Socialism as it is

by William English Walling

That the Civic Federation writers also understand that the violence may come from above rather than from below is clearly shown in the context of the article in question. The Federation organ also attacks Mrs. J. G. Phelps Stokes for having said, at Barnard College, that the present government would probably be overturned by the ballot. In answer to this, the Federation's organ said, "Mrs. Stokes is a woman of intelligence and doubtless knows that States are not overturned by ballots." Here is a categorical denial on the part of an organ representing the most powerful privileged element in the country, of the possibility of peaceful political revolution, which can only mean that if a majority desires such a peaceful revolutionary change, the minority now in power will use violence to prevent it. An article by one of the Federation's officials, Ada C. Sweet, in the same number, makes still further disclosures. Among the "fantastic projects and schemes of Socialism," she says, are the demand "that the Constitution be made amendable by a majority vote," and the demand for the abolition of that feature of our government "which makes the Supreme Court the final interpreter and guardian of the federal Constitution." These demands, of course, are becoming common outside of the Socialist Party, and would simply move the United States up to the semi-democratic level of constitutions made during the last half century. Indeed, the judicial precedents that have created an oligarchy of judges in this country, though they have existed for a century, have never been imitated by any country on earth, civilized or uncivilized, with the single exception of Australia. It is these demands, which would not be held even as radical in other countries, which Miss Sweet says cannot be accomplished without violence. If this is so, it means that violence will come from above, and the Socialists would be cowards indeed if they were not ready to resist it.

Miss Sweet contends that "to bring about the first practical experiments" demanded by Socialism "would start such a civil war as the world has never yet seen in all its long history."[287] No doubt the writer, who has held a responsible position with the Civic Federation for years, represents the opinions of her associates. Her prediction may be correct, and if so it would indicate that the people who at present control this country and its government, and who have the power to initiate such a civil war, are determined to do so.

While Socialists have no desire for revolutionary violence, being convinced, as they are, that the present generation will see the majority of the voters of every modern country in their ranks, and Socialists by right in possession of the legal powers of government, they nevertheless have never been blind to the readiness of the plutocratic and militaristic forces in control of governments to proceed to illegal coups d'état, to destroy all vestiges of democracy, if thought necessary, and to use every form of violence, as soon as they feel that they are beginning to lose their political power. The evidence that this is already the intention is abundant.

There is no one who has recognized more clearly than the recent "Socialistic" Prime Minister of France (Briand) that the ruling classes force the people to fight for every great advance. In the French Socialist Congress of Paris, in 1899, Briand said: "Now I must reply to those of my friends who through an instinctive horror of every kind of violence have been brought to hope that the transformation of society can be the work of evolution alone.... Such certainly are beautiful dreams, but they are only dreams.... In a general way, in every instance, history demonstrates that the people have scarcely obtained anything except what they have been able to take for themselves.... It is not through a fad, and much less through the love of violence, that our party is and must remain revolutionary, but by necessity, one might say by destiny.... In our Congress we have even pointed out forms of revolt, among the first of which are the general strike." In the International Congress at Paris in 1900, Briand again advocated the general strike on the ground that it was "necessary as a pressure on capitalistic society, indispensable for obtaining continued ameliorations of a political and economic kind, and also, under propitious circumstances, for the purposes of social revolution." Nor can there be any doubt as to the revolutionary meaning of Briand when he advocated the general strike. In 1899 he had said, "One can discuss a strike of soldiers, one can even try to make ready for it ... our young military Socialists busy themselves in making the workingman who is going to quit his shop, and the peasant who is going to desert his fields to go into the barracks, understand that there are duties higher than those discipline would like to impose upon them." I have already quoted his recommendation, made on this occasion, that in the case of a social crisis the soldiers might fire, but need not necessarily fire in the direction suggested by the officers. As late as 1903 he took up the defense of Gustave Hervé, when the latter was accused of anti-militarism, and said before the court: "I am glad to declare that I am not led here by a chance client, I am not here to-day as an advocate pleading for his clients. I am here in a complete and full community of ideas with friends, for whom it is less important that I should defend their liberty, than that I should explain and justify their thought and their writings."

There can be no question that the opinions expressed by Briand at this time are approximately those of the majority of the European Socialists to-day. Some of the leading spokesmen of the Socialists are no doubt somewhat more cautious of the form of their statements. But the modifications they would make in Briand's statement would be due, not to any objection in principle, but to expediency and the practical limitations of such measures as he advocates in each given case.

The great majority of Socialists feel that a premature revolutionary crisis at the present moment would endanger or postpone the success of a political revolution, peaceful or otherwise, when the time for it is ripe. The position of Kautsky will show how very cautious the most influential are. The movement has become so strong in Germany that it might be supposed that the German Socialists would no longer fear a test of strength. But this is not the case. They feel, on the contrary that every delay is in their favor, as they are making colossal strides in their organization and propaganda, while the political situation is becoming more and more critical.

"Our recruiting ground," says Kautsky, "to-day includes fully three fourths of the population, probably even more; the number of votes that are given to us do not equal one third of all the voters and not one fourth of all those entitled to vote. But the rate of progress increases with a leap when the revolutionary spirit is abroad. It is almost inconceivable with what rapidity the mass of the people reach a clear consciousness of their class interests at such a time. Not alone their courage and their belligerency, but their political interest as well, is spurred on in the highest degree through the consciousness that the hour has at last come for them to burst out of the darkness of night into the glory of the full glare of the sun. Even the laziest become industrious, even the most cowardly become brave, and even the most narrow gains a wider view. In such times a single year will accomplish an education of the masses that would otherwise have required a generation."[288]

Kautsky's conception of the probable struggle of the future shows that, together with the millions of Socialists he represents, he expects the great crisis to develop gradually out of the present-day struggle. He does not expect a precipitate and comparatively brief struggle like the French Revolution, but rather "long-drawn-out civil wars, if one does not necessarily give to these words the idea of actual slaughter and battles."

"We are revolutionists," Kautsky concludes, "and this is not in the sense that a steam engine is a revolutionist. The social transformation for which we are striving can be attained only through a political revolution, by means of the conquest of political power by the fighting proletariat. The only form of the State in which Socialism can be realized is that of a republic, and a thoroughly democratic republic at that.

"The Socialist Party is a revolutionary party, but not a revolution-making party. We know that our goal can be obtained only through a revolution. We also know that it is just as little in our power to create this revolution as it is in the power of our opponents to prevent it."[289]