Socialism: A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles Part 4

He also became friendly with Robert Owen, and wrote for his _New Moral World_.[52] His linguistic abilities were very great; it is said that he had thoroughly mastered no less than ten languages--a gift which helped him immensely in his literary and political a.s.sociations with Marx.

When the two men met for the first time, in 1844, they were drawn together by an irresistible impulse. They were kindred spirits. Marx had gone to Paris mainly for the purpose of studying the Socialist movement of the time. During his editorship of the _Rhenish Gazette_ several articles had appeared on the subject, and he had refused to attack the Socialists in any manner. He had gone to Paris with a considerable reputation already established as a leader of radical thought, and at once sought out the Saint-Simonians, under whose influence he was led to declare himself definitely a Socialist. At first this seems difficult to explain, so wide is the chasm which yawns between the "New Christianity"

of Saint-Simon and the materialism of Marx. There seems to be no bond of sympathy between the religious mysticism of the French dreamer and the scientific thought of the German economist and philosopher.

Marx has been described as being "rigidly mathematical,"[53] and the picture of the man one gets from his writings is that of a cold, unemotional philosopher, dealing only with facts and caring nothing for idealism. But the real Marx was a very different sort of man. His life was itself a splendid example of n.o.ble idealism, and underlying all his materialism there was a great religious spirit, using the word "religious" in its n.o.blest and best sense, quite independent of dogmatic theology. All his life he was a deep student of Dante, the _Divine Comedy_ being his constant companion, so that he knew it almost completely by heart. Some of his attacks upon Christianity are very bitter, and have been much quoted against Socialism, but they are not one whit more bitter than the superb thunderbolts of invective which the ancient Hebrew prophets hurled against an unfaithful Church and priesthood. For the most part, they are attacks upon religious hypocrisy rather than upon Christianity. Marx was, of course, an agnostic, even an atheist, but he was full of sympathy with the underlying ethical principles of all the great religions. Always tolerant of the religious opinions of others, he had nothing but scorn and contempt for the blatant dogmatic atheism of his time, and vigorously opposed committing the Socialist movement to atheism as part of its programme.[54] In short, he was a man of fine spiritual instincts, splendidly religious in his irreligion.

This spiritual side of Marx must be considered if we would understand the man. It is not necessary, however, to ascribe the influence of Saint-Simonian thought upon him to a predisposing spiritual temperament.

Marx, with his usual penetration, saw in Saint-Simonism the hidden germ of a great truth, the embryo of a profound social theory. Saint-Simon, as we have seen, had vaguely indicated the two ideas which were afterward to be cardinal doctrines of the Marx-Engels _Manifesto_--the antagonism of cla.s.ses, and the economic foundation of political inst.i.tutions. Not only so, but Saint-Simon's grasp of political questions, instanced by his advocacy, in 1815, of a triple alliance between England, France, and Germany,[55] appealed to Marx, and impressed him alike by its fine perspicacity and its splendid courage.

Engels, in whom, as stated, the working-cla.s.s spirit of Chartism and the ideals of Owenism were blended, found in Marx a twin spirit. They were, indeed,--

"Two souls with but a single thought, Two hearts that beat as one."

III

The _Communist Manifesto_ is the first declaration of an International Workingmen's Party. Its fine peroration is a call to the workers to transcend the petty divisions of nationalism and sectarianism: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!" These concluding phrases of the _Manifesto_ have become the shibboleths of millions. They are repeated with fervor by the disinherited workers of all the lands. Even in China, lately so rudely awakened from the slumbering peace of the centuries, they are voiced by an ever increasing army of voices. No sentences ever coined in the mint of human speech have held such magic power over such large numbers of men and women of so many diverse races and creeds. As a literary production, the _Manifesto_ bears the unmistakable stamp of genius.

