Part 17 (1/2)

CHAPTER X

THE MEANS OF REALIZATION[197]

I

You ask me how the goal I have described is to be attained: ”The picture,” you say, ”is attractive, but we would like to know how we are to reach the Promised Land which it pictures. Show us the way!” The question is a fair one, and I shall try to answer it with candor, as it deserves. But I cannot promise to tell how the change will be brought about, to describe the exact process by which social property will supplant capitalist private property. The only conditions under which any honest thinker could give such an answer would necessitate a combination of circ.u.mstances which has never existed, and which no one seriously expects to develop. To answer in definite terms, saying, ”This is the manner in which the change will be made,” one would have to know the exact time of the change; precisely what things would be socialized; the thought of the people, their temper, their courage. In a word, omniscience would be necessary to enable one to make such a reply.

All that is possible in this connection for the candid Socialist is to point out those tendencies which he believes to be making for the Socialist ideal, those tendencies in society, whether political or economic, which are making for industrial democracy; to consider frankly the difficulties which must be overcome before the transition from capitalism can be effected, and to suggest such means of overcoming these as present themselves to the mind, always remembering that other means may be developed which we cannot now see, and that great storms of elemental human pa.s.sion may sweep the current into channels unsuspected.

Those who are familiar with the writings of Marx know that, in strange contrast with the fundamental principles of that theory of social evolution which he so well developed, he lapsed at times into the Utopian habit of predicting the sudden transformation of society.

Capitalism was to end in a great final ”catastrophe” and the new order be born in the travail of a ”social revolution.” I remember that when I joined the Socialist movement, many years ago, the Social Revolution was a very real event, inevitable and nigh at hand, to most of us. The more enthusiastic of us dreamed of it; we sang songs in the spirit of the _Chansons Revolutionaires_, one of which, as I recall, told plainly enough what we would do--

”When the Revolution comes.”

Some comrades actually wanted to have military drill at our business meetings, merely that we might be ready for the Revolution, which might occur any Monday morning or Friday afternoon. If this seems strange and comic as I relate it to-day, please remember that we were very few and very young, and, therefore, very sure that we were to redeem the world.

We lived in a state of revolutionary ecstasy. Some of us, I think, must have gone regularly to sleep in the mental state of Tennyson's May Queen, with words equivalent to her childish admonition--

”If you're waking call me early,”

so fearful were we that the Revolution might start without us!

There can be no harm in these confessions to-day, for we have grown far enough beyond that period to laugh at it in retrospect. True, there is still a good deal of talk about the Social Revolution, and there may be a few Socialists here and there who use the term in the sense I have described; who believe that capitalism will come to a great crisis, that there will be a rising of millions in wrath, a night of fury and agony, and then the sunrise of Brotherhood above the blood-stained valley and the corpse-strewn plain. But most of us, when we use the old term, by sheer force of habit, or as an inherited tradition, think of the Social Revolution in no such spirit. We think only of the change that must come over society, transferring the control of its life from the few to the many, the change that is now going on all around us. When the time comes that men and women speak of the state in which they live as Socialism, and look back upon the life we live to-day with wonder and pity, they will speak of the period of revolution as including this very year, and, possibly, all the years included in the lives of the youngest persons present. At all events, no considerable body of Socialists anywhere in the world to-day, and no Socialist whose words have any influence in the movement, believe that there will be a sudden, violent change from capitalism to Socialism.

If it seemed necessary, abundant testimony to the truthfulness of this claim could be produced. But I shall content myself with two witnesses--chosen from the mult.i.tude of available witnesses for reasons which will unfold themselves. The first witness is Marx himself. I choose his testimony, mainly, because there is no other name so great as his, and, secondly, to show that his profoundest thought rejected the idea of sudden social transformations which at times he seemed to favor.

