In the most famous document of international Socialism, the "Communist Manifesto" (published by Marx and Engels in 1847), there is a fulmination against "reactionary Socialism," which it will be seen is approximately what we now call "State Socialism." After describing the Utopian Socialism of Fourier, of Saint-Simon and of Owen, the "Manifesto" says:—

"A second form of Socialism, less systematic but more practical, tried to disgust the working people with every revolutionary movement, by demonstrating to them that it is not such and such a political advantage, but only a transformation of the relations of material life and of economic conditions that could profit them. Let it be noted that by transformation of the material relations of society this Socialism does not mean the abolition of capitalist relations of production, but only administrative reforms brought out precisely on the basis of capitalist production, and which consequently do not affect the relation of capital and wage labor, but in the best case only diminish the expenses and simplify the administrative labor of a capitalist government.... In the promotion of their plans they act always with the consciousness of defending first of all the interest of the working class. The working class only exists for them under this aspect of the suffering class.

"But in accordance with the undeveloped state of the class struggle and their social position, they consider themselves quite above antagonism. They desire to ameliorate the material condition of life for all the members of society, even the most privileged. As a consequence, they do not cease to appeal to all society without distinction, or rather they address themselves by preference to the reigning class."[178]

Marx points out that the chief aim of these "reactionary Socialists" was the transformation of the State into a mere organ for the administration of industry in their interest, which is precisely what we mean to-day by "State Socialism."

In contrast with this "reactionary Socialism," now prevalent in Great Britain and Australia, the Socialist parties of every country of the European Continent (where such parties are most developed), without exception are striving for a social democracy and a government of the non-privileged and not for a scheme of material benefits bestowed by an all-powerful capitalist State. Professor Anton Menger, of the University of Vienna, one of the most acute and sympathetic observers of the movement, remarks correctly that—"in all countries, at all times, the proletariat [working class] has rightly thought that the continuous development of its power is worth more than any economic advantage that can be granted it."[179]

The late Paul Lafargue, perhaps the leading thinker of the French Socialist movement, a son-in-law of Karl Marx, made a declaration at a recent Party Congress which brings out still more clearly the prevailing Socialist attitude. Denying that the Socialists are opposed to reforms, he said: "On the contrary, we demand all reforms, even the most bourgeois [capitalist] reforms like the income tax and the purchase of the West [the Western railroad, lately purchased by the government]. It matters little to us who proposes reforms, and I may add that the most important of them all for the working class have not been presented by Socialist deputies, but by the bourgeois [capitalists]. Free and compulsory education was not proposed by Socialists." That is to say, Lafargue believed that reforms extremely beneficial to the working class might be enacted without any union of Socialists with non-Socialists, without the Socialists gaining political power and without their even constituting a menace to the rule of the anti-Socialist classes. Capitalism of itself, in its own interest and without any reference to Socialism or the Socialists, may go very far towards developing a society which in turn develops an ever growing and developing working class, though without increasing the actual political or economic powers of this class when compared with its own.

In Germany especially, Marx's co-workers and successors developed marked hostility to "State Socialism" from the moment when it was taken up by Bismarck nearly a generation ago (1883). August Bebel's hostility to the existing State goes so far that he predicts that it will expire "with the expiration of the ruling class,"[180] while Engels contended that the very phrase "the Socialist State" was valueless as a slogan in the present propaganda of Socialism, and scientifically ineffective.[181]

Engels had even predicted, as long ago as 1880, that the coming of monopolies would bring it about that the State, being "the official representative of capitalistic society," would ultimately have to undertake "the protection of production," and that this necessity would first be felt in the case of the railways and the telegraphs. Later events have shown that his prediction was so correct that even America and England are approaching the nationalization of their railways, while the proposal to nationalize monopolies is rapidly growing in popularity in every country in the world, and among nearly all social classes.

Engels did not consider that such developments were necessarily in the direction of Socialism any more than the nationalization of the railways by the Czar or the Prussian government. On the contrary, he suggested that it meant the strengthening of the capitalism.

