A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

May we not also expect that socialists will take a more serious and enlightened view of their responsibilities in aspiring to lead organised labour, and may we not in the course of time hope for a modification of their aims and methods? If these were more reasonable, they would obviously be more convincing, and the prospects of a peaceful as well as a successful issue would be vastly increased. At present their demands are often so put in elaborate programmes, in language more or less technical, that they repel the sympathy even of reasonable men. To use a common saying, socialism as frequently presented is such ‘a big order,’ expressed in alien language, that men with the best will in the world cannot give it a hospitable welcome to their minds.

In fact, it is not a paradox but the plain truth that socialists are now the greatest obstacle to the progress of their ideal. Nor is this at all strange. The same thing has happened in the development of all great ideals; men are too little for them, and in their love for forms and dogmas forget and even repudiate or suppress the spirit. For the progress of socialism the thing most needful now is to throw off the technical dogmatic and ultra-revolutionary form which it has inherited from the past, and to study the real needs and live issues of the present.

Socialism is still coloured to its detriment by excessive loyalty to Marx, and the views of Marx were shaped by a time which has passed away. In the early forties, when the system of Marx was taking form, idealism had declined, and a very crude dogmatic materialism was in the ascendant. The very active speculation which had previously been directed to the ideal, attempted to work in the real and material without due preparation on a very inadequate basis of facts—with strange results! A fierce militant revolutionary spirit, which in the circumstances must be regarded as very natural, was preparing for the troubles of 1848. Ricardo, a man singularly deficient in the requisite historical and philosophical training, was the reigning power in economic theory. Under such influences the views of Marx were prematurely shaped into the dogmatic system which we know. He continued to hold and develop them without any real attempt at self-criticism in riper years, and he, an exile living in England, forcibly urged them from his study on the socialist groups and parties of the Continent.

In his manifesto of the Communist party, Marx declares that the proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains. It has been the unfortunate destiny of him and his school to forge new chains for the working class in the shape of dogmatic materialism, a rigid and abstract collectivism, and ultra-revolutionary views, which still hamper it in the task of emancipation. The promptitude with which the emancipators of the human race have provided new chains is strange enough. Still stranger is the readiness men have shown in putting them on! As we have seen in a previous chapter, the followers of Marx have gone further in this way than their chief.[^[3]]

An ill service was done to the working class by utterances on marriage and the family, which gave the ruling classes who keep the workers out of their rights the plea that they were maintaining the fundamental principles of social order. The abstract collectivism which is the prominent economic feature of his school suggests two serious doubts: if by a revolutionary act they took the delicate and complex social mechanism to pieces, whether they would be able to put it together again; and if they did succeed in putting it together, whether it would work. The same devotion to abstract collectivism has made his followers unable to draw up a reasonable agrarian policy suitable to the peasantry. Their hostility to religion, expressed most freely in the early years of the agitation in Germany and elsewhere, has been a serious hindrance to their progress, both among Catholics and Protestants, especially the former.

Thus in many directions their propaganda has been an obstacle to their success in their proper task of emancipating the working class, and it has at the same time been a hindrance to the peaceful solution of the great struggle. The great central problem has been confused by side issues and irrelevant matter. We can best show how tragic has been the confusion of parts and of issues by reference to religion. Love, brotherhood, mutual service, and peace are most prominent notes in the teaching of Jesus. They must be woven into the moral texture of socialism if it is to succeed and be a benefit to the world. If Marx and his school had merely attacked what we may call the official and professional representatives of the Christian Church, they would have been within their rights. As it has been, the religion of love, brotherhood, and mutual service has officially become part of a government system by which the hereditary oppressors of the poor in Germany and elsewhere claim to continue their unblest work. The professional representatives of Christ’s teaching support and encourage them in it, and so make themselves accomplices, not only in the oppression and degradation of the poor, but in war and militarism, and in all the waste, extravagance, and misdirection of class government. How many of them are conscious of the profound incongruity of their position?

In the history of human thought opinion has hardened often prematurely into dogma, and dogma has usually degenerated into pedantry. Dogma has often been simply the expression of egotism, which had not the saving grace either to be loyal to truth or really helpful to mankind. So it has been in the development of socialism. Its champions have too frequently failed in keeping a single eye and mind on a task which requires insight, self-restraint, loyalty, and consistency, as well as energy and enthusiasm. A great cause demands the best and noblest service. Such a cause as socialism demands from its supporters the self-denial which will suppress the many phases of an excessive, disorderly, morbid, and malignant egotism that has done so much harm in the past—no easy task for human nature.

It is a very serious result alike of the past history and of the present policy of socialists that the practical work of emancipating labour has to such a degree been postponed to a remote and hypothetical future. They form only a small minority in the legislatures of the leading European countries. This minority is increasing, and is likely to increase. But there is no present probability of an increase that would win political power by parliamentary action.

According to the prevalent socialism the goal of the whole movement is to acquire possession of the means of production. Such a conception lays excessive stress on the dead and passive instruments of labour. It ascribes too much importance to the economic factor. The economic factor is most important, but the cardinal thing in socialism is the living and active principle of association, and the essential thing for the working man to acquire is the capacity and habit of association. In other words, the motive power of socialism must be found in the mind and character of men guided by science and inspired by the highest ethical ideals, and who have attained to the insight and capacity requisite for associated action.

But in making those criticisms let us remember that the social democracy is still in its unformed youth. The socialist parties of most European countries have sprung up since 1870. They have had, through much labour and tribulation, to shape their organisation, principles, and policy. How natural it was that they should follow a master mind like Marx, who had manfully and unsparingly devoted his entire life to their cause! And how natural too that they should have no trust in other classes, and refuse all manner of compromise with them!