It is 1850. Marx is in London, actively engaged in a German Communist movement with its Central Committee in that great metropolis. The majority are impatient, feverishly urging revolt; they are under the illusion that they can make the Social Revolution at once. Marx tells them, on the contrary, that it will take fifty years ”not only to change existing conditions but to change yourselves and make yourselves worthy of political power.” They, the majority, say on the other hand, ”We ought to get power at once, or else give up the fight.” Marx tries vainly to make them see this, and resigns when he fails, scornfully telling them that they ”subst.i.tute revolutionary phrases for _revolutionary evolution_.”[198] Mark well that term, ”revolutionary evolution,” for it bears out the description I have attempted of the sense in which we speak of revolution in the Socialist propaganda of to-day. And mark well, also, that Marx gave them fifty years simply to make themselves worthy of political power.

As the second witness, I choose Liebknecht, whose name must always be a.s.sociated with those of Marx, Engels, and La.s.salle, in Socialist history. Not alone because of the fact that Liebknecht, more than almost any other man, has influenced the tactics of the international Socialist movement, but for the additional reason that detached phrases of his are sometimes quoted in support of the opposite view. Words spoken in oratorical and forensic pa.s.sion, or in the bravado of irresponsible youthfulness, and texts torn from their contexts, are used to show that Liebknecht antic.i.p.ated the violent transformation of society. But heed this, one of many similar statements of his maturest and profoundest thought: ”_But we are not going to attain Socialism at one bound. The transition is going on all the time_, and the important thing for us ...

is not to paint a picture of the future--which in any case would be useless labor--_but to forecast a practical programme for the intermediate period, to formulate and justify measures that shall be applicable at once, and that will serve as aids to the new Socialist birth_.”[199]

So much, then, for quotations from the mightiest of all our hosts. What I would make clear is not merely that the greatest of Socialist theorists and tacticians agree that the change will be brought about gradually, and not by one stroke of revolutionary action, but that, more important still, the Socialist Party of this country, and all the Socialist parties of the world, are based upon that idea. That is why they have their political programmes, aiming to make the conditions of life better now, in the transition period, and also to aid in the happy, peaceful birth of the new order.

II

Having disposed of the notion that Socialists expect to realize their ideals by a single stroke, and thus swept away some of the greatest obstacles which rise before the imagination of the student of Socialism, we obtain a clearer vision of the problem. And that is no small advance toward its solution.

Concerning the political organization of the Socialist state, so far as the extension of political democracy is concerned, not much need be said. You can very readily comprehend that this may be done by legal, const.i.tutional means. Step by step, just as we attain power enough to do so, we shall extend the power of the people until we have a complete political democracy. Where, as in some of the Southern States, there is virtually a property qualification for the franchise, where that remnant of feudalism, the poll tax, remains, Socialists, whenever they come into power in those states, or whenever they are strong enough to force the issue, will insist upon making the franchise free. And where, as in this state, there is a s.e.x qualification for the franchise, women being denied the suffrage, they will work unceasingly to do away with that relic of barbarism. By means of such measures as the Initiative and Referendum, and election of judges by the people, the sovereignty of the people will be established. It may be that without some const.i.tutional amendments it will be found impossible to make political democracy complete. In that case, moving along the line of least resistance, they will do all that they can within the limits of the Const.i.tution as it is, changing it whenever by reason of their power they deem that practicable.

As to the organization of the industrial life of the Socialist state, bringing industry from private to public control, here, too, Socialists will work along the line of least resistance. First of all, it must be remembered that there are tendencies to that end within society at present. Every development of industry and commerce, from compet.i.tion to monopoly, so far as it centers the control in few hands and organizes the industry or business, makes it possible to take it over without dislocation, and, at the same time, makes it the interest of a larger number to help in bringing about that transfer. In like manner every voluntary cooperative organization of producers makes for the Socialist ideal. This is a far less important matter in the United States than in England and other European countries. Finally, we have the enormous extension of public functions developed already in capitalist society, and being constantly extended. Our postal system, public schools, state universities, libraries, museums, art galleries, parks, bureaus of research and information, hospitals, sanatoria, munic.i.p.al ferries, water supply, fire departments, health boards, lighting systems, these, and a thousand other activities of our munic.i.p.alities and states, and the nation, are so many forms created by capitalism to meet its own needs which belong, however, to Socialism and require only to be infused with the Socialist spirit. This will be done as they come under the influence of Socialists elected to various legislative and administrative bodies in ever increasing number as the movement grows.