"The modern State," he wrote in 1880, "no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalistic machine, the State of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more it actually becomes the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wageworkers—proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head."[182] Engels did not think that State ownership necessarily meant Socialism; but he thought that it might be utilized for the purposes of Socialism if the working class was sufficiently numerous, organized, and educated to take charge of the situation. "State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that give the elements of the solution."

As early as 1892 Karl Kautsky, at the present moment perhaps the greatest living Socialist editor and economist, wrote that the system of laissez-faire, for which "State Socialism" offers itself as a remedy, had long ago lost whatever influence it once had on the capitalist class—which was never very great. If, then, the theory that "that government is best which governs least" had been abandoned by the capitalists themselves, there was no ground why Socialists should devote their time to the advocacy of a view ("State Socialism") that was merely a reaction against an outworn standpoint. The theory of collectivism, that the functions of the State ought to be widely extended, had long been popular among the capitalists themselves.

"It has already been seen," wrote Kautsky, "that economic and political development has made necessary and inevitable the taking over of certain economic functions by the State.... It can by no means be said that every nationalization of an economic function or of an economic enterprise is a step towards Socialistic coÖperation and that the latter would grow out of the general nationalization of all economic enterprises without making a fundamental change in the nature of the State."[183] In other words, Kautsky denies that partial nationalization or collectivism is necessarily even a step towards Socialism, and asserts that it may be a step in the other direction. The German Socialists acted on this principle when they opposed the nationalization of the Reichsbank, and it has often guided other Socialist parties.

Kautsky feels that it is often a mistake to transfer the power over industry, e.g. the ownership of the land, into the hands of the State as now constituted, since this puts a tremendous part of the national wealth at the disposal of capitalist governments, one of whose prime functions is to prevent the increase of the political and economic power of the working people. And, although the State employees would probably receive a somewhat better treatment than they had while the industry was privately owned, they would simply form a sort of aristocracy of labor opposed in general to the interests of the working people.

"Like every State," says Kautsky, "the modern State is in the first place a tool for the protection of the general interests of the ruling classes. It changes its nature in no way if it takes over functions of general utility which aim at advancing the interests not only of the ruling classes, but also of those of society as a whole and of the ruling classes, and on no condition does it take care of these functions in a way which might threaten the general interests of the ruling classes or their domination.... If the present-day State nationalizes certain industries and functions, it does this, not to put limitations on capitalistic exploitation, but to protect and to strengthen the capitalistic mode of production, or in order itself to take a share in this exploitation, to increase its income in this way, and to lessen the payments that the capitalist class must obtain for its own support in the way of taxes. And as an exploiter, the State has this advantage over private capitalists: that it has at its disposal to be used against the exploited not only the economic powers of the capitalists, but the political force of the State." (My italics.)

As an illustration of Kautsky's reference to the lessening of taxes through the profits of government ownership, it may be pointed out that the German Socialists fear the further nationalization of industries in Germany on account of the danger that with this increased income the State would no longer depend on the annual grants of the Reichstag and would then be in a position to govern without that body. The king of Prussia and the Emperor of Germany could in that event rule the country much as the present Czar rules Russia.

As a rule, outside of Great Britain, the advocates of the collectivist program are also aware that their "Socialism" is not that of the Socialist movement. In an article in the Atlantic Monthly, Mr. John Martin, for example, indicates the "State Socialist" tendency of present-day reform measures in America, and at the same time shows that they are removed as far as possible from that anti-capitalist trend which is held by most Socialist Party leaders to be the essence of their movement. Mr. Martin points to the irrigation projects, the conservation of national resources, the railway policy of the national administration, the expansion of the Federal government, and the tendency towards compulsory arbitration since the interference of President Roosevelt in the coal strike of 1902, as being "Socialistic" and yet in no sense class movements. They tend towards social reconstruction and to greater social organization and order; and there are no "logical halting places," says Mr. Martin, "on the road to Collectivism." But so far is this movement from a class movement in Mr. Martin's opinion that its advance guard consists in part of millionaires like Mr. Carnegie and Mrs. Sage, "who aim at a social betterment of both getting and spending of fortunes," while "behind them, uncommitted to any far-reaching theory, but patriotic and zealous for an improved society, there are marching philanthropists, doctors, lawyers, business men, and legislators, people of distinction." And finally the army is completed by millions of common privates "for whose children the better order will be the greatest boon." (The italicizing is mine.) The privates apparently figure rather as mere recipients of public and private benefactions than as active citizens.[184]