But it is not as literature that we are to consider the historic doc.u.ment. Its importance for us lies, not in its form, but in its fundamental principle. And the fundamental principle, the essence or soul of the declaration, is contained in this pregnant summary by Engels:--

"In every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the _social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch_, that consequently the whole history of mankind (since primitive tribal society holding land in common ownership) has been a history of cla.s.s struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed cla.s.ses."[56]

Thus Engels summarizes the philosophy--as apart from the proposals of immediate measures to const.i.tute the political programme of the party--of the _Manifesto_; the basis upon which the whole superstructure of modern, scientific Socialist theory rests. This is the materialistic, or economic, conception of history which distinguishes scientific Socialism from all the Utopian Socialisms which preceded it. Socialism is henceforth a theory of social evolution, not a scheme of world-building; a spirit, not a thing. Thus, twelve years before the appearance of "The Origin of Species," nearly twenty years after the death of Lamarck, the authors of the _Communist Manifesto_ formulated a great theory of social evolution as the basis of the mightiest proletarian movement in history. Socialism had become a science instead of a dream.

IV

Naturally, in view of its historic role, the joint authorship of the _Manifesto_ has been much discussed. What was the respective share of each of its creators? What did Marx contribute, and what Engels? It may be, as Liebknecht says, an idle question, but it is a perfectly natural one. The pamphlet itself does not a.s.sist us. There are no internal signs pointing now to the hand of the one, now to the hand of the other. We may hazard a guess that most of the programme of ameliorative measures was the work of Engels, and perhaps the final section. It was the work of Engels throughout his life to deal with present social and political problems in the light of the fundamental theories to the systematization and elucidation of which Marx was devoted.

Beyond this mere conjecture, we have the word of Engels with regard to the basal principle which he has summarized in the pa.s.sage already quoted. "The _Manifesto_ being our joint production," he says, "I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to Marx.... This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin's theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845. How far I had progressed toward it is best shown by my 'Condition of the Working Cla.s.s in England.'[57] But when I again met Marx at Brussels, in spring, 1845, he had it ready worked out, and put it before me in terms almost as clear as those in which I have stated it here."[58]

Engels has lifted the veil thus far, but the rest is hidden. Perhaps it is well that it should be; well that no man should be able to say which pa.s.sages came from the mind of Marx and which from the mind of Engels.

In life they were inseparable, and so they must be in the Valhalla of history. The greatest political pamphlet of all time must forever bear, with equal honor, the names of both. Their n.o.ble friendship unites them even beyond the tomb.

"Twin t.i.tans! Whom defeat ne'er bowed, Scarce breathing from the fray, Again they sound the war cry loud, Again is riven Labor's shroud, And life breathed in the clay.

Their work? Look round--see Freedom proud And confident to-day."[59]

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Cf. _Social Democracy Red Book_, edited by Frederic Heath (1900), page 79.

[43] _History of Socialism in the United States_, by Morris Hillquit, pages 161-162.

[44] E. Belfort Bax, article on _Friederich Engels_, in _Justice_ (London), No. 606, Vol. XII, August 24, 1895.

[45] _Disclosures about the Communists' Process, Herr Vogt_, etc.

[46] Cf. G. Adler, _Die Grundlagen der Karl Marx'schen Kritik der bestehenden Volkswirthschaft_ (1887), page 226.

[47] _Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs_, by Wilhelm Liebknecht, page 14.

[48] _Idem_, page 164.

[49] Cf. F. Mehring's _Aus dem literarischen Nachla.s.s von Karl Marx, Friederich Engels, und Ferdinand La.s.salle_, 1902; the _Neue Beitrage zur Biographie von Karl Marx und Friederich Engels, in Die Neue Zeit_, 1907, and Mehring's _Geschichte der deutschen Sozialdemokratie_, 1903.

[50] _Memoirs of Marx_, by Wilhelm Liebknecht, page 164.

[51] Karl Kautsky, article on F. Engels, _Austrian Labor Almanac_, 1887.

[52] E. Belfort Bax, article on _Friederich Engels_, in _Justice_ (London), No. 606, Vol. XII, August 24, 1895.

[53] Cf. _Reminiscences of Karl Marx_, by W. Harrison Riley, in _The Comrade_, Vol. III, No. 1, pages 5-6.

[54] Marx opposed the "Alliance de la Democratic Socialiste," formed by Bakunin, with its headquarters at Geneva, almost as vigorously for its atheistic plank as for its denial of political methods. The first plank in the programme of the "Alliance" was as follows:--

"The Alliance declares itself Atheist; it demands the abolition of all worship, the subst.i.tution of science for faith, and of human justice for Divine justice; the abolition of marriage, so far as it is a political, religious, juridical, or civil inst.i.tution."

