the party became in effect merely one of advanced Radicalism. It is too soon to guess what will be the effect of the split between Majority and Minority Socialists which has occurred during the war. There is in Germany hardly a trace of Syndicalism: its characteristic doctrine, the preference of industrial to political action, has found almost no support.
In England Marx has never had many followers. Socialism here has been inspired in the main by the Fabians (founded in 1883), who threw over the advocacy of revolution, the Marxian doctrine of value, and the class war. What remained was State Socialism and a doctrine of "permeation." Civil servants were to be permeated with the realization that Socialism would enormously increase their power. Trade Unions were to be permeated with the belief that the day for purely industrial action was past, and that they must look to Government (inspired secretly by sympathetic civil servants) to bring about, bit by bit, such parts of the Socialist programme as were not likely to rouse much hostility in the rich. The Independent Labour Party (formed in 1893) was largely inspired at first by the ideas of the Fabians, though retaining to the present day, and especially since the outbreak of the war, much more of the original Socialist ardour. It aimed always at co-operation with the industrial organizations of wage-earners, and, chiefly through its efforts, the Labour Party[1] was formed in 1900 out of a combination of the Trade Unions and the political Socialists. To
- ↑ Of which the Independent Labour Party is only a section.