Some of the reformers openly advise joining the Socialist movement with the hope of using it for the purpose of reform and without aiding it in any way to reach a goal of its own. Professor John Bates Clark, one of America's most prominent economists, says of the Socialist Party that it is legitimate because "it represents the aspirations of a large number of workingmen" and because "its immediate purposes are good."

"It has changed the uncompromising policy of opposing all halfway measures," continues Professor Clark. "It welcomes reforms and tries to enroll in its membership as many as possible of the reformers.... In short, the Socialist and the reformer may walk side by side for a considerable distance without troubling themselves about the unlike goals which they hope in the end to reach.... What the reformers will have to do is to take the Socialistic name, walk behind a somewhat red banner, and be ready to break ranks and leave the army when it reaches the dividing of the ways."[185]

Professor Clark, it will be seen, has no difficulty in suggesting a "logical halting place on the road to collectivism"; namely, when the Socialists turn from collectivist reforms and start out towards Socialism.

Anti-Socialists may share the Socialist ideal and even favor all the reforms that the capitalists can permit to be put into practice without resigning their power and allowing the overthrow of capitalism. But Socialists have long since seen a way to mark off all such idealists and reformers—by presenting Socialism for what it really is, not as an ideal, nor a program of reform under capitalist direction, but as a method, and the only practical method, of ending capitalist rule in industry and government.

When Liebknecht insists on "the extreme importance of tactics and the necessity of maintaining the party's class struggle character," he makes "tactics," or the practical methods of the movement, identical with its basic principle, "the class struggle." Kautsky does the same thing when he says that Socialism is, both in theory and practice, a revolution against capitalism.

"Those who repudiate political revolution as the principal means of social transformation, or wish to confine the latter to such measures as have been granted by the ruling class," says Kautsky, "are social reformers, no matter how much their social ideas may antagonize existing forms of society."

The Socialists' wholly practical grounds against "reformism" have been stated by Liebknecht, in his "No Compromise." "This political Socialism, which in fact is only philanthropic humanitarian radicalism, has retarded the development of Socialism in France exceedingly," he wrote in 1899, before Socialist politicians and "reformists" had come into prominence in other countries than France. "It has diluted and blurred principles and weakened the Socialist Party because it brought into it troops upon which no reliance could be placed at the decisive moment." If, in other words, Socialism is a movement of non-capitalists against capitalists, nothing could be more fatal to it than a reputation due chiefly to success in bringing about reforms about which there is nothing distinctively Socialistic. For this kind of success could not fail ultimately to swamp the movement with reformers who, like Professor Clark, are not Socialists and never will be.

