Socialism As It Is

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SOCIALISM AS IT IS

A SURVEY OF THE WORLD-WIDE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

BY

WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1918

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1912,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1912. Reprinted October, 1912;
January, 1915.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE

The only Socialism of interest to practical persons is the Socialism of
the organized Socialist movement. Yet the public cannot be expected to
believe what an organization says about its own character or aims. It is
to be rightly understood only _through its acts_. Fortunately the
Socialists' acts are articulate; every party decision of practical
importance has been reached after long and earnest discussion in party
congresses and press. And wherever the party's position has become of
practical import to those outside the movement, it has been subjected to
a destructive criticism that has forced Socialists from explanations
that were sometimes imaginary or theoretical to a clear recognition and
frank statement of their true position. To know and understand Socialism
as it is, we must lay aside both the claims of Socialists and the
attacks of their opponents and confine ourselves to the concrete
activities of Socialist organizations, the grounds on which their
decisions have been reached, and the reasons by which they are
ultimately defended.

Writers on Socialism, as a rule, have either left their statements of
the Socialist position unsupported, or have based them exclusively on
Socialist authorities, Marx, Engels, and Lasalle, whose chief writings
are now half a century old. The existence to-day of a well-developed
movement, many-sided and world-wide, makes it possible for a writer to
rely neither on his personal experience and opinion nor on the old and
familiar, if still little understood, theories. I have based my account
either on the acts of Socialist organizations and of parties and
governments with which they are in conflict, or on those responsible
declarations of representative statesmen, economists, writers, and
editors which are not mere theories, but the actual material of
present-day polities,--though among these living forces, it must be
said, are to be found also some of the teachings of the great Socialists
of the past.

It will be noticed that the numerous quotations from Socialists and
others are not given academically, in support of the writer's
conclusions, but with the purpose of reproducing with the greatest
possible accuracy the exact views of the writer or speaker quoted. I am
aware that accuracy is not to be secured by quotation alone, but depends
also on the choice of the passages to be reproduced and the use made of
them. I have therefore striven conscientiously to give, as far as space
allows, the leading and central ideas of the persons most frequently
quoted, and not their more hasty, extreme, and less representative
expressions.

I have given approximately equal attention to the German, British, and
American situations, considerable but somewhat less space to those of
France and Australia, and only a few pages to Italy and Belgium. This
allotment of space corresponds somewhat roughly to the relative
importance of these countries in the international movement. As my idea
has been not to describe, but to interpret, I have laid additional
weight on the first five countries named, on the ground that each has
developed a distinct type of labor movement. As I am concerned with
national parties and labor organizations only as parts of the
international movement, however, I have avoided, wherever possible, all
separate treatment and all discussion of features that are to be found
only in one country.

The book is divided into three parts; the first deals with the external
environment out of which Socialism is growing and by which it is being
shaped, the second with the internal struggles by which it is shaping
and defining itself, the third with the reaction of the movement on its
environment. I first differentiate Socialism from other movements that
seem to resemble it either in their phrases or their programs of reform,
then give an account of the movement from within, without attempting to
show unity where it does not exist, or disguising the fact that some of
its factions are essentially anti-Socialist rather than Socialist, and
finally, show how all distinctively Socialist activities lead directly
to a revolutionary outcome.

I am indebted to numerous persons, Socialists and anti-Socialists, who
during the twelve years in which I have been gathering material--in
nearly all the countries mentioned--have assisted me in my work. But I
must make special mention of the very careful reading of the whole
manuscript by Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes, and of the numerous and vital
changes made at his suggestion.

