Socialism and Democracy in EuropeOrth, Samuel Peter
History
Socialism and Democracy in Europe
Orth, Samuel Peter
Democracy; Socialism
These revolutions were political in that they were a protest against
existing governmental forms. The revolutionary proletarian was found
in all of them. He not only stood under the standard of Daniel Manin
in Venice, when that patriot again proclaimed a republic in the
ancient city, and shared with Mazzini his triumph in Rome, and fought
with Kossuth for the liberty of Hungary; but he formed also the body
of the revolutionary forces in Germany, Austria, and France.
In all the Continental countries the uprisings were directed against
the arrogance and oppression of monarchism, and against the
recrudescence of feudalistic ideals. In France Louis Philippe had
attempted the part of a petty despot. He restricted the ballot to the
propertied class, balanced his power on too narrow a base, and it
became top-heavy.
While the workingmen of Germany and Austria were taking up arms under
command of the middle class against the feudal remnants, the
workingmen of France were sacking their capital because of an
attempted revival of monarchic privilege, and the workmen of England
were marching and counter-marching in monster torchlight parades in
protest against middle-class domination.
The panorama of Europe in these years of turmoil and blood thus
exhibits every degree of revolt against governmental power, from the
absolutism of Prussian Junkerdom and the oppression of the Hungarians
by foreign tyranny, to the dominance of the aristocratic and
middle-class alliance in Great Britain.
The bread-and-butter question was not wanting in any of these
political uprisings. The unity of life makes their separation a myth.
One is interwoven with the other. The social struggle is political,
the political struggle is social.
Socialism is not merely an economic movement. It seeks to-day, and
always has sought, the power of the state. The government is the only
available instrument for effecting the change--the revolution--the
Socialists preach, the transfer of productive enterprise from private
to public ownership. "Political power our means, social happiness our
end," was a Chartist motto. That is the duality of Socialism to-day.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] MARX, _Revolution and Counter-Revolution in 1848_.
[2] MARX, _Revolution and Counter-Revolution_, p. 70.
[3] _Op. cit._, pp. 123-124.
[4] MARX, _Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich_, pp. 26-28.
[5] See the third address issued by the International Workingmen's
Association on the Franco-Prussian war, 1870-71.
The Italian Socialists in Milan, June, 1871, closed a rhetorical
address to the Parisian Communards as follows: "To despotism they
responded, We are free.
"To the cannon and chassepots of the leagued reactionists they offered
their bared breasts.
"They fell, but fell like heroes.
"To-day the reaction calls them bandits, places them under the ban of
the human race.
"Shall we permit it? No!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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