Socialism and Democracy in Europe Part 5

In all the Continental countries the uprisings were directed against the arrogance and oppression of monarchism, and against the recrudescence of feudalistic ideals. In France Louis Philippe had attempted the part of a petty despot. He restricted the ballot to the propertied cla.s.s, balanced his power on too narrow a base, and it became top-heavy.

While the workingmen of Germany and Austria were taking up arms under command of the middle cla.s.s against the feudal remnants, the workingmen of France were sacking their capital because of an attempted revival of monarchic privilege, and the workmen of England were marching and counter-marching in monster torchlight parades in protest against middle-cla.s.s domination.

The panorama of Europe in these years of turmoil and blood thus exhibits every degree of revolt against governmental power, from the absolutism of Prussian Junkerdom and the oppression of the Hungarians by foreign tyranny, to the dominance of the aristocratic and middle-cla.s.s alliance in Great Britain.

The bread-and-b.u.t.ter question was not wanting in any of these political uprisings. The unity of life makes their separation a myth.

One is interwoven with the other. The social struggle is political, the political struggle is social.

Socialism is not merely an economic movement. It seeks to-day, and always has sought, the power of the state. The government is the only available instrument for effecting the change--the revolution--the Socialists preach, the transfer of productive enterprise from private to public ownership. "Political power our means, social happiness our end," was a Chartist motto. That is the duality of Socialism to-day.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] MARX, _Revolution and Counter-Revolution in 1848_.

[2] MARX, _Revolution and Counter-Revolution_, p. 70.

[3] _Op. cit._, pp. 123-124.

[4] MARX, _Die Kla.s.senkampfe in Frankreich_, pp. 26-28.

[5] See the third address issued by the International Workingmen's a.s.sociation on the Franco-Prussian war, 1870-71.

The Italian Socialists in Milan, June, 1871, closed a rhetorical address to the Parisian Communards as follows: "To despotism they responded, We are free.

"To the cannon and cha.s.sepots of the leagued reactionists they offered their bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"They fell, but fell like heroes.

"To-day the reaction calls them bandits, places them under the ban of the human race.

"Shall we permit it? No!

"Workingmen! At the time when our brothers in Paris are vanquished, hunted like fallow deer, are falling by hundreds under the blows of their murderers, let us say to them: Come to us, we are here; our houses are open to you. We will protect you, until the day of revenge, a day not far distant.

"Workingmen! the principles of the Commune of Paris are ours: we accept the responsibility of its acts. Long live the Social Republic!"

See ED. VILLETARD, _History of the International_, p. 342. This sentiment was also expressed in London and other centers.

[6] Introduction to _Die Kla.s.senkampfe in Frankreich_, p. 8.

[7] KAUTSKY, _Leben Friedrich Engels_, p. 14, Berlin, 1895.

[8] _The Epoch of Reform_, p. 190.

[9] ENGELS, _Condition of the Working Cla.s.ses in 1844_, p. 230.

Engels, who came to England at this time and was employed in Manchester in his father's business, and was therefore in the heart of the movement, says that Chartism was, after the Anti-Corn Law League had been formed, "purely a workingman's cause." It was "the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie." "The demands. .h.i.therto made by him (the laborer), the ten-hours' bill, protection of the worker against the capitalist, good wages, a guaranteed position, repeal of the new poor law--all of these things belong to Chartism quite as essentially as the 'Six Points.'"--_Supra cit._, pp. 229, 234, 235.

[10] R.G. GRUMMAGE, _History of the Chartist Movement_, 1837-54, p.

59, Newcastle, 1894.

CHAPTER IV

THE POLITICAL AWAKENING OF SOCIALISM--THE INTERNATIONAL

With 1848 vanished, more or less rapidly, the revolutions of the old school. "The street fight and barricade, which up to 1848 was decisive, now grew antiquated," says Engels.[1] A new species of plotting and propaganda began. The exiled agitators and revolutionists met, naturally, in their cities of refuge for the discussion of their common grievances. They complained that "the proletarian has no fatherland," and internationalism became their patriotism.

