In Switzerland, Dr. Bamberger goes on to say, the international element is strongest where the German influence is greatest—in Zurich. The intellectual head of the whole international propaganda is the German Carl Marx, whose first lieutenant is the German Friedrich Engels. Marx framed the foundation of the International. The congress of the sect at the Hague in 1872 was his work. Among the sixty-five members of that body twenty-five were Germans; New York and Zurich were there represented by Germans.
The French socialism which ruled the field from 1830 to 1850 has been laid aside and forgotten. But the German socialism of to-day has the French system for its foundation. To St. Simon and Fourier, to Cabet and Considérant, however, reference is no longer made.
Louis Blanc’s “organization of labor” has been scientifically, and even piously, absorbed into “systematic production.” Proudhon has long been branded as a “miserable bourgeois” while the most devout of German Protestants, Pastor Todt, does not hesitate to exclaim in his latest organ: “The war of competition (Concurrenzkampf) today is nothing but a system of expropriations, shrouded in illusions with regard to property” (Eigenthumsillusionen). “La propriété c’est le vol.” The pastor says the same thing, only in other words.
The sum total of the theories in all their gradations, from the formulating of the brutal war of classes to the most honey-toned appeal to the duties of men and Christians, to-day bears the predominating stamp of German invention. No country in the world can point to so extensive an existence of learned and unlearned literature in this province. Especially in the province of learned socialistic theories France and England stand far behind us. Socialism in Italy is confined to a small number of younger savants, who understand German, and acknowledge themselves pupils of our masters. The most prominent trait of the national character of German socialism is the trace of scientific coloring which is retained in the rudest revolutionary circles. Scientific epicures like Marx and Lassalle have written the gospels of the new brotherhood of working-men; professors and philosophically learned men like Schaeffle and Adolph Wagner, Rodbertus, Duehring, and Lange, have assorted them canonically; and even with the smell of powder and petroleum emitted by the congresses of socialists, composed mainly of working-men, is mingled something of the delicate perfume of quintessent abstraction. Herr Liebknecht, a man of learning, is the real spiritus rector of the whole brotherhood, and it was his energy which finally triumphed over the different sects of the party and consummated the difficult work of consolidation.
Perhaps there is no man in or out of Germany better versed in the literature and history of socialism than this vaunter of the praises of the Commune. Has not this something attractive besides so much that is repulsive? Is it not touching to hear that the same Herr Liebknecht who in the tribune of the Reichstag agitates the nerves of his colleagues to excess by his strongly-spiced speeches, honors their library continually by collections of interesting works from the province of his “science”? and that, according to competent evidence, the social-democratic deputies are not only the most industrious readers of this library, but distinguish themselves by a prompt return and respectful treatment of the books? We could even find a touching symptom in the comical appearance of the deputy and former book-binder, Most, who is vieing with Prof. Mommsen for the palm in the investigation of Roman history. As if there was nothing more important to do than to allow one’s self to be touched! In fact, this hobnobbing with science is resorted to for the purpose of misleading the noblest tendencies of the German character. Something further is to be noted here: nothing less than the organic connection between the best and the worst which is in us. Not for nothing has Marx furnished with a highly-learned scaffolding his international platform which appeals to “the proletarians of all lands.” Lassalle is prouder of nothing than that, after the appearance of his books on Herakleitos and The System of Acquired Rights, Humboldt and Boeckh should have counted him as their equal.
The militant social democracy well understand how to keep up this delusion. At their last congress it was proposed to issue in Berlin, bi-monthly, “a scientific review in an appropriate form.” The scientific contributors to the Forwaerts, the central organ of the sect, had overburdened it; if these had a journal to themselves the Forwaerts could devote more space to its work of agitation. One of the delegates, Herr Geib, said that by this step an alienation between science and the workmen would not be caused, as some feared; and to anticipate the review he recommended a half-monthly scientific supplement to the Forwaerts gratis. Another delegate said that “the more political life stepped into the foreground, the farther did the scientific side of life recede, unless official efforts were made to promote it. It was necessary that this should be cared for, in order to prevent the levelling of the party.” The proposition was adopted, and the scientific review, The Future, has appeared regularly since October last in the “appropriate form” of a red-covered magazine.