CONTENTS

PAGE
PREFACE v

INTRODUCTION ix

PART I

"STATE SOCIALISM" AND AFTER

CHAPTER
I. THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM 1
II. THE NEW CAPITALISM 16
III. THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM 32
IV. "STATE SOCIALISM" AND LABOR 46
V. COMPULSORY ARBITRATION 66
VI. AGRARIAN "STATE SOCIALISM" IN AUSTRALASIA 85
VII. "EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY" 97
VIII. THE "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS SOCIALISM 108

PART II

THE POLITICS OF SOCIALISM

I. "STATE SOCIALISM" WITHIN THE MOVEMENT 117
II. "REFORMISM" IN FRANCE, ITALY, AND BELGIUM 131
III. "LABORISM" IN GREAT BRITAIN 146
IV. "REFORMISM" IN THE UNITED STATES 175
V. REFORM BY MENACE OF REVOLUTION 210
VI. REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS 231
VII. THE REVOLUTIONARY TREND 248

PART III

SOCIALISM IN ACTION

I. SOCIALISM AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE" 276
II. THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES AND THE LAND QUESTION 300
III. SOCIALISM AND THE "WORKING CLASS" 324
IV. SOCIALISM AND LABOR UNIONS 334
V. SYNDICALISM; SOCIALISM THROUGH DIRECT ACTION OF LABOR UNIONS 354
VI. THE "GENERAL STRIKE" 387
VII. REVOLUTION IN DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 401
VIII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION 416
IX. THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM 426

NOTES 437

INDEX 447

INTRODUCTION

The only possible definition of Socialism is the Socialist movement.
Karl Marx wrote in 1875 at the time of the Gotha Convention, where the
present German party was founded, that "every step of the real movement
is of more importance than a dozen programs," while Wilhelm Liebknecht
said, "Marx is dear to me, but the party is dearer."[1] What was this
movement that the great theorist put above theory and his leading
disciple valued above his master?

What Marx and Liebknecht had in mind was a _social class_ which they saw
springing up all over the world with common characteristics and common
problems--a class which they felt must and would be organized into a
movement to gain control of society. Fifty years before it had been
nothing, and they had seen it in their lifetime coming to preponderate
numerically in Great Britain as it was sure to preponderate in other
countries; and it seemed only a question of time before the practically
propertyless employees of modern industry would dominate the world and
build up a new society. This class would be politically and economically
organized, and when its organization and numbers were sufficient it
would take governments out of the hands of the old aristocratic and
plutocratic rulers and transform them into the instruments of a new
civilization. This is what Marx and Liebknecht meant by the "party" and
the "movement."

From the first the new class had been in conflict with employers and
governments, and these struggles had been steadily growing in scope and
intensity. Marx was not so much interested in the immediate objects of
such conflicts as in the struggle itself. "The real fruit of their
victory," he said, "lies, not in immediate results, but in the ever
expanding union of the workers."[2] As the struggle evolved and became
better organized, it tended more and more definitely and irresistibly
towards a certain goal, whether the workers were yet aware of it or not.
If, therefore, we Socialists participate in the real struggles of
politics, Marx said of himself and his associates (in 1844, at the very
outset of his career), "we expose new principles to the world out of the
principles of the world itself.... We only explain to it the real object
for which it struggles."[3]

But the public still fails, in spite of the phenomenal and continued
growth of the Socialist movement in all modern countries, to grasp the
first principle on which it is based.

"Socialism has many phases," says a typical editorial in the
_Independent_. "It is a political party, an economic creed, a religion,
and a stage of history. It is world-wide, vigorous, and growing. No man
can tell what its future will be. Its philosophy is being studied by the
greatest minds of the world, and it deserves study because it promises a
better, a safer, and a fairer life to the masses. But as yet it is only
a theory, a hypothesis. It has never been tried _in toto_.... It has
succeeded only where it has allied itself with liberal and opportunist
rather than radical policies."[4]

As the Socialist movement has nowhere achieved political power,
obviously it can neither claim political success or be accused of
political failure. Nor does this fact leave Socialism as a mere theory,
in view of its admitted and highly significant success in organizing and
educating the masses in many countries and animating them with the
purpose of controlling industry and government.

Mr. John Graham Brooks, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, gives us another
equally typical variation of the same fundamental misunderstanding.
"Never a theory of social reconstruction was spun in the gray mists of
the mind," says Mr. Brooks, "that was not profoundly modified when
applied to life. Socialism as a theory is already touching life at a
hundred points, and among many peoples--Socialism has been a faith. It
is slowly becoming scientific, in a sense and to the extent that it
submits its claims to the comparative tests of experience."[5]

Undoubtedly Socialist theories have been spun both within and without
the movement, and to many Socialism has been a faith. But neither faith
nor theory has had much to do with the great reality that is now
overshadowing all others in the public mind; namely, the existence of a
Socialist movement. The Socialism of this movement has never consisted
in ready-made formulas which were later subjected to "the comparative
test of experience"; it has always grown out of the experience of the
movement in the first instance.

Another typical article, in _Collier's Weekly_, admits that Socialism
is now a movement. But as the writer, like so many others, conceives of
Socialism as having been, in its inception, a "theory," a "doctrine"
promoted by "Utopian dreaming," "incendiary rhetoric," an "anti-civic
jargon," he naturally views it with little real sympathy and
understanding even in its present form. The same Socialism that was
accused of all this narrowness is suddenly and completely transformed
into a movement of such breadth that it has neither a new message nor
even a separate existence.

"It is merely a new offshoot of a very old faith indeed," we are now
told, "the ideal of the altruistic dreamers of all ages, an awakened
sense of brotherhood in men. Stripped of all its husks, Socialism stands
for no other aim than that. All its other teachings, the public
ownership of the land, for example, the nationalization of the means of
production and distribution, the economic emancipation of woman, have
only program values, as they lead to that one end. Whether, so stripped,
it ceases to be Socialism and becomes merely the advance guard of the
world-wide liberal movement is not, of course, a question of more than
academic interest."[6]

The moment it can no longer be denied that Socialism is a movement, it
is at once confused with other movements to which it is fundamentally
and irreconcilably opposed. Surely this is no mere mental error, but a
deep-seated and irrepressible aversion to what is to many a disagreeable
truth,--the rapid growth and development, in many countries, of
political parties and labor organizations more and more seriously
determined to annihilate the power of private property over industry and
government.

The radical misconceptions above quoted, almost universal where
Socialism is still young, are by no means confined to non-Socialists.
Many writers who are supposed, in some degree at least, to voice the
movement, are as guilty as those who wholly repudiate it. Mr. H. G.
Wells, for instance, says that Socialism is a "system of ideas," and
that "Socialism and the Socialist movement are two different things."[7]
If Socialism is indeed no more than a "growing realization of
constructive needs in every man's mind," and if every man is more or
less a Socialist, then there is certainly no need for that antagonism to
employers and property owners of which Mr. Wells complains.

Mr. Wells himself gives the true Socialist standpoint when he goes on to
write that political parties must be held together "by interests and
habits, not ideas." "Every party," he continues, "stands essentially for
the interests and mental usages of some definite class or group of
classes in the existing community.... No class will abolish itself,
materially alter its way or life, or drastically reconstruct itself,
albeit no class is indisposed to cooeperate in the unlimited
socialization of any other class. In that capacity of aggression upon
the other classes lies the essential driving force of modern
affairs."[8]

The habits and interests of a large and growing part of the population
in every modern country are developing a capacity for effective
aggression against the class which controls industry and government. As
this class will not socialize or abolish itself, the rest of the people,
Socialists predict, will undertake the task. And the abolition of
capitalism, they believe, will be a social revolution the like of which
mankind has hitherto neither known nor been able to imagine.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] John Spargo, "Karl Marx," pp. 312, 331.

[2] John Spargo, _op. cit._, p. 116.

[3] John Spargo, _op. cit._, p. 73.

[4] The _Independent_ (New York), commenting on the Socialist victory in
the Milwaukee municipal elections of April, 1910.

[5] "Recent Socialist Literature," by John Graham Brooks, _Atlantic
Monthly_, 1910. Page 283.

