# The Socialist Movement/Chapter 11

CHAPTER XI
THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT (continued)
1. The British Party.
To trace the beginnings of the Socialist movement in Great Britain, one has to go very far back into the economic speculation and criticism which assailed the development of commercialism. These speculations and criticisms took two forms. That which has loomed largest in history is the utopian form of Owenism in its various aspects; that which is of most intellectual importance is the economic and juridical work of writers like ​Godwin, Thomson, Hall, Ogilvie and Hodgskin. These men touched the most assailable spot of the new economic system that was arising. It was a system of exploitation, and their claim was that labour had a right to its whole produce. I am convinced that when the political and organising phase of the Socialist movement has been successfully finished and when Socialists will be compelled to lay down an economics and jurisprudence which will justify their programmes, they will pass behind Marx and establish a connection with the school of thinkers I have named. But these men left coteries, not a movement, behind them. The time was not ripe for the latter. Political strife distracted attention, and the magnificent field which opened up for British commerce obscured its exploitations and baffled every attempt that was made to organise the working-class revolt. The Chartist uprising blazed across the sky, but it was a meteor not a rising sun, and the British workers settled down to an allegiance to Radicalism and political reform, to trade unionism and co-operation.
The turning-point in the road came early in the 'eighties. In 1879 Henry George's Progress and Poverty was published and had an untold effect in turning men's minds to ​social questions. Poverty became a problem of public concern, not a mystery for private and individual treatment. The Radical Party in politics had been shipwrecked. The British guns thundering in front of Alexandria in 1882, at the bidding of a Liberal Government, did as much havoc in Radical clubs and associations at home as they did in Egypt.
An obscure body called the Democratic Federation had been formed from the spirits who haunted the Eleusis Club in Chelsea (a famous home of militant Radicals) and who met on Clerkenwell Green, in 1882, and it was the soil upon which the culture of Karl Marx was planted. Mr. Hyndman, an ardent disciple of Marx, became the leader of the new party which changed its name to the Social Democratic Federation ("Party" was substituted for Federation in 1906) in 1884. The propaganda of Socialism was begun. The first start was not encouraging; for a split took place within a few months, and the Socialist League, with which the name of William Morris will always be associated, was formed. The Federation was Marxian out and out, the League had strong Anarchist leanings, and the two were at the time of their split supplemented by the eclectic Fabian Society which had sprung from a little idealist group, which Professor Thomas Davidson had formed a year or two before, called the New Fellowship. From these camps the Socialist doctrines issued. The League weakened and gradually disappeared after helping ​Morris to enrich both Socialism and English literature by poems, lectures and essays published in its paper, the Commonweal. The Federation was haughtily dogmatic and intransigeant; it occasionally broke out into open hostility against the trade union movement; it never appealed to the average British mind though it had a faith and an energy which ought to have moved mountains. It ran three candidates for Parliament in 1885, and they polled in Kennington and Hampstead 27 and 82 votes respectively, whilst Mr. John Burns who fought West Nottingham polled 598 votes. As the years went on, the Federation was seen to be occupying a corner all by itself in our public life, and was isolated from every section, except the narrow dogmatic one, that was open to Socialist influence. The Fabian Society, on the other hand, settled down to purely educational work. It preached its doctrines with remarkable brilliancy, but it adopted "Permeate" rather than "Organise" as its watchword.
Something had to be done to secure an advance, and this was all the more imperative because leader after leader amongst the trade unions had become converted to Socialism, and the annual battles at the Trade Union Congresses between the old school and the new were showing quite plainly that the new school was in the ascendant (although numerically in a great but lessening minority) and that none of the younger men of influence were ranging themselves with the old guard. The ​Dock Strike had been won in 1889 and the new Unionism proclaimed. The battles of Trafalgar Square had been fought and had stirred many people's minds. Throughout the country, various local Labour Parties were being formed, a Scottish Labour Party had been started as early as 1888, and that year Mr. Keir Hardie appeared as an independent labour candidate for Mid-Lanark and polled 619 votes. During the Trade Union Congress meeting in Glasgow in 1892, a conference of working-class leaders was held to consider the position. The result of this and other negotiations was the calling of representatives from Labour organisations, Fabian branches and other Socialist societies, at Bradford early in 1898, and the Independent Labour Party, with Mr. Keir Hardie as its leading spirit, was launched. Its object was Socialism, its method was to unite all the forces owning Socialism as their goal and inspiration. It rejected abstractions and dogmas, and it appealed directly to the everyday experience of labour. It proposed to enter politics at once, and its success was instantaneous. Indeed, the harvest was ripe. The Party challenged both Liberals and Conservatives, and before it was many months old won municipal elections. At the General Election of 1893 Mr. Hardie was returned for South West Ham, and the new Party proceeded to contest by-election after by-election, invariably polling a substantial number of votes.