This programme is frequently quoted against the Socialist propaganda,--as, for example, by George Brooks, in _G.o.d's England or the Devil's_?--in spite of the fact that the "Alliance" was an Anarchist organization, bitterly opposed by Marx, and, in turn, bitterly opposing him.

In this connection, it may be well to call attention to an alleged "quotation from Marx" which is frequently used by the opponents of Socialism. It appears in the work of Brooks, quoted above, and in Professor Peabody's _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_ (1907), page 16. Used in a public discussion by a New York labor union official, in April, 1908, it was widely discussed by the press, and, according to that same press, drew from the President of the United States enthusiastic praise of the labor-union official in question. The pa.s.sage reads: "The idea of G.o.d must be destroyed. It is the keystone of a perverted civilization. The true root of liberty, of equality, of culture, is Atheism. Nothing must restrain the spontaneity of the human mind." Had the opponents of Socialism been familiar with the teachings of Marx, they would have known that he could not have said anything like this, that it is absolutely at variance with all his teaching. The man who formulated the materialist conception of history could not by any possibility utter such balderdash. The fact is, the quotation is not from Karl Marx at all, but from a very different writer, an Anarchist, Wilhelm Marr, who was _a most bitter opponent of Socialism_. As given, the quotation is a free translation of a pa.s.sage contained in Marr's _Das junge Deutschland in der Schweiz_, pages 131-134. Marr's programme, as given in the _Report of the Royal Commission on Labor_ (Vol. V, Germany), was the abolition of Church, State, property, and marriage, with the one positive tenet of "a b.l.o.o.d.y and fearful revenge upon the rich and powerful."

[55] See F. Engels, _Socialism, Utopian and Scientific_, page 16 (London edition, 1892).

[56] F. Engels, Introduction to the _Communist Manifesto_ (English translation, 1888). The italics are mine. J. S.

[57] F. Engels, _The Condition of the Working Cla.s.s in England in 1844_.

See, for instance, pages 79, 80, 82, etc.

[58] Introduction to the _Communist Manifesto_ (English edition, 1888).

[59] From _Friederich Engels_, a poem by "J. L." (John Leslie), in _Justice_ (London), August 17, 1895.

CHAPTER IV

THE MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY

I

Socialism, then, in the modern, scientific sense, is a theory of social evolution. Its hopes for the future rest, not upon the genius of some Utopia-builder, but upon the inherent forces of historical development.

The Socialist state will never be realized except as the result of economic necessity, the culmination of successive epochs of industrial evolution. Thus the existing social system appears to the Socialist of to-day, not as it appeared to the Utopians and as it still must appear to mere ideologist reformers, as a triumph of ignorance or wickedness, the reign of false _ideas_, but as the result of an age-long evolutionary process, determined, not wholly indeed, but mainly, by certain methods of producing the necessities of life in the first place, and secondly, of effecting their exchange.

Not, let it be understood, that Socialism has become a mere mechanical theory of economic fatalism. The historical development, the social evolution, upon the laws of which the theories of Socialism are based, is a human process, involving all the complex feelings, emotions, aspirations, hopes, and fears common to man. To ignore this fundamental fact, as they must who interpret the Marx-Engels theory of history as a doctrine of economic fatalism, is to miss the profoundest significance of the theory. While it is true that the scientific spirit destroys the idea of romantic, magic transformations of the social system and the belief that the world may be re-created at will, rebuilt upon the plans of some Utopian architect, it still, as we shall see, leaves room for the human factor. Otherwise, indeed, it would only be a new kind of Utopianism. They who accept the theory that the production of the material necessities of life is the main impelling force, the _geist_, of human evolution, may rightly protest against social injustice and wrong just as vehemently as any of the ideologists, and aspire just as fervently toward a n.o.bler and better state. The Materialistic Conception of History does not involve the fatalist resignation summed up in the phrase, "Whatever is, is natural, and, therefore, right." It does not involve belief in man's helplessness to change conditions.