Socialism as it is : $b a survey of the world-wide revolutionary movement

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[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Footnotes have been corrected and moved
to the end of chapters.]


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.