It must not be inferred from this that Socialists are indifferent to reform. They are necessarily far more anxious about it than its capitalist promoters. For while many "State Socialist" reforms are profitable to capitalism and even strengthen temporarily its hold on society, they are in the long run indispensable to Socialism. But this does not mean that Socialism is compelled to turn aside any of its energies from its great task of organizing and educating the workers, in order to hasten these reforms. On the contrary, the larger and the more revolutionary the Socialist army, the easier it will be for the progressive capitalists to overcome the conservatives and reactionaries. Long before this army has become large enough or aggressive enough to menace capitalism and so to throw all capitalists together in a single organization wholly devoted to defensive measures, there will be a long period—already begun in Great Britain, France, and other countries—when the growth of Socialism will make the progressive capitalists supreme by giving them the balance of power. In order, then, to hasten and aid the capitalistic form of progress, Socialists need only see that their own growth is sufficiently rapid. As the Socialists are always ready to support every measure of capitalist reform, the capitalist progressives need only then secure enough strength in Parliaments so that their votes added to those of the Socialists would form a majority. As soon as progressive capitalism is at all developed, reforms are thus automatically aided by the Socialist vote, without the necessity of active Socialist participation—thus leaving the Socialists free to attend to matters that depend wholly on their own efforts; namely, the organization and education of the non-capitalist masses for aggressive measures leading towards the overthrow of capitalism.

Opposition to the policy of absorption in ordinary reform movements is general in the international movement outside of Great Britain. Eugene V. Debs, three times presidential candidate of the American Socialist Party, is as totally opposed to "reformism" as are any of the Europeans. "The revolutionary character of our party and of our movement," he said in a personal letter to the present writer, which was published in the Socialist press, "must be preserved in all its integrity at all cost, for if that be compromised we had better cease to exist.... If the trimmers had their way we should degenerate into bourgeois reformers.... But they will not have their way." (Italics mine.)

No American Socialist has more ably summarized the dangers opportunism brings to the movement than Professor George D. Herron in his pamphlet, "From Revolution to Revolution," taken from a speech made as early as 1903. Later events, it will be noted, have strikingly verified his predictions as to the growing popularity of the word "Socialism" with nearly all political elements in this country.

"Great initiatives and revolutions," Herron says, "have always been robbed of definition and issue when adopted by the class against which the revolt was directed....

"Let Socialists take knowledge and warning. The possessing class is getting ready to give the people a few more crumbs of what is theirs.... If it comes to that, they are ready to give some things in the name of Socialism.... The old political parties will be adopting what they are pleased to call Socialistic planks in their platforms; and the churches will be coming with the insipid 'Christian Socialism,' and their hypocrisy and brotherly love. We shall soon see Mr. Hanna and Bishop Potter, Mr. Hearst and Dr. Lyman Abbott, even Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Bryan, posing as reasonable kinds of Socialists. You will find the name of Socialism repeatedly taken in vain, and perhaps successfully. You will see the Socialist movement bridled and saddled by capitalism, in the hope of riding it to a new lease of capitalistic power....

"But Socialism, like liberty or truth, is something you cannot have a part of; you must have the whole or you will have nothing; you can only gain or lose the whole, you cannot gain or lose a part. You may have municipal ownerships, nationalized transportation, initiative and referendum, civil service reforms and many other capitalist concessions, and be all the farther away from Social Democracy.... You may have any kind and number of reforms you please, any kind and number of revolutions or revivals you please, any kind and number of new ways of doing good you please, it will not matter to capitalism, so long as it remains at the root of things, the result of all your plans and pains will be gathered into the Capitalist granary." (The italics are mine.)

Yet no Socialist dreams that the presence in the movement of semi-Socialist or non-Socialist elements, which is both the cause and the effect of reformism and compromise, is a mere accident, or that there is any device by which they may either be kept out or eliminated—until the time is ripe. The presence of opportunists and reformists in all Socialist parties is as much an inevitable result at a certain stage of social evolution as the appearance of Socialism itself. The time will come when these "MitlaÜfer," as the Germans call them, will either become wholly Socialist or will desert the movement, as has so often happened, to become a part of the rising tide of "State Socialism," but that day has not yet arrived.

The division of the organization at a certain stage into two wings is held by the able Austrian Socialist, Otto Bauer, to be a universal and necessary process in its development. The first stage is one where all party members are agreed, since it is then merely a question of the propaganda of general and revolutionary ideas. The second stage (the present one) arises when the party has already obtained a modest measure of power which can be either cashed in and utilized for immediate and material gains or saved up and held for obtaining more power, or for both objects in degrees varying according as one or the other is considered more important. Bauer shows that these two policies of accumulating power and of spending it arise necessarily out of the social composition of the party at its present stage and the general social environment in which it finds itself.