The details of its subsequent history need ​not be recorded here. But the working out of its characteristic and immediate purpose has resulted in one of the most remarkable changes in British politics. The Party foresaw from the beginning that under any free government the Socialist movement must unite for political purposes with the industrial organisations of the workers. That is the explanation of the battles in the Trade Union Congresses.
This policy is, indeed, but the carrying out of what Marx advised. Socialism cannot succeed whilst it is a mere creed; it must be made a movement. And it cannot become a movement until two things happen. It must be the organising power behind a confluence of forces each of which is converging upon it, but not all of which actually profess it as a consciously held belief; it must also gain the confidence of the mass of the working classes. The Social Democratic Federation neglected both of these tasks, the Independent Labour Party busied itself with both of them; the Social Democratic Federation drifted into a backwater, the Independent Labour Party kept in midstream. A study of the fates which overtook each of these bodies is one of the most fruitfully suggestive which offers itself to the student of politics.
When the din of these trade-union battles died away, the Trade Union Congress which met at Plymouth in 1899 resolved that a conference, to which all Socialist and trade-union bodies were to be summoned, should be held to discuss the possibility of union for political purposes. ​In the Memorial Hall, at the end of the following February, 129 delegates met, some to bury the attempt in good-humoured tolerance, a few to make sure that burial would be its fate, but the majority determined to give it a chance. One of the greatest weaknesses of the working-class movement in Great Britain, the lack of an adequate press, was in this instance altogether in its favour. A report or two in a few newspapers was all the notice that was taken of this momentous conference, and for six years the Party was allowed to grow in obscurity, until in 1906 thirty Members of Parliament were elected under its auspices. The result came as a bolt from the blue. The only trade union of any importance which then remained outside—the Miners' Federation—came in in 1909, and a solid phalanx of Labour candidates went to the polls in January 1910. Forty were elected, and the Party increased its representation by two in December that year.
The Labour Party is not Socialist. It is a union of Socialist and trade-union bodies for immediate political work—the Social Democratic Party having joined in at first, but after a year's co-operation having returned to its isolation in 1901. But it is the only political form which evolutionary Socialism can take in a country with the political traditions and methods of Great Britain. Under British conditions, a Socialist Party is the last, not the first, form of the Socialist movement in politics.
2. The International.
Now I can turn to what is one of the most important characteristics of the Socialist movement, its international organisation. Internationalism is as much a mode of Socialist action, as it is of Catholic organisation. I have shown how Socialism has taken root in every land where capitalism exists, and these national movements all recognise their kinship with each other. "Socialist" is a password which secures a welcome in every working-class organisation from China to Peru. The Communist Manifesto, echoing an idea that had been prevalent in working-class associations for some years previously, ended with the appeal to the workers of the world to unite, and its authors and their followers have never thought of the movement except as one uniting all nations. Its earliest form was an international association.
The spirit of both Liberalism and the working-class parties in the middle of the nineteenth century was international. The Napoleonic wars had exhausted Europe, and the culture of the time was cosmopolitan. Hegel finished his Phenomenology of the Spirit within sound of the cannon at Jena, and did not trouble his head about the battle. Goethe was equally indifferent to the national troubles of Germany when he was not pained by them. The active spirits amongst the workers were exiles drifting between Paris and London carrying on propaganda in every capital. Such a band was one of the first ​organisations to welcome Marx as a leader, and in 1847 a Communist League was formed in London. For this League Marx and Engels drafted the Communist Manifesto. But the Revolutions of 1848 pushed both the League and the Manifesto into the background for the time being. The failure of the Revolutions was written in blood and repression. But Socialism survived and gave an impetus to the re-born political movements in the various countries; and in each state, as I have already told, Socialist groups struggled to gain and maintain a foothold. This went on till the International Exhibition in London, in 1862, provided for the international movement another chance of organising itself.
A deputation of French workmen came to the Exhibition under official auspices, and was entertained by English workmen. Next year another deputation came over and was again received publicly. The results were more than the rulers had bargained for. For, on the 28th of September 1864, an international meeting was held in London at which a committee was elected to form and carry on the business of an International Working-men's Association. The duty of drafting a constitution was first of all entrusted to Mazzini, but his modes of thought and action were not congenial to the spirit of the committee, and the task was ultimately transferred to Marx. The note struck was Socialist. In spite of the growing wealth of the nations, the lot of the working classes was not improving; the individualist economics of the ​capitalists was breaking down both in theory and practice. And once more the clarion note sounded: "Working-men of all lands, Unite!" The declared purpose of the International was to unite all the national working-class movements that were aiming at such political and economic changes as would emancipate the people from their misery.
Unfortunately, two sections of thought had to fight for its custodianship. The Communist, with his antagonism to centralised authority and his belief in the free commune and free association of workpeople, stood upon a road sharply diverging from that upon which the Socialist proper stood, and ought never to have been in the same movement. But the final aims of both were pretty much the same, however divergent their methods might be, and so they met each other to contest for the selection of the road. The Congresses of the International were their battle-grounds.
