Socialism

The Russian Revolution.

This was the situation when, in 1917, Russia broke out into open revolution. The Russian Social ist movement, persecuted and proscribed by Czardom, had been, throughout its career, revolutionary by the necessity of its condi tion. It was, however, sharply divided into rival parties. The largest, the Social Revolutionary Party, was active mainly among the peasants, and was inclined to terrorist tactics and out of touch with West European Socialism. The Social Democratic Party, formed on a Marxian basis towards the end of the 19th century, had divided, in 1904, into two rival groups—the Mensheviks aiming at collaboration with the middle-class parties in the estab lishment of a constitutional republic as a step to Socialism, and the Bolsheviks, who stood for a complete transformation to Socialism by means of a revolution to be carried through by the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Both parties appealed to Marx as their master, the Mensheviks interpreting Marxism in accord ance with the revised practice of the West European Social Demo cratic Parties, while the Bolsheviks adhered to the revolutionary ideas advocated in the Communist Manifesto of 1848 and the publications of the International Working Men's Association.

The first Russian Revolution of 1917, carried through with the collaboration of Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries and middle class Liberals, commanded the universal support of Socialists in all countries. The second, by which the Bolsheviks, aided by a section of the Social Revolutionaries, seized power and pro claimed the "dictatorship of the proletariat," sharply divided European Socialism. The division was accentuated when the Bolsheviks, having established themselves in power, proclaimed themselves the Communist Party, established a new Communist International, and set out to foster a world revolution on princi ples which they professed to derive directly from Marx's writings, and especially from the Communist manifesto of 1848. The new Communist leaders then denounced the Social Democrats as "social traitors," guilty of the sin of repudiating Marxism and collaborating with the bourgeoisie for the maintenance of capital ism; and the Social Democrats retorted by attacking the Corn munists as tyrants who had crushed out liberty and democracy in Russia, and imposed their will by force on the mass of the corn mon people.

European Socialism was rent asunder by this conflict, which was far more severe on the Continent than in Great Britain. In Germany, the Social Democrats maintained their position despite the rise of a powerful Communist Party. In France, the majority of the Socialist Party actually went over to Communism, and the Socialist Party was reconstituted as a minority group, which has since electorally regained the upper hand. The sharp division of

Italian Socialism into Communist, semi-Communist and anti Communist factions greatly helped to prepare the way for the triumph of Fascism, which has now driven what remains of Social ism in Italy completely underground. The leaders of the anti Bolshevik Socialist bodies in Russia, driven from their own country, helped to embitter the conflict elsewhere. European Socialism was divided into two warring camps, organized respec tively in the Labour and Socialist International (created to succeed the pre-war International Socialist Bureau as the organ of con stitutional Socialist and Labour parties), and the Third, or Com munist, International, organized from Russia as the centre for the propaganda of world-revolution.

In Great Britain, Communism has remained too weak to be more than a nuisance to the Labour Party, and a useful bogey to be held up by anti-Socialists in order to scare the electorate. The trade union basis of the British Labour Party makes a split far harder to bring about than it is where Socialist parties are or ganized apart from the trade unions ; and in any case the fol lowing of the Communists in Great Britain has remained too small for them to become an effective political force. Nevertheless, here as elsewhere, the Russian Revolution of 1917 has exerted a pow erful influence on Socialist opinion, combining with the evolution of economic forces to undermine belief in the stability of the present economic and political order, and giving a stimulus to aggressive trade union action, which found its chief expression in the great strikes of the years following the war, and culminated in the abortive "General Strike" of 1926. On the whole, of late the influence of Communism in the world has declined, as one coun try after another has to some extent settled down, and the possi bility of world-revolution has receded. But it remains a powerful movement, now in most countries sharply distinct from orthodox Socialism, which continues, in despite of it, to move slowly forward towards the constitutional conquest of political power. Already a number of the leading European countries have had, for short periods, Socialist or Labour Governments, which have held office, by temporary sufferance of other parties or by virtue of their divisions. Great Britain had such a Government in 1924; Sweden has had more than one; Germany has, in 1928, a Social ist chancellor. It is not likely to be long before, in more than one European country, a Socialist Government is able to take office with a clear parliamentary majority behind it.