Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-03-15
SOC|ALIS M.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF IT'S ORIGIN
AND
PROGRESS IN GERMANY.
BY HUGO VoGT,

tst movement In Germany, the increase
of its breadth, area, intensity and mo-
mentum in the face of with increased
persecution, have plainly demonstrated
the fact that it is not--as its opponents
long persisted in characterizing it-an
artificial! agitation, created and kept up by
ambitious demagogues. 1t is now recog-
nized as the natural outcome of the
tendencies developed by economic and
social conditions. Shrewd organizers may
for time keep up an agitation for inn
practicable or visionary aims; but when
movement can grow under the iercest
attacks of a powerful government, when
it deepens in spite of the suppression of
its press, its meetings and all its means
of propagandism when it spreads like
wildfire though its leaders are impris-
oned or exiled and its every advocate is
victimized, then it can no longer be de-
MED that it is in line with the natural
tendencies of our time and is carried by
the irrepressible forces that are at work
shaping out Encouragement of the
social and industrial system, 1t is not
passing episode, but the historic form
in which this process of Encouragement
has found expression.
The inception of such movement
cannot be traced to any particular day.
Like the plant, it had an underground
growth before it made its first appear
ance above ground.
Socialist seeds were brought to Ger
many from the French and English
utopian schools in the second and third
decades of this century.
In184SWeitling, German tailor, came
out with new plan of social reorganiza-
ton which adopted many features of the
Saint Simonian, Fourierist and Owenist
ystems. In Weitling's ideal society all
abor is divided into two classes The
abor required to supply the primary
reeds of manhood, clothing, shelter,
education and the labor applied to the
production of luxuries. OF the necessary
abor everyone who is able must con-
tribute his share those who desire to
enjoy luxurjes must earn the means by
special labor. For scientists, inventors,
physicians, ETC., special provisions are
made. Weitling does not propose ex-
periments on small scale. The change
must be accomplished by the laboring
class taking possession of the govern
ment. A dictator is to be appointed to
manage affairs until the new social order
is fully established. Weiting had been
member Of the League of the just"
a radical democratic federation of secret
societies formed under the leadership of
the German revolutionists who had col
lected in Paris after 1880. Besides politi-
cal radicalism this league, which was
mostly composed of workingmen, advo-
Gated a sort of sentimental communism
with the brilliant generaities of kquali
ty, Fraternity and Justice as the corner
stones. After an unsuccessful uprising
of the French revolutionists in Paris in
1889, in which the German clubs took
part, the leading members were inn
prisoned or compelled to flee from Paris.
Weitling went to Switzerland, where he
published in lS43 his work GUARANTEES
of Harmony and Liberty He formed
and helped in the formation of number
of workingmen's societies in Switzerland
and Germany and had for time a con-
siderable following. But new kind of
communism was at that time making it's
appearance, which slowly gained the
supremacy in the League OF the just"
and finally superseded in the German
movement the utopian cOmmunisms OF
Weitling and the French schools.
After 1889 the headquarters of the
League had been transferred from Paris
to London. where in lS43 its leaders
met Frederick Engels, who together
with Karl Marx was destined to give a
new direction to the German commu-
mist movement of that time and indeed
to the radical labor movement Of the
world.
Frederick Engels had lived for some
years in Manchester. There he studied
the actual workings of capitalism, which
was already well developed in England.
His studies, stimulated probably by the
Chartist agitation and literature and
largely aided by his Hegelian philoso-
phic training, led him to a new theory
of history. He found that the econo-
mic conditions are the controlling factors
of history modern history at least; that
from them all class divisions spring, and
that class divisions, where they have
been fully worked out by the industrial
development, lie at the bottom of all
political struggles and determine the
course of political history,
Karl Marx had at about the same time
reached similal conclusions, and when
the two men met in Paris in 1874 they
found that they held substantially the
same views, and they jointly developed