The Belgian government at once prohibited the next Congress which was to be held in Brussels, so it met in London. In Geneva, in 1866, a programme including an eight hours' day and drastic educational changes was adopted, but a jarring note of discord was struck. The French delegates mistrusted "intellectuals." These men had stirred up strife by their theorising and dogmatising; but, on the other hand, had they been excluded, the International would have been deprived of the only brains which understood it and could lead it. Their services were retained. At Lausanne, at Brussels, at ​Basle, in succeeding years, and at the Hague in 1872, the Socialism of the Association became more pronounced. Resolutions in favour of land nationalisation, of the public control of transport, of co-operative ownership of the means of production, of a general strike in the event of war, were carried, and this advance in opinion was echoed by strikes and political agitations in the respective nations. The Congress of 1870 was to be held in Paris but the outbreak of the war with Germany intervened. The Commune followed. The International had to face the storm. Many of the more conservative working-class organisations were hesitating, feeling that things were being driven too far and fast; others taking the class-war doctrine quite literally were jealous of the professional men within their ranks; above all there was the old quarrel between the Socialist proper and the Communist who was following Proudhon rather than Marx.
This last conflict had grown more bitter Congress after Congress. The Socialist fashions his action in political and state moulds, the Anarchist works for self-governing co-operative communes and workshops. The followers of Proudhon and Blanqui disturbed the harmony of Geneva and Lausanne, Bakunin entered the scene at Brussels and Basle, and attacked Marx both personally and as a leader. The storm of the Commune, for which in reality the International had only an indirect responsibility, but with which it was associated in the popular mind, broke upon ​the organisation at a time when internal strife had dissipated its strength. The events in France forced a grand battle between the political and the industrial wings of the movement, and in 1872 the Anarchist section had to be expelled. The International, though it had won in its struggle against its disease, was mortally afflicted. Like a stricken King Arthur, it was borne away across the sea. In New York it lingered on for a few months. A feeble Congress was held in Geneva in 1878, but that was the end.
The international proletariat was not ready to unite; the leaders had not yet prepared the foundation with sufficient care; they were still discussing their plans; the house they built tumbled down about their ears. And yet, it was not the idea but only the plan that failed. Each nation fell back upon itself and gathered its workmen into movements appropriate to their own capacity and opportunities. Different trade unions, co-operative societies, peace associations held international meetings, and in the fulness of time the International was born again.
In 1889 about 400 delegates went to Paris from the various Socialist and working-class organisations and formed what is officially called the Premier Congrès de la Nouvelle Internationale. In 1891 the Congress met again in Brussels, and in 1893 in Zurich. Once more the Anarchist trouble had to be faced and it was settled at the London Congress which met in the Queen's Hall in 1896. Day after day the battle raged on floor and ​platform. The wild figures, the furious oratory, the hurricane passions of that Congress will never be forgotten by those who were there. But in the end, the Anarchists were routed. They had to go. The Internationalist Socialist movement once and for all declared for political action, for the conquest of the State by parliamentary means, for revolution by evolution. Now, once every three years, this parliament of the workers meets to discuss the concerns common to the whole movement. Every important nation under the sun is represented at it. At it every parliamentary leader of the movement appears. In the interval between Congresses, business is carried on by an International Bureau, with its headquarters in Brussels, upon which every nation is represented, and a committee consisting of one representative from each parliamentary group representing Socialism and Labour in the parliaments of the world, keeps each parliamentary party in touch with all the others.
The field covered by these Congresses may best be visualised by a summary of the resolutions passed during the last ten years at Amsterdam, Stuttgart and Copenhagen. Militarism has been condemned and a citizen army approved instead of a conscript army where that is in vogue; international strife has been declared to be the result of capitalist rivalry; imperialism and an acquiring of colonies have also been opposed on the ground that they are only a form of exploitation of ​the weaker races and the fruits of the struggle in which capitalism is engaged to expand markets at any cost. A reasoned policy of co-operation between Socialists and trade-union bodies has been drafted and a declaration made that the end of all trade-union action must be Socialism, and a detailed series of propositions laying down the conditions under which the emigration and immigration of workmen should proceed has been carried. A sketch code of international labour laws has been agreed upon, and measures for dealing with unemployment discussed and accepted. A declaration has been made against votes being given to any one class of women (what is known in this country as "the limited Bill") and in favour of adult suffrage "without distinction of sex." Socialist unity in the various countries has been recommended, and in addition to these more general subjects, resolutions dealing with important questions of international policy, which were before the public when the various Congresses sat, have also been passed.
This surely is the nucleus of "the parliament of man." The Congress is ready to strike at everything which makes for international discord and national deterioration; it is prepared to support everything which makes for peace and goodwill and which advances the well-being of the common folk. But it is primarily concerned with the discussion and the settlement of problems which arise within Socialism as it advances in the ​various countries and which meet Socialists in their propagandist and political work, and as the parliamentary parties increase in size it takes upon itself more and more of their character and its business reflects more and more closely their point of view.