At the third stage, he says, when the proletariat has come to form the overwhelming majority of the population, their campaign for the conquest of political power appears to the possessing classes for the first time as a threatening danger. The capitalist parties then unite closely together against the Social Democracy; what once separated them now appears small in comparison to the danger which threatens their profits, their rents, and their monopolistic incomes. So there arises again at this higher stage of capitalist domination, as was the case at its beginning, "a Social Democracy in battle against all the possessing classes, against the whole power of the organized state." (Italics mine.)[186] When the third stage arrives, these reformists who do not intend to leave the revolutionary movement, begin to get ready to follow it. Already the most prominent reformist Socialists outside of England claim that their position is revolutionary. This is true of the best-known German reformist, Bernstein; it is true of JaurÈs; and it is also true of Berger in this country. Bernstein argues in his book, "Evolutionary Socialism," that constitutional legislation is best adapted to positive social-political work, "to the creation of permanent economic arrangements." But he also says that "the revolutionary way does quicker work as far as it deals with removal of obstacles which a privileged minority places in the path of social progress." As for choosing between the revolutionary and non-revolutionary methods, he admits that revolutionary tactics can be abandoned only when the non-propertied majority of a nation has become firmly established in power; that is, when political democracy is so deeply rooted and advanced that it can be applied successfully to questions of property; "when a nation has attained a position where the rights of the propertied minority have ceased to be a serious obstacle of social progress." Certainly no nation could claim to be in such a position to-day, unless it were, possibly, Australia, though there the empire of unoccupied land gives to every citizen possibilities at least of acquiring property, and relieves the pressure of the class struggle until the country is settled. This view of Bernstein's, let it be noted, is a far different one from that prevailing in England—as expressed, for example, in an organ of the Independent Labour Party, where it is said that "fortunately 'revolution' in this country has ceased to be anything more than an affected phrase." Certainly there are few modern countries where the "propertied minority," of which Bernstein speaks, constitutes a more serious obstacle to progress than it does in England.

JaurÈs's position is quite similar to that of Bernstein. He declared in a recent French Congress that he was both a revolutionist and a reformer. He indorses the idea of the general strike, but urges that it should not be used until the work of education and propaganda has made the time ready, "until a very large and strong organization is ready to back up the strikers," and until a large section of public opinion is prepared to recognize the legitimacy of their object. He says he expects the time to arrive when "the reforms in the interest of the whole working class which have been promised will have been systematically refused," and then "the general strike will be the only resource left"; and finally cries, "Never in the name of the working people will we give up the right of insurrection." This position is verbally correct from the Socialist standpoint, and it shows the power of the revolutionary idea in France, when even JaurÈs is forced to respect it. But any capitalist politician might safely use the same expressions—so long, at least, as revolution is still far away.

So also Mr. Berger has written in the Social Democratic Herald of Milwaukee that "all the ballot can do is to strengthen the power of resistance of the laboring people."

"We whom the western ultra class-conscious proletarians ... are wont to call 'opportunists,'" writes Berger, "we know right well that the social question can no more be solved by street riots and insurrections than by bombs and dynamite.

"Yet, by the ballot alone, it will never be solved.

"Up to this time men have always solved great questions by blood and iron." Berger says he is not given to reciting revolutionary phrases, but asserts that the plutocrats are taking the country in the direction of "a violent and bloody revolution."

"Therefore," he says, "each of the 500,000 Socialist voters, and of the two million workingmen who instinctively incline our way, should, besides doing much reading and still more thinking, also have a good rifle and the necessary rounds of ammunition in his home and be prepared to back up his ballot with his bullets if necessary.... Now, I deny that dealing with a blind and greedy plutocratic class as we are dealing in this country, the outcome can ever be peaceable, or that any reasonable change can ever be brought about by the ballot in the end.