[6] _Collier's Weekly_, July 30, 1910.

[7] H. G. Wells, "Socialism and the Family."

[8] H. G. Wells, "The New Macchiavelli."

SOCIALISM AS IT IS

PART I

"STATE SOCIALISM" AND AFTER

CHAPTER I

THE CAPITALIST REFORM PROGRAM

Only that statesman, writer, or sociologist has the hearing of the
public to-day who can bind all his proposed reforms together into some
large and far-sighted plan.

Mr. Roosevelt, in this new spirit, has spoken of the "social
reorganization of the United States," while an article in one of the
first numbers of _La Follette's Weekly_ protested against any program of
reform "which fails to deal with society as a whole, which proposes to
remedy certain abuses but admits its incapacity to reach and remove the
roots of the other perhaps more glaring social disorders."

Some of those who have best expressed the need of a general and complete
social reorganization have done so in the name of Socialism. Mr. J. R.
MacDonald, recently chairman of the British Labour Party, for example
writes that the problem set up by the Socialists is that of
"co-ordinating the forces making for a reconstruction of society and of
giving them rational coherence and unity,"[9] while the organ of the
middle-class Socialists of England says that their purpose is "to compel
legislators to organize industry."[10]

Indeed, the necessity and practicability of an orderly and systematic
reorganization in industrial society has been the central idea of
British Socialists from the beginning, while they have been its chief
exponents in the international Socialist movement. But the idea is
equally widespread outside of Socialist circles. It will be hard for
British Socialists to lay an exclusive claim to this conception when
comrades of such international prominence as Edward Bernstein, who holds
the British view of Socialism, assert that Socialism itself is nothing
more than "organizing Liberalism."[11]

Whether Socialists were the first to promote the new political
philosophy or not, it is undeniable that the Radicals and Liberals of
Great Britain and other countries have now taken it up and are making it
their own. Mr. Winston Churchill, while Chairman of the Board of Trade,
and Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, members of the
British Cabinet, leaders of the Liberal Party, recognize that the
movement among governments towards a conscious _reorganization of
industry_ is general and demands that Great Britain should keep up with
other countries.

"Look at our neighbor and friendly rival, Germany," said Mr. Churchill
recently. "I see that great State organized for peace and organized for
war, to a degree to which we cannot pretend.... A more scientific, a
more elaborate, a more comprehensive social organization is
indispensable to our country if we are to surmount the trials and
stresses which the future years will bring. It is this organization that
the policy of the Budget will create."[12]

Advanced and radical reformers of the new type all over the world, those
who put forward a general plan of reform and wish to go to the common
roots of our social evils, demand, first of all, _reorganization_. But
how is such a reorganization to be worked out? The general programs have
in every country many features in common. To see what this common basis
is, let us look at the generalizations of some of the leading reformers.

One of the most scientific and "constructive" is Mr. Sidney Webb. No one
has so thoroughly mastered the history of trade unionism, and no one has
done more to promote "municipal Socialism" in England, both in theory
and in practice, for he has been one of the leaders of the energetic and
progressive London County council from the beginning of the present
reform period. He has also been one of the chief organizers of the more
or less Socialistic Fabian Society, which has done more towards
popularizing social reform in England than any other single educative
force, besides sending into all the corners of the world a new and
rounded theory of social reform--the work for the most part of Sidney
Webb, Bernard Shaw, and a few others.

Mr. Webb has given us several excellent phrases which will aid us to sum
up the typical social reformers' philosophy in a few words. He insists
that what every country requires, and especially Great Britain, is to
center its attention on the promotion of the "national efficiency." This
refers largely to securing a businesslike and economic administration
of the existing government functions. But it requires also that _all_
the industries and economic activities of the country should be
considered the business of the nation, that the industrial functions of
the government should be extended, and that, even from the business
point of view, the chief purpose of government should be to supervise
economic development.

