and political power is in most civilised countries actually wielded by a very small minority. Nor need we stay here to inquire into the methods by which such power has been gained. Even as regards England we have not yet an impartial and comprehensive account of the rise of the present economic and political order since the liquidation of the mediæval system began about the middle of the fourteenth century. How labour legislation was carried on by the ruling class in its own interests for five centuries after 1349; how Henry VIII. took his courtiers and privy councillors into partnership for the dividing of the church lands; how commons were inclosed; how even the poor-law became an occasion for the subjection and degradation of labour; how for generations bribery was a normal instrument of government; how wealth was gained in the slave-trade, in the East Indies, in the jobbing of government loans and contracts, and by the imposition of corn-laws—all these we vaguely know, but they have not yet been presented in a form which can satisfy the canons of scientific history.

It is too soon, therefore, to determine how far the business of the Standard Oil Company has been built up on its merits; how far its success is due to efficient management and organisation by the shrewdest and ablest men, and how far due to the illegal and immoral methods of which they are accused. At the Chicago Convention in 1908 Senator Lodge said that the great body of the people had come to believe more and more that these vast fortunes, these vast combinations of capital, were formed and built up by tortuous and dishonest means and with a cynical disregard of the very laws which the mass of the people were compelled to obey. On the other hand the Reminiscences of Mr. Rockefeller reveal a rare combination of insight and energy in founding and consolidating a new industry which of itself is sufficient to account for success. In any case, we in England, looking back on our history, have no right to point the finger of reproach at our American kinsmen. There is indeed a cynical theory that our ruling classes are free from such reproach only because they have been sated with the wealth they have already gained. With us the struggle has long been decided; whereas in America the dust and heat of battle still blind the eyes of men.

The motives and merits of the agents by which great historic changes are accomplished, whether they be Julius Cæsar, Henry VIII., or J. D. Rockefeller, form a most interesting and important subject of study. But far more important is the problem we must face regarding the forces and the issues which they set in movement. Here we are concerned with live forces and urgent issues.

Briefly we may describe the situation with which we have to deal as the struggle now proceeding between various forms of autocracy, bureaucracy, and plutocracy, on the one hand, and a social democracy which claims to represent the mass of the people, on the other. The features of the former powers we all know. The social democracy is still in its giant and untried youth. Not very long ago, as we have seen, the German working men had neither voice nor organisation nor insight into their position and prospects. France, after the failures of 1848, was hardly better. In most countries labour was dumb, or moaning under its burden of hardship and sorrow. Now much is changed. The working men have the foremost orators in the world to speak with their enemies in the gate, and they have an organisation which the strongest statesmen have been unable to break up or weaken. In previous chapters we have had frequent occasion to characterise the democracy of which the workers are the vast majority. We shall understand it better if we duly consider a few special points.

On the 28th November 1905 the city of Vienna saw a new sight. The gay city on the Danube has been the scene of many stirring events. It was twice in vain besieged by the Turks, and twice taken by Napoleon. It was the seat of two congresses which met to rearrange the map of Europe after the downfall of the French conqueror. It witnessed many of the most dramatic incidents of the mad year (des tollen jahres)—the year of revolution, 1848.

To those who can see beneath the surface of things, the scene of November 1905 was vastly more significant than any of the events we have mentioned. A procession of working men and women, estimated by the correspondent of the Morning Post at 300,000, and by socialist organs at 250,000, marched under the red flag through the streets. Work ceased and traffic was stopped, while the serried ranks passed on. But there was no tumult, no call for the interference of the police or the display of military force. Not a shout was raised or song sung or voice heard above a whisper. The silence, order, and discipline shown by this vast host, which was about equal to either of the great armies that lately contended in Manchuria, were even more striking than its numbers. Members of parliament who witnessed the demonstration from the Reichsrath declared that they were more impressed by it than by any political event since Austria became a parliamentary state. Even the most stubborn adherent of the old order was bound to feel that a new era had come, and that the demand for universal suffrage, which was the object of the demonstration, could no longer be refused. That very day legislation based on universal suffrage was announced by the government.

The great demonstration was, indeed, a fit subject for meditation in Austria, but not in that country only. The monition contained in such an event should be taken to heart by all concerned in all lands. In the ordering and organising intelligence, in the self-restraint and force of character displayed by the working men of Vienna on that day, we see qualities which are replete with meaning in their relation to the great problems of the present century.

Or let us consider the matter from another point of view. It is now about half a century since the socialist agitation began in Germany. During that time the German workmen have received an education in social politics such as no university in the world can furnish. They have been accustomed to the freest and most thorough discussion of the widest variety of topics in books and pamphlets, at public meetings and debates, in private talks over their beer and coffee. Great strikes, elections, and demonstrations have been object-lessons to them of the most vivid and forcible description. A new move on the part of the Kaiser, a new speech of Bebel or Liebknecht has given fresh food for reflection and discourse. Above all, the matters so handled have come near to their hearts, have touched them in their everyday life in the closest and most real way. They were no hearsay, conventional, or traditional subjects that thus appealed to them! Need we wonder that the teaching of Marx, Lassalle, and Engels has become a possession to them, a theme for mind and heart? The seed has taken root among millions of men and women remarkable for intelligence, thoroughness, and earnestness. And the process that has thus gone on in Germany goes on more or less all over the world.

The men and women of the labouring democracy, let us remember, have, many of them, known hunger and privation in every form, not only as an exceptionally severe occurrence in times of strike and unemployment, but as a chronic experience. Mothers have been obliged to work hard too long before child-bearing, and too soon after it, to eke out a scanty family income. For a society that has shown so little respect even for the sacred function of motherhood, what can we say but that it is time to repent? The children in the same competitive society have cried for bread when there was none to give them, and have not had rags enough decently to cover their nakedness.

In a moment of feeling at the Jena meeting of his party Bebel confessed that for years it was his ideal for once to eat his fill of bread and butter. During the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking our countrymen had a new experience; they found out what it meant never to have enough to eat, to be always hungry. The leader of one of the strongest organisations in the world, one of the foremost orators in Europe, to whom all men listen when he makes a speech, had the experience for years in the very heart of modern civilisation.