"I predict that a large part of the capitalist class will be wiped out for much smaller things ... most of the plutocratic class, together with the politicians, will have to disappear as completely as the feudal lords and their retinue disappeared during the French revolution.

"That cannot be done by the ballot, or only by the ballot.

"The ballot cannot count for much in a pinch."[187] (My italics.)

And in another number Mr. Berger writes:—

"As long as we are in the minority we, of course, have no right to force our opinion upon an unwilling majority.... Yet we do not deny that after we have convinced the majority of the people, we are going to use force if the minority should hesitate."[188] (My italics.)

Few will question the revolutionary nature of this language. But such expressions have always been common at critical moments, even among non-Socialists. We have only to recall the "bloody-bridles" speech of a former populist governor of Colorado, or the advice of the New York Evening Journal that every citizen ought to provide against future contingencies by keeping a rifle in his home. Revolutionary language has no necessary relation to Socialism.

Mr. Berger, moreover, has also used the threat of revolution, not as a progressive but as a reactionary force, not in the sense of Marx, who believed that a revolution, when the times were ripe and the Socialists ready, would bring incalculably more good than evil, but in the sense of the capitalists, for whom it is the most terrible of all possibilities. It is common for conservative statesmen to use precisely the same threat to secure necessary capitalist reforms.

"Some day there will be a volcanic eruption," said Berger in his first speech in Congress; "a fearful retribution will be enacted on the capitalist class as a class, and the innocent will suffer with the guilty. Such a revolution would throw humanity back into semi-barbarism and cause even a temporary retrogression of civilization."

Such is the language used against revolutions by conservatives or reactionaries. Never has it been so applied by a Marx or an Engels, a Liebknecht, a Kautsky or a Bebel. Without underestimating the enormous cost of revolutions, the most eminent Socialists reckon them as nothing compared with the probable gains, or the far greater costs of continuing present conditions. The assertion of manhood that is involved in every great revolution from below in itself implies, in the Socialist view, not retrogression, but a stupendous advance; and any reversion to semi-barbarism that may take place in the course of the revolution is likely, in their opinion, to be far more than compensated in other directions, even during the revolutionary period (to say nothing of ultimate results).

Revolutionary phrases and scares are of course abhorred by capitalistic parties, and considered dangerous, unless there is some very strong occasion for reverting to their use. But such occasions are becoming more and more frequent. Conservative capitalists are more and more grateful for any outbreak that alarms or burdens the neutral classes and serves as a useful pretext for that repression or reaction which their interests require. Progressive capitalists, on the other hand, use the very same disturbances to urge reforms they desire, on the ground that such measures are necessary to avoid "revolution." The disturbance may be as far as possible from revolutionary at bottom. It is only necessary that it should be sufficiently novel and disagreeable to attract attention and cause impatience and irritation among those who have to pay for it. Like the British strikes of 1911, it may not cost the capitalist class as a whole one-hundredth part of one per cent of its income. And it might be possible to repress, within a short time and at no greater expense, a movement many times more menacing. Provided it serves to put the supporters of capitalism on their feet, whatever they do as a result, whether in the way of repression or of reform, will be but to carry out long-cherished plans for advancing their own interests, plans that would have been the same even though there had been no shadow of a "revolutionary" movement on the horizon. The only difference is that such pseudo-revolutionary or semi-revolutionary disturbances serve as stimuli to put the more inert of the capitalist forces in motion, and, until the disturbances become truly menacing, strengthen the capitalist position.

The use of revolutionary phrases does not then, of itself, demonstrate an approach to the revolutionary position, though we may assume, on other grounds, that the majority of the reformist Socialists, who take a revolutionary position as regards certain future contingencies, are in earnest. But this indicates nothing as to the character of their Socialism to-day. The important question is, how far their revolutionary philosophy goes when directed, not at a hypothetical future situation but to questions of the present moment.

