University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II
THE FINANCIAL POWER OF THE LEADERS AND OF THE PARTY

IN the German Socialist Party desertion and treason on the part of the leaders have been rare. This is conspicuous in contrast with what has happened in the French Socialist Party, especially as regards the parliamentary group of the latter. The elections of August 20, 1893, sent to the Palais Bourbon six socialist deputies: Paulin Méry, Alphonse Humbert, A. Abel Hovelacque, Alexandre Millerand, Pierre Richard, and Ernest Roche. Of these, one only, the distinguished linguist and anthropologist, Hovelacque, remained faithful to the party to his death; the other five are now declared enemies of the Socialist Party. The part played by Millerand in socialism, a great one as is well known, came to an end in 1904. In his electoral address of May, 1906, the term “socialist” had passed into the background; he was running in opposition to the official socialist candidate, the sociologist Paul Lafargue, the son-in-law of Marx; his rôle was now that of an anticollectivist and patriotic bourgeois reformer. The other socialist ex-deputies in the above list had deserted their colors at an even earlier date. The trifling political shock which is associated with the name of General Boulanger sufficed to overthrow the house of cards which represented the socialist convictions of these warriors on behalf of the revolutionary proletariat of France. Today they are all vowed to the service of the clerico-nationalist reaction. Paulin Mery became one of the Boulangist leaders; in May, 1906, when, in the second ballot, he was opposed to the bourgeois radical, Ferdinand Buisson, the socialists of his constituency unhesitatingly cast their votes in favor of his opponent. At the time of the Dreyfus affair, Alphonse Humbert was one of the most ardent defenders of the general staff of the army. Ernest Roche, at one time a disciple of Auguste Blanqui, and then, in conjunction with Edouard Vaillant, one of the most noted leaders of the Blanquists, is now the lieutenant of Henri Rochefort; in a recent parliamentary election in the seventeenth arrondissement of Paris he was defeated by the reformist socialist Paul Brousse, although Brousse, the sometime anarchist and theoretical father of the propaganda by deed in western Europe, had recently forfeited the goodwill of the more revolutionary section of the workers (Brousse, as President of the Paris municipal council, had received Alfonso XIII as guest at the Hôtel de Ville, and this conduct was hardly in conformity with socialist principles). It is true that even to-day Roche still belongs to a Parti Blanquiste ni Dieu ni Maître which announces week by week in the “Intransigeant” meetings of a more or less private character, but this party is really fictitious, for though it has a few branches it does not count in political life; in all practical political questions this petty group works hand in hand with the antisemites and the nationalists, and in matters of theory, whenever Roche has occasion to allude to them, he proclaims himself le champion incorruptible de la République, du Socialisme et de la Patrie, his anticapitalism being extremely tame, but his jingoism fanatical. [90]

In contrast with this, the German Socialist Party shares with the Italian and the Belgian parties the good fortune of possessing faithful and devoted leaders. The leadership of the Ger-man party has been again and again reinforced by valuable accessions from the other parties of the left, such as Auguste Bebel, the bourgeois democrat, Max Quarck and Paul Bader, of the “Frankfurter Zeitung,” Paul Göhre and Max Maurenbrecher, who had previously founded the National Socialist Party in opposition to the socialists. On the other hand, it has suffered no extensive losses of significant personalties by desertion to the bourgeois camp. The only exceptions to this generalization relate to leaders of minor importance, such as Max Lorenz, [91] exeditor of the “Leipzige Volkszeitung,” who subsequently passed through the gate of National Socialism to gain a secure position as editor of the “Antisozialdemokratische Korrespondenz”; