Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-07-19

personal inventive action, historically
created conditions Of emancipation to
phantastic ones. and the gradual spon-
taneous class organization of the probe
tariat to an organization OF society speci-
ally contrived by these inventors Future
history resolves itself in their eyes, into
the propaganda and the practical carry
ing out of their social plans.
In the formation of their plans they
are conscious of caring chiefly for the
interest of the working class, as being
the most suffering class, Only from
the point of view Of being the most suf
fering class does the proletariat exist for
them.
The undeveloped state of the class
struggle as we'll as their own surround
ings cause Socialists of this kind to
consider themselves far superior to all
class antagonisms. They want to i'm
prove the condition OF every member OF
society, even that of the most favored.
Hence they habitualIy appeal to society
at large, without distinction OF class;
nay, by preference to the ruling class.
For how can people, when once they
understand their system, fail to see in
it the best possible plan of the best pos
sible state Of society!
Hence they reject all political, and
especially all revolutionary action: they
wish to attain their ends by peaceful
means, and endeavor, by small expert
ments, necessarily doomed to failure,
and by the force Of example, to pave
the way for the new social Gospel,
Such phantastic pictures of future
society, painted at "A time when the
proletariat is still in very undeveloped
state and has but a phantastic concep-
ton of its own position, correspond with
the first instructive yearnings of that
class for general reconstruction of
society.
But these Socialist and Communist
publications contain also a critical ele-
ment. They attack every principle of
existing society. Hence they are full of
the most valuable materials for the
enlightenment of the working class.
The practical measures proposed in
them, such as the abolition of the dis
tinction between town and country, of
the family, Of the carrying on of indus
tries for the account of private indivi'
duals, and of the wage system, the
proclamation of social harmony, the
conversion of the functions Of the State
into a mere superintendent of produc'
ton, all these proposals point solely to
the disappearance of class antagonlsnls
which were, at that time, only just
cropping up, and which, in these publ
cations. are recognized under their ear.
lest indistinct and underlined forms
only. These proposals, therefore, are
of purely Utopian character.
The significance of Critical Utopiar
Socialism and Communism bears al
inverse relation to historical develop
ment. In proportion rs the moderr
class struggle develops and takes definite
shape, this phantastic standing apdr
from the contest, these phantastic at
lacks on it lose all practical value ant
all theoretical justification. Therefore
although the originators of these sys
= TENS were, in many respects, revolu
! tonary, their disciples have in ever.
1 case formed mere reactionary sects
/ They hold fast by the original views o
their masters, in opposition to the pre-
gressve historical development of tn
} IrOetarat. They, therefore, endeavol
4 and that consistently, to deaden tn
class struggle and to reconcile the elias
i. antagonisms. They still dream of exper
mental realization of their social Utopias
e of founding isolated "phalansteres,' c
t establishing "Iiome Colonies" of settin
up Little Icaria' (c)--duodecim
G editions of the New Jerusalem, and
+ realize all these castles in the air, the
n are compelled to appeal to the feeling
& and purses of the bourgeois. BY degree
G they sink into the category of the rea'
is tionary conservative Socialists depicte
above, differing from these only b
e more systematic pedantry, and by the
it fanatical and superstltious belief in I'll
miraculous effects of their social scienc
They, therefore, violently oppose a
political action on the part Of the worl
= ing class; such action, according
them, can only result from blind unb
g, lief in the new Gospel
- The Owenites in England, and Il
- Fourierists in France. respectivel
~ oppose the Chartists and the R6formi
ties.