In all the leading countries of the world, except Great Britain, the majority of Socialists expect a revolutionary crisis in the future, because they recognize, with that able student of the movement, Professor Sombart, that "history knows of no case where a class has freely given up the rights which it regarded as belonging to itself."[189] This does not mean that Socialists suppose that all progress must await a revolutionary period. Engels insisted that he and his associates were profiting more by lawful than by unlawful and revolutionary action. It means that Socialists do not believe that the capitalists will allow such action to remain lawful long enough materially to increase the income of the working class and its economic and political power as compared with their own.

JaurÈs's position as to present politics is based on the very opposite view. "You will have to lead millions of men to the borders of an impassable gulf," he says to the revolutionists, "but the gulf will not be easier for the millions of men to pass over than it was for a hundred thousand. What we wish is to try to diminish the width of the gulf which separates the exploited in present-day society from their situation in the new society."[190] The revolutionaries assert, on the contrary, that nothing Socialists can do at the present time can moderate the class war, or lessen the power of capitalism to maintain and increase the distance between itself and the masses. In direct disagreement with JaurÈs, they say that when a sufficient numerical majority has been acquired, especially in this day when the masses are educated, it will be able to overcome any obstacle whatever, even what JaurÈs calls the impassable gulf—whether in the meanwhile that gulf will have become narrower or wider than it is to-day, and they believe that the day of this triumph would be delayed rather than brought nearer if the workers were to divert their energies from revolutionary propaganda and organization, to political trading in the interest of reforms that bring no greater gains to the workers than to their exploiters. The revolutionary majority believes that the best that can be done at present is for the workers to train and organize themselves, and always to devise and study and prepare the means by which capitalism can be most successfully and economically assaulted when sufficient numbers are once aroused for successful revolt.

When revolutionary Socialism is not pure speculation, it takes the form of the present-day "class struggle" against capitalism. The view that existing society can be gradually transformed into a social democratic one, Kautsky believes to be merely an inheritance of the past, of a period "when it was generally believed that further development would take place exclusively on the economic field, without the necessity of any kind of change in the relative distribution of political institutions." (Italics mine.)[191]

"Neither a railroad [that is, its administration] nor a ministry can be changed gradually, but only at a single stroke," says Kautsky, to illustrate the sort of a change Socialists expect. The need of such a complete change does not decrease on account of any reforms that are introduced before such a change takes place. "There are some politicians," he says, "who assert that only despotic class rule necessitates revolution; that revolution is rendered superfluous by democracy. It is claimed that we have to-day sufficient democracy in all civilized countries to make possible a peaceable revolutionless development." (My italics.) As means by which these politicians hope to achieve such a revolutionless development, Kautsky mentions the gradual increase of the power of the trade unions, the penetration of Socialists into local governments, and finally the growing power of Socialist minorities in parliaments where they are supposed to be gaining increasing influence, pushing through one reform after another, restricting the power of the capitalists by labor legislation and extending the functions of the government. "So by the exercise of democratic rights upon existing grounds, the capitalist society is [according to these opportunists] gradually and without any shock growing into Socialism."[192]

"This idyl becomes true," Kautsky says, "only if we grant that but one side of the opposed forces [the proletariat] is growing and increasing in strength, while the other side [the capitalists] remains immovably fixed to the same spot." But he believes that the very contrary is the case, that the capitalists are gaining in strength all the time, and that the advance of the working class merely goads the capitalists on "to develop new powers and to discover and apply new methods of resistance and repression."[193]

Kautsky says that the present form of democracy, though it is to the Socialist movement what light and air are to the organism, hinders in no way the development of capitalism, the organization and economic powers of which improve and increase faster than those of the working people. "To be sure, the unions are growing," say Kautsky, "but simultaneously and faster grows the concentration of capital and its organization into gigantic monopolies. To be sure, the Socialist press is growing, but simultaneously grows the partyless and characterless press that poisons and unnerves even wider circles of people. To be sure, wages are rising, but still faster rise the accumulations of profits. Certainly the number of Socialist representatives in Parliament grows, but still more rapidly sinks the significance and efficiency of this institution, while at the same time parliamentary majorities, like the government, fall into ever greater dependence on the powers of high finance." (Possibly events of the past year or two mark the beginning of the waning of the powers of monopolists, and of the partial transfer of those powers to a capitalistic middle class; but exploitation of the working class continues under such new masters no less vigorously than before.)

