In England Marx has never had many followers.
Socialism there 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 program
as were not likely to rouse much hostility in the rich.
The Independent Labor 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 ardor. It aimed always at
co-operation with the industrial organizations of
wage-earners, and, chiefly through its efforts, the
Labor Party[20] was formed in 1900 out of a
combination of the Trade Unions and the political
Socialists. To this party, since 1909, all the important
Unions have belonged, but in spite of the fact
that its strength is derived from Trade Unions, it
has stood always for political rather than industrial
action. Its Socialism has been of a theoretical and
academic order, and in practice, until the outbreak
of war, the Labor members in Parliament (of whom
30 were elected in 1906 and 42 in December, 1910)
might be reckoned almost as a part of the Liberal
Party.
[20] Of which the Independent Labor Party is only a section.
France, unlike England and Germany, was not
content merely to repeat the old shibboleths with
continually diminishing conviction. In France[21] a new
movement, originally known as Revolutionary
Syndicalism--and afterward simply as Syndicalism--
kept alive the vigor of the original impulse, and
remained true to the spirit of the older Socialists,
while departing from the letter. Syndicalism, unlike
Socialism and Anarchism, began from an existing
organization and developed the ideas appropriate
to it, whereas Socialism and Anarchism began with
the ideas and only afterward developed the organizations
which were their vehicle. In order to understand
Syndicalism, we have first to describe Trade
Union organization in France, and its political
environment. The ideas of Syndicalism will then
appear as the natural outcome of the political and
economic situation. Hardly any of these ideas are
new; almost all are derived from the Bakunist section
of the old International.[21] The old International
had considerable success in France before the Franco-
Prussian War; indeed, in 1869, it is estimated to
have had a French membership of a quarter of a million.
What is practically the Syndicalist program
was advocated by a French delegate to the Congress
of the International at Bale in that same year.[22]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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