This brief survey of the meaning of syndicalism, whence it came, and why, explains the antagonism that had to arise between it and socialism.[AA] Not only was it frankly intended to displace the socialist political parties of Europe, but every step it has taken was accompanied with an attack upon the doctrines and the methods of modern socialism. And, in fact, the syndicalists are most interesting when they leave their own theories and turn their guns upon the socialist parties of the present day. In reading the now extensive literature on syndicalism, one finds endless chapters devoted to pointing out the weaknesses and faults of political socialism. Like the Bakouninists, the chief strength of the revolutionary unionists lies in criticism rather than in any constructive thought or action of their own. The battle of to-day is, however, a very unequal one. In the International, two groups--comparatively alike in size--fought over certain theories that, up to that time, were not embodied in a movement. They quarreled over tactics that were yet untried and over theories that were then purely speculative. To-day the syndicalists face a foe that embraces millions of loyal adherents. At the international gatherings of trade-union officials, as well as at the immense international congresses of the socialist parties, the syndicalists find themselves in a hopeless minority.[AB] Socialism is no longer an unembodied project of Marx. It is a throbbing, moving, struggling force. It is in a daily fight with the evils of capitalism. It is at work in every strike, in every great agitation, in every parliament, in every council. It is a thing of incessant action, whose mistakes are many and whose failures stand out in relief. Those who have betrayed it can be pointed out. Those who have lost all revolutionary fervor and all notion of class can be held up as a tendency. Those who have fallen into the traps of the bureaucrats and have given way to the flattery or to the corruption of the bourgeoisie can be listed and put upon the index. Even working-class political action can be assailed as never before, because it now exists for the first time in history, and its every weakness is known. Moreover, there are the slowness of movement and the seemingly increasing tameness of the multitude. All these incidents in the growth of a vast movement--the rapidity of whose development has never been equaled in the history of the world--irritate beyond measure the impatient and ultra-revolutionary exponents of the new anarchism.