The commanders of the socialistic army are wise in thus enlisting scientific officers on their general staff. They gain by this, in literary circles, the position of “the best-favored nation.” In the vast number of publications lately issued on “the social question” we seldom meet one which, even if inspired with the utmost disfavor for the new dogma, does not approach it with respectful and ludicrous timidity. The social democracy has for its first article of faith open hostility to all other parties; their extinction is its aim. But almost all confutations, on the other hand, strike the key-note of a defender who is only pleading for milder conditions. By aid of the “scientific” coloring the social democracy has moved into a position to which every assailant makes an obeisance before firing. Through the anti-socialistic literature runs a tone of humble apology that seems to say: “Excuse us that we belong to the contemptible class of the bourgeoisie, and believe our promise of future reform.” As with the cause, so do we approach the individuals with uncovered head. All presentations of the life and teaching of Lassalle accept the Titan’s diploma which he has given himself. If unbelievers and half-believers do this, how natural that the social democracy has decreed him Godlike honors after his demise! If we, however, look with impartial eye into the biographic material which is available to us, we are struck by the characteristic trait of grotesque mockery overshadowing all. Were it not sinful to recount the names of Germany’s great men—those who still live as well as those who have left us—in one breath with the name of this talented agitator, we might be tempted to draw a parallel between the letters which we possess of the former and those which the Lassalle literature has brought to light. An instructive antithesis, forsooth: the simple, human self-sacrifice, thought, and feeling of truly great souls, and the hollow pretensions of a proletariat rescuer, who lifts his martyrdoms into the skies, in order to step down from them into perfumed boudoirs! This man writes to young women that he was born to wage a contest with the world, and in the same text explains to them that never had a woman resisted him, but he had never yet done homage; for him it was only to accept, not to give. How modest, in comparison with this, does the address sound with which Saint-Simon had himself awakened every morning: “Levez-vous, Monsieur le Comte, vous avez de grandes choses à faire.”
IV.
Fallacious as it might be to judge of the effective socialistic strength in time of war from the number of votes it controls in time of peace, it remains true that the growth of these numbers points to a change in the sentiments of the voters. There is something more at the disposal of the leaders than a mass accidentally thrown into their hands. We must guard against too trivial an appraisement of human appearances, especially in Germany, where thought enlarges its sway more than in any other land. Ideals, real or false, cannot become powerful with us without going through the earnest-thinking process of the nation. The socialistic leaders have fully recognized and acted on the principle that he who wishes to have an interest in. the future must first do his share for science. The German mind being thus constituted, we must, to explain the spread of socialism, find the fountains of its source. This is easy. The professors of political economy in our high-schools at the beginning of this century turned their attention to the socialistic problem. The university professors, even, have lately declared that they accept the socialistic stand-point sans phrase. The word expressing the nature of the whole movement would not have gained an introduction into the language had not the characteristic symptoms demanded an expression. The phrase “platform socialism” is not permitted to be left out of any German dictionary. The German Socialistes de la chaire are as familiar to French writers as the Socialisti della Cattedra are to the Italians. All manner of shades of opinion have been developed from this academic socialism. But a series of stereotyped formulas have come into existence with which every one, in the press and on the platform, plays; as, for instance, that the inequality of property is greater now than formerly; that the masses are more unhappy; that wealth remains confined to the few and flows only to them; that capital rules supreme over labor and prescribes its laws. From these premises, which are all false, the conclusion is drawn that the present social system must be rejected and replaced by another; that it was the government’s business to do this; and that “science” should furnish a plan for a righteous economy, and a guardian to regulate the same for all time to come. “Science” did not wait for a second invitation. Young souls devoted themselves to the projection of plans for the salvation of society; systems were invented for the organization of working-men into historical and organic groups, in order to enable them to withstand capital; others discovered methods of taxation by which the inequalities of ownership could be neutralized. He who had too much, in the opinion of “science,” was to be deprived of it, and it was to be given to him who had too little; persons were to be prevented from getting rich by ingenious plans for equalizing prices. “Permissible luxury” was divided from prohibited enjoyments; “science” undertook to prescribe the limits of individual action.
Former times offered stronger contrasts, perhaps, of luxury and misery. But the complaint now is that some persons have by certain manipulations become rapidly rich, and have made a “loud” use of their wealth. But are the hereditary ownerships of nobles or of extensive mercantile houses more sacred than the newly-won riches of stock speculators? Does the ancient castle with its solemn walls fit better into the new system than the luxurious villa of the parvenu? Is one’s desire for equality less offended by the velvet train which a page bears behind a duchess than by the satin skirt which the wife of a contractor draws behind her in the dust of the promenade? The bourgeoise spirit has nothing in common with the principles of socialism, nor with the sentiments of the proletariat. But the fountain of civil dissatisfaction has fed the torrent of socialistic agitation. Many a man, ruined by gambling, becomes a convert to the idea of a more just division of property; many, from grief over unlucky stock speculations, have written essays on the immorality of the acquisition of capital.