SOCIALISM 477 SOCIALISM The first Socialist representatives elected to legislative bodies were sent to the North German Diet, in the seventies, and soon after Socialist political parties were formed in other countries as well. From that day until the present there has been a steady gTowth in all countries, of the Socialist political parties and of the number of their representatives in the governing bodies. But even within the parties themselves there continued the original split, between those who, while willing to have their representatives elected to legislative bodies, did not be- lieve they should support reform legisla- tion ; and those who supported all legisla- tive measures for the betterment of the masses. The first believed that all reform measures retarded and even checked the growth of class consciousness, therefore delayed the social revolution, which was to be the means by which the proletariat would achieve power. The latter suc- cumbed to pressure from below, and fol- lowed the dictates of the rank and file, who, little interested in abstract theories, wanted their material conditions im- proved. This partisanship between the Marxian theorists and the practical politicians in the movement continued, now and then breaking out into violent party dissen- tions. It remained for the recent World War to bring about an open split. In the United States the Socialist La- bor Party was organized in 1877. Its chief was Daniel De Leon, a true Marx- ian, though he believed in political ac- tivity for its propaganda value. As the Socialist Labor Party met with little or no success at the polls, it was not tempted to deviate from its Marxian principles, since its chiefs were not elected to office. In the late nineties, however, a grow- ing number of native Americans were converted to Socialism, including Eugene Debs, a prominent labor leader, and dis- satisfaction with the policy of the Ger- man Socialists who had formed the bulk of the Socialist Labor Party began to manifest itself. In 1900 came a split; the Socialist Party was organized, and in the presidential elections of that year it polled nearly 100,000 votes. Hencefor- ward the Socialist Labor Party dwindled in strength, while the Socialist Party developed rapidly, polling 901,361 votes in the presidential election in 1912. This later party frankly adopted a platform of reform measures, and while it did not repudiate the Marxian theories, it made the development of its political strength its chief aim. Its appeal has been openly to the people as citizens, or consumers, while its championship of the workers at the "point of production" has been chiefly EE- confined to the editorials of its official organs. In 1912, at a national convention, held in Indianapolis, the "direct action- ists," those who remained true to the old Marxian program of mass revolution, were definitely thrown out. In 1899 the first international Socialist Congress was held, and thereafter a sim- ilar international meeting was held every three years, for the purpose of formu- lating common action. Needless to re- mark, the politicians were behind these congresses, and of these the German So- cialists were dominant. German Social- ism, which had built up the biggest political party in Germany, remained the ideal of the Socialists in all other coun- tries, with the exception of England, where, through the influence of the Fa- bian Society (q. v.), the Labor Party had been gradually developed with a platform based simply on an extension of govern- ment enterprise. The Continental parties, at least, still held that it would be use- less to support state industrial enter- prises until the government had been definitely captured by the Socialist votes. In 1900 the "Second International" was organized, in the International Socialist Bureau which was established in Brussels. This central bureau functioned until the outbreak of the World War, when, not so much through the interruption of com- munications, as because of the action of the German Socialists in supporting their Government in the war, it was disrupted. Political activities, naturally, had devel- oped a corresponding degree of national- ism in the Socialist parties, though the Marxian program had emphasized very strongly the international character of the Socialist movement and specifically pointed out that the brotherhood of the proletariat was more important than pa- triotism, which was considered merely a medium by which the ruling classes di- vided the solidarity of labor. The true Marxians in Germany were represented by such leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, who refused to support the war and suffered imprisonment there- for. In this country, when the time came, the Socialist party stood strongly against the war, not so much, perhaps, on account of Marxian principles, as be- cause a large portion of the rank and file was of German birth. For the first two and a half years of the war Socialism in all countries re- mained practically quiescent. It had been shocked insensible by the unexpected ef- fect that the war had had on itself. Then came the revolution in Russia, in March, 1917. Essentially this began as a protest of all classes of society against the incompetence and the treason of the ruling autocracy, but the Socialists were ■Cys Vol 8