In Paris a few of the ostracized Socialists, in 1836, founded "The League of the Just," a communistic secret society.[2] The group were compelled to leave Paris because they were implicated in a riot, and when some of them met in London they invited other refugees to join them. Among them was Marx, and his presence soon bore fruit. Their motto, "All men are brethren," was singularly paradoxical when contrasted with their methods of sinister conspiracy. Marx, with his superior intellect, at once began to reshape their ideas, a reorganization was effected called "The Communist League," and Marx and Engels were delegated to write a statement of principles for the League. That statement, written in 1847, they called "The Communist Manifesto."

The "Manifesto" is the most influential of all Socialist doc.u.ments. It is at once a firebrand and a formulary. Its formulae are the well-known Marxian principles; its energy is the youthful vigor and zeal of ardent revolutionists. Nearly all the generalizations of _Capital_ are found in the "Manifesto." This is important, for it gave the sanction of a social theory to the Socialist movement. Hitherto there had been only utopian generalizations and keen denunciations of the existing order. It was of the greatest importance that early in the development of the movement it was given an economic theory expressed in such lucid terms, with the gusto of youth, and in the terminology of science, that it remains to-day the best synopsis of Marx's "Scientific Socialism."

As a piece of campaign literature it is unexcelled. Combined with its clearness of statement, its economic reasoning, its terrific arraignment of modern industrial society, there is a lofty zeal and power that placed it in the front rank of propagandist literature.

Engels, the surviving partner of the Marxian movement, wrote in the preface of the edition of 1888:

"The 'Manifesto' being our joint production, I consider myself bound to say that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to Marx." That proposition embraced the materialistic theory of social evolution, that "the whole history of mankind has been a history of cla.s.s struggles ... in which nowadays a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed cla.s.ses--the proletariat--cannot attain their emanc.i.p.ation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling cla.s.ses--the bourgeoisie--without at the same time and once for all emanc.i.p.ating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, cla.s.s distinctions, and cla.s.s struggles."

This liberation was, of course, to be accomplished by revolution. The "Manifesto" closes with these spirited and oft-quoted words:

"The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be obtained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling cla.s.s tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains, they have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite."

This was the language and the spirit of the times. The "Manifesto" was published only a few days before the February revolution of 1848. For a moment the ruling cla.s.s did tremble; but the ill-timed uprisings were promptly suppressed and the days of reaction set in.

Soon the workingmen of different countries were busy with the stupendous development of industry which followed in the wake of the wars and revolutions that had hara.s.sed the Continent for over fifty years. The revival of industry brought a renewal of international trade. This was followed by a wider exchange of views and greater international intimacy. In 1862 the first International Exposition was held.

Before we proceed with the development of the "Old International," as it is now called, let us notice three points about the "Manifesto."

First, it was not called the "Socialist Manifesto," although adopted by Socialists the world over. Engels, in his preface of 1888, tells us why. "When it was written we could not have called it a Socialist Manifesto. By Socialist, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand, the adherents of the various Utopian systems; Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances; in both cases men outside the working-cla.s.s movement, and looking rather to the 'educated' cla.s.ses for support.

Whatever portion of the working cla.s.s had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of a total social change, that portion then called itself communist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of communism; still it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough amongst the working cla.s.s to produce the utopian communism in France of Cabet, and in Germany of Weitling. This Socialism was, in 1847, a middle-cla.s.s movement; communism a working-cla.s.s movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, 'respectable'; communism was the very opposite."

It would be interesting to know how Engels would define Socialism to-day.

Second, it is important for us to know that the "Manifesto" recognized the necessity of using the government as the instrument for achieving the new society. "The immediate aim of the communists," it recites, "is the conquest of political power by the proletariat"; to "labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries."

The governmental organization of the communists' state was to be democratic.

Thirdly, a provisional program of such a politico-socio-democratic party is suggested in the "Manifesto." Its princ.i.p.al points are:

"1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

"2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

"3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

"4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.