To bring about the maximum of efficiency in production would require, in
Mr. Webb's opinion and that of the overwhelming majority of reformers
everywhere, a vast extension of government activities, including not
only the nationalization and municipalization of many industries and
services, but also that the individual workman or citizen be dealt with
as the chief business asset of the nation and that wholesale public
expenditures be entered into to develop his value. Mr. Webb does not
think that this policy is necessarily Socialistic, for, as he very
wisely remarks, "the necessary basis of society, whether the
superstructure be collectivist or individualist, is the same."

Mr. Wells in his "New Worlds for Old" also claims that the new policy of
having the State do everything that can promote industrial efficiency
(which, unlike Mr. Webb, he persists in calling Socialism) is to the
interest of the business man.

"And does the honest and capable business man stand to lose or gain
by the coming of such a Socialist government?" he asks. "I submit
that on the whole he stands to gain....

"Under Socialist government such as is quite possible in England at
the present time:--

"He will be restricted from methods of production and sale that are
socially mischievous.

"He will pay higher wages.

"He will pay a large proportion of his rent-rate outgoings to the
State and Municipality, and less to the landlord. Ultimately he
will pay it all to the State or Municipality, and as a voter help
to determine how it shall be spent, and the landlord will become a
government stockholder. Practically he will get his rent returned
to him in public service.

"He will speedily begin to get better-educated, better-fed, and
better-trained workers, so that he will get money value for the
higher wages he pays.

"He will get a regular, safe, cheap supply of power and material.
He will get cheaper and more efficient internal and external
transit.

"He will be under an organized scientific State, which will
naturally pursue a vigorous scientific collective policy in support
of the national trade.

"He will be less of an adventurer and more of a citizen."[13]

Mr. Churchill while denying any sympathy for Socialism, as both he and
the majority of Socialists understand it, frankly avows himself a
collectivist. "The whole tendency of civilization," he says, "is towards
the multiplication of the collective functions of society. The ever
growing complications of civilizations create for us new services which
have to be undertaken by the State, and create for us an expansion of
the existing services. There is a growing feeling, which I entirely
share, against allowing those services which are in the nature of
monopolies to pass into private hands. [Mr. Churchill has expressed the
regret that the railways are not in the hands of the State.] There is a
pretty steady determination, which I am convinced will become effective
in the present Parliament to intercept _all_ future unearned increment,
which may arise from the increase in the speculative value of the
land."[14] (Italics mine.)

Mr. Churchill's declared intention ultimately "to intercept _all_ future
unearned increment" of the land is certainly a tremendous step towards
collectivism, as it would ultimately involve the nationalization of
perhaps a third of the total wealth of society. With railways and
monopolies of all kinds also in government hands, a very large part of
the industrial capital of the country would be owned by the State, and,
though all agricultural capital, and therefore the larger part of the
total, remained in private hands, we are certainly justified in calling
such a state of society _capitalist collectivism_.

But not one of the elements of this collectivism is a novelty. Railroads
are owned by governments in most countries, and monopolies often are.
The partial appropriation of the "unearned increment" is by no means
new, since a similar policy is being adopted in Germany at the present
moment, and is favored not by the radicals alone, but by the most
conservative forces in the country; namely, the party of landed Prussian
nobility. Count Posadovsky, a former minister, has written a pamphlet in
which he urges that the State should buy up the land in and about the
cities, and also that it should fix a definite limit beyond which land
values must not rise. Nearly all the chief cities of Prussia, more than
a hundred, are enforcing such a tax in a moderate form, and the
conservatives in the Reichstag proposed that the national government
should be given a right to tax in the same field. Their bill was
enacted, and, in the second half of 1911, the German government, it was
estimated, would raise over $3,000,000 by this tax, and in 1912 it is
expected to give $5,000,000. This tax, which is collected when land
changes hands by sale or exchanges, rises gradually to 30 per cent when
the increase has been 290 per cent or more. Of course this scale is
likely to be still further raised and to be made more steep as the tax
becomes more and more popular.