Socialist-Revolutionaries

“ In the defeat or victory of the working class party in this new struggle for freedom lies the defeat or triumph of the common people of all economic groups, as well as the failure or the triumph of popular government. Thus the Socialist Party is the party of the present day revolution, which marks the transition from economic individualism to Socialism, from wage slavery to free co-operation, from capitalist oligarchy to industrial democracy. ”

“ Thus it will be seen that the talk of revolution as a Socialist method is wrong. Revolution can never bring Socialism, because the change which Socialists contemplate is one which will affect every fibre of society, and which must therefore be an organic process. ”

“ The great majority of the nation can be won over to our side by propaganda and lawful action, and led to complete Socialism, The whole nation, with the exception of a few refractory but powerless elements, will rise, if we are determined that it shall, by the roads that lead up from bourgeois individualism to State Socialism, and from State Socialism to Communistic, human, and proletarian Socialism. ”

“ But to the eye that great audience melted away into nothingness, leaving no visible trace, whereas the little group of Socialists remained in being and endured, diffusing forth such light of Socialism as it had, even if it were only as the glow-worm's little ray in the dark. ”

“ I need not enumerate now the questions so diverse, so pressing, so vast, with which we are beset, and which we must resolve under pain of decay, But that they may be resolved in accordance with the facts of life, it is necessary that practically all the live forces of Socialism and of the proletariat be appealed to to deliberate upon them. ”

“ The majority of them, the regular Socialist parties in every country, now stand for the conquest of political power, for the establishment of a Socialist government whose business it will be to abolish capitalism and bring about Socialism. ”

“ They want a majority of workers to understand Socialism and to get control of the State through the Ballot box. We will not get a majority for three thousand years or so. Marx says we must establish a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. ”

“ The political beginning of the Socialist party in this country is now distinctly recognized by its most implacable enemies. A single Socialist congressman has been sufficient to arouse the whole nation to the vital issue of Socialism which confronts it. ”

“ There is great and regrettable confusion as regards the words reform and revolution. The Socialist party calls itself revolutionary, and as revolution is connected in the minds of most people with violence, the popular impression is that the Socialist party stands for violence. ”

“ The old revolutionary policy of stirring up hatred against all existing institutions is thus relegated from the present to the distant future, after the present class-State is overthrown and the working-class or socialist State established in its place. ”

“ This is what the Socialist wants. His prime object is to create a force among the toilers that may be welded into a great revolutionary movement. In this appeal slumber the darkest and the most cruel instincts of man’s nature. ”

“ There are today upwards of sixty millions of Socialists, loyal, devoted adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color, or sex. They are all making common cause. They are spreading with tireless energy the propaganda of the new social order. ”

“ The Socialist party has long been such a party. The revolutionary class is also here, and has for some time constituted a majority of the nation. Can we also reckon upon the moral collapse of the ruling regime? ”

“ Workingmen cannot depend on 'peaceful evolution'; they must prepare for a revolution, and class-dictatorship....
"To the Socialist at present, the meaning of class struggle, Internationale and Dictatorship of the Proletariat, must be clear. He must understand that Socialism is not a reform movement. He must know that Socialism is a Revolutionary world-perspective, and that the Socialist movement is a Revolutionary movement.... He must cease to be a moral preacher and become a fighter. ”

“ How can we claim to be essentially distinct and, in fact, diametrically opposed to all other political parties, if we can find sufficient common objects to make possible any common ground of working? We think that the teaching of our principles is hindered by every such concession to the anti-class war parties, and is, therefore, opposed to the true interests of Socialism. We, therefore, avow ourselves in hostility to all other political parties, and can have nothing in common with them. ”

“ Thus idealism received another deadly blow. Socialism thus hardened, interpreted as the grand final stage of the struggle between the classes, appealed with new definiteness and new force to the masses. ”

“ But when that day comes, there will be no difficulty, in highly industrial countries, in securing Socialist majorities; if Socialism is not then carried without bloodshed, it will be due to the unconstitutional action of the rich, not to the need of revolutionary violence on the part of the advocates of the proletariat. Whether such a state of opinion grows up or not depends mainly upon the stubbornness or conciliatoriness of the possessing classes, and, conversely, upon the moderation or violence of those who desire fundamental economic change. ”

“ So he decries mere reform and insists upon nothing less than revolution, the transfer of political power from the capitalist to the people at large. There is thus between the reformer and the revolutionary Socialist a difference of principle; the one upholding the competitive system and the other denouncing it. ”

“ You are mistaken in believing, for a moment, that I am neglecting the socialist in favor of the political movement. No; it is only from a purely socialistic point of view I am pursuing the revolutionary work; but you must thoroughly know we can do nothing in the direction of social reform if the old political system be not annihilated. Let us not forget that at this moment the Empire exists merely in name, and that government consists in party abuse. ”

“ It is the one taught in our schools, in our pulpits, on our political platforms, and in our press. It is the view, carried to an extreme, of that man or group of men who believes that the ideas of individuals determine social evolution. Nothing could be more logical to the revolutionist who holds this view than to seek to remove those individuals who are responsible for the existing order of society. As a rule, the socialist stands almost alone in combating this ideological interpretation of history and of social evolution. ”

