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The year 1889, the centenary of the commencement of the French Revolution, a date which some of us had hoped might be signalised by an organised declaration against capitalism in every European metropolis, saw only a divided International Congress in Paris. The French Socialists themselves were so thoroughly at loggerheads that their two sections, the Guesdists and the Possibilists, the one side led by Jules Guesde, the devoted and thorough-going advocate of out-and-out revolutionary Socialism, the other by Dr. Paul Brousse, the equally persistent champion of immediate practical reforms, could not meet in one hall without the certainty of bloodshed, or at any rate of severe contusions, following. A spirit of fraternity so marked by brotherly hatred had about it something of the ludicrous. But we Socialists when we mean business are not keen to note any humorous touch in our own proceedings. So we solemnly held our International Socialist Congress to bring about the unity of the workers of the world – “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains,” are the concluding words of the Communist Manifesto – in two separate Halls purposely chosen at some distance from one another in order to avoid the possible consequences of fraternal greetings.
I thought it all excruciatingly funny; but it did not become me to say so or to look so. Wherefore, being myself a part of the grandiose make-believe, I composed my countenance and adjusted my beard to the gravity of the occasion. But we of the Social-Democratic Federation, who alone then represented Socialism in Great Britain, were in the company of the Possibilists in the Rue Lancry, and not with the Guesdists in the Rue Rochechouart. This was regarded by our Guesdist friends as downright abnegation of the true faith as it is in Marx; for it was well known that we held by that economic saviour of society, and our place should have been with the fanatical propagandists of the pure doctrine. Faction feeling ran very high. I shall never forget our lamented comrade Costa, who afterwards himself became Possibilist enough to accept the appointment of Vice-Chairman of the Italian National Assembly, meeting me by chance on the Boulevards, and finding that the French language did not adequately express his Socialist sentiments towards me, denouncing me at the top of his voice, in the choicest Italian, as a renegade and a betrayer. He collected a crowd, but, I rejoice to recall, did not upset my temper, and we parted in comparative peace to meet on excellent terms at a later date.
I still believe we did right to join with our friends of the Paris Municipal Council who were doing excellent work; though I should be the last to deny that Guesde, Lafargue, and their friends have done splendid service to the cause by upholding the red flag of revolutionary Socialism on all occasions. Even as it was, the International Congresses of 1889 made a new and hopeful departure; and they certainly ought to have done so in justice to the assembled delegates. For the weather – it was the month of August – was broiling hot, and a few anarchists who got in among us, Dr. Merlino for one, did not tend to reduce the temperature. I can stand as much of disputation and oratory as most men; but on this occasion I am ready to admit that rhetoric and the thermometer together overcame me, and I was heartily glad when, after a week of it, we raised our last cheers for the Social Revolution, and went off to sup in peace. We have made enormous progress everywhere since then, and, great differences as there still may be between French Socialists, they are nowadays a unified party, and can discuss important questions vigorously and even bitterly without any breaking away.
And so I come within twenty years of the present time – years of which I may some day try to render an account. For the moment I shall content myself with saying that it is rarely given to any one to be so fortunate as to witness within his own lifetime such a great and general advance towards the realisation of what he has striven for as that which I can look round me and see to-day. Thirty years is a long period in the life of a man: it is nothing in the life of this nation. And I can still hope that, when I have finished my little share of pioneer work, and have passed over to the majority, England may lead the world in the constitution of a Co-operative Commonwealth.
There can be no doubt that what I wrote in 1881 is, if that be possible, even more true to-day than it was then. Great Britain is the country of all countries in the world where the ideals of scientific Socialism can be realised more peacefully and more speedily than anywhere else. Only ignorance, and consequent lack of comprehension and initiative, on the part of the wage-earners of every grade, prevents us from at once entering in earnest upon the period of Collectivist and Socialist transformation. The economic forms are ready on every hand for the complete social revolution to the benefit of all. Not only the Government Departments, the Government being to-day by far the largest employer of labour, and the Cities and Towns with their municipalised ownerships, but the railways, mines, trustified factories, warehouses, banks, stores, and the like, have reached the collectivist, non-competitive stage under capitalism which, to all who are not actually determined not to see, show that, whether we like it or not, we are on the very threshold of Socialism. The problem of the land itself can only be solved by the socialisation of capital.
This it is which makes me more convinced than ever that compromise is not only unnecessary for Socialists but is in every respect harmful. It strengthens the power of resistance in the decaying elements of society, while it blights the enthusiasm and enfeebles the determination of the co-ordinating forces growing up from below. It is the conception of what shall be that breathes life into what is. The mere machinery of politics is useless without the forceful energy of intelligent idealism to provide the motive power. Not being in control of the social elements of wealth-production ourselves we cannot reason as if we were Emperors or administrators partially possessed of the power to reorder affairs by endeavouring to harmonise all conflicting interests. Under such circumstances a small minority which understands has for its sole duty the leavening of the vast mass of those who are still incapable of apprehending the facts around them. The reproach of sectarianism carries with it no odium for us. Truth must ever be sectarian: error alone can afford to be catholic. The experience of more than thirty years of agitation has taught me that only those who have grasped the complete economic and historic facts of social evolution can be relied upon to judge of the situation at any given moment, or are able to take advantage of the great changes which, unconsciously for the many, the development of human society has brought about.
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Last updated on 30.7.2006