A recent discussion between Kautsky and the reformist leader, Maurenbrecher, brought out some of these points very sharply.[194] Maurenbrecher said, "In Parliament we wish to do practical work, to secure funds for social reforms—so that step by step we may go on toward the transformation of our class government." Kautsky replied that while the revolutionaries wish also to do practical work in Parliament, they can "see beyond"; and he says of Maurenbrecher's view: "This would all be very fine, if we were alone in the world, if we could arrange our fields of battle and our tactics to suit our taste. But we have to do with opponents who venture everything to prevent the triumph of the proletariat. Comrade Maurenbrecher will acknowledge, I suppose, that the victory of the proletariat will mean the end of capitalist exploitation. Does he expect the exploiters to look on good-naturedly while we take one position after another and make ready for their expropriation? If so, he lives under a mighty illusion. Imagine for a moment that our parliamentary activity were to assume forms which threatened the supremacy of the capitalists. What would happen? The capitalists would try to put an end to parliamentary forms of government. In particular they would rather do away with the universal, direct, and secret ballot than quietly capitulate to the proletariat." As Premier von Buelow declared while in office that he would not hesitate to take the measure that Kautsky anticipates, we have every reason to believe that this very coup d'État is still contemplated in Germany—and we have equally good reason to believe that if the Socialists were about to obtain a majority in the governments of France, Great Britain, or the United States, the capitalist class, yet in control, would be ready to abolish, not only universal suffrage and various constitutional rights, but any and all rights of the people that stood in the way of the maintenance of capitalistic rule. Declarations of Briand and Roosevelt quoted in later chapters (Part III, Chapters VI and VII) are illustrations of what might be expected.

The same position taken by Kautsky in Germany is taken by Otto Bauer, who seems destined to succeed Victor Adler (upon the latter's death or retirement) as the most representative and influential spokesman of the Austrian Party. Reviewing the political situation after the Vienna food riots of 1911, Dr. Bauer writes:—

"The illusion that, once having won equal suffrage, we might peacefully and gradually raise up the working class, proceeding from one 'positive result' to another, has been completely destroyed. In Austria, also, the road leads to the increase of class oppositions, to the heaping up of wealth on the one side, and of misery, revolt, and embitterment on the other, to the division of society into two hostile camps, arming and preparing themselves for war."[195]

Even though underlying economic forces should be found to be improving Labor's condition at a snail's pace, instead of actually heaping up more misery, no changes would be required in any of the other statements, or in the conclusion of this paragraph, which, with this exception, undoubtedly expresses the views of the overwhelming majority of Socialists the world over.

"Democracy cannot do away with the class antagonisms of capitalist society," says Kautsky, referring to the "State Socialist" reforms of semidemocratic governments like those of Australia and Great Britain. "Neither can we avoid the final outcome of these antagonisms—the overthrow of present society. One thing it can do. It cannot abolish the revolution, but it can avert many premature, hopeless revolutionary attempts and render superfluous many revolutionary uprisings. It creates clearness regarding the relative strength of the different parties and classes."

The late Paul Lafargue stated the same principle at a recent congress of the French Socialist Party, contending that, as long as capitalists still control the national administration, representatives are sent by the Socialists to the Chamber of Deputies, not in the hope of diminishing the power of the capitalist State to oppress, but to combat this power, "to procure for the Party a new and more magnificent field of battle."

[178] Marx and Engels, the "Communist Manifesto."