“ And what power, when, in face of the increasing disorganisation of all the powers that be, Socialism stands forth one, visibly one!
What animation, also, when in the great periodic congresses all the questions of doctrine, of method, of tactics, which interest Socialism — that is to say, humanity — will be.publicly discussed! But we will be careful. A great party cannot change its belief without loss. In Germany, in that country which lays claim to discipline, to Socialist authoritarianism, all questions are agitated unceasingly. ”

“ Hence it is that the French Revolution and the general movement of the human spirit to which it was a response, have handed over to us the task of reconciling individual right and communal activity, individual freedom and social organisation, democracy and differentiation of political functions.
At this historical point Socialism is born, and its task is to effect the reconciliation. ”

“ But in truth this extreme ideal was in a sense the very reverse of Socialist, or even refused was that social ownership on which Socialism is built; what they primarily refused to do was what Socialists primarily exist to do ”

“ But while the Socialists have compelled the attention of all classes to existing social ills, and have made social reform the chief concern of all politicians, the idea of a social democracy steadily recedes from the political vision, and the conscious movement to Socialism falters. Socialist workmen in Parliament or on city councils soon find themselves absorbed in the practical work of legislation or administration, and learn that there is neither leisure nor outlet for revolutionary propaganda. ”

“ Since the revolutionists, to win votes, frequently point to the reforms they have proposed or in some cases accomplished, we should all be on our guard lest, being allured by these reforms, we be led into the Socialist camp, and later on suffer the dreadful evils that have been shown would result from the adoption of the Marxian system of government. ”

“ A similar process is going on in this country, gathering momentum with every injunction against organized labor, every hostile enactment of legislatures, and every use of the judicial and executive powers to defeat the workers in their struggle against capitalism. The workers are being educated to political Socialism by the stern experiences resulting from capitalist rule. Underneath the thin veneer of party differences, the worker sees the class identity of the great political parties, and cries out, "A plague on both your houses!" ”

“ It was then a political custom and one of the most solemn, most severe, most rigorous, and if I may dare say so, the most terrible and cruel of all political customs, to include a member of the Socialist party in each ministry intended to oppose Socialism, so that the enemies of wealth and property should suffer the shame of being attacked by one of their own party, and so that they could not unite against these forces without turning to some one who might possibly attack themselves in the future. ”

“ The danger I see ahead is that the Socialist party at this stage, and under existing conditions, is apt to attract elements which it cannot assimilate, and that it may be either weighted down, or torn asunder with internal strife, or that it may become permeated and corrupted with the spirit of bourgeois reform to an extent that will practically destroy its virility and efficiency as a revolutionary organization. ”

“ We would not have a real Socialist movement in this country until the working class abandoned Liberal and Tory politics and became a great Labour and Socialist Party, moulding Socialist ideals and principles into practical shape for themselves. ”

“ They hope to hold a large part of the proletariat in check by a few reforming laws expressing a sentiment of social solidarity, and by their policy of defending private property to rouse the conservative forces, the petty bourgeoisie, the middle classes, and the small peasant proprietors to oppose Socialism." [6]
So we see that in spite of their experiences Socialists still draw a clear distinction between their Socialism and democracy. The Socialist is willing to ignore the experiences of the past twenty years in his ecstasy of vision. ”

“ But without a revolution, socialism cannot be enforced. It requires this political act, so far as it has need of the process of destruction and dissolution. But where its organizing activity begins, where its proper aim, its soul, emerges, there socialism casts away the political hull. ”

“ They simply mean to indicate by it, that when Socialism has come the change will be so great as to be fundamental, and that the state of society which then will have been evolved will be so different from that from which the evolution sprung, that it will not be the same kind of society at all. That being so, those Socialists consider that they are justified in speaking of "revolutionary Socialism." They only add to the difficulties of those who are trying to understand them. ”

“ We think only [Pg 326] of the change that must come over society, transferring the control of its life from the few to the many, the change that is now going on all around us. When the time comes that men and women speak of the state in which they live as Socialism, and look back upon the life we live to-day with wonder and pity, they will speak of the period of revolution as including this very year, and, possibly, all the years included in the lives of the youngest persons present. ”

“ This criticism, however, was not directed at it because it was political but because its leaders had become "socialist" politicians, parliamentarians, "socialist" reformers, log-rolling and temporizing with capitalist society. ”

“ With these economic activities undertaken by the state, a pure democracy differing vitally from all the class-dominated states of history, private enterprise would by no means be excluded, but limited to an extent making the exploitation of labor and public needs and interests for private gain impossible. Socialism thus becomes the defender of individual liberty, not its enemy. ”

“ The efforts of the socialist must therefore be directed towards removing that cause. Given persistent and systematic education and propa­ganda, democracy would work well, even in the transition time from capitalism to socialism. A revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, therefore, need not be necessary, “;but whether it has to be resorted to or not depends solely upon the policy of the capitalists themselves and not upon the political necessities of Socialism. Socialists ought not to allow capitalist interests and designs to divert Socialist propaganda and methods. ”

“ Thus the Socialist spirit and point of view may be the subject of violent hostile propaganda, but all parties in the state have to accept its guidance and form their legislation accordingly. Whether, in a coming time, the drift of the current is to change its direction or not, is a matter of speculation which only idle men will spend much time in discussing. To-day, it is running clear and strong, not because men believe in Socialism but because Socialism is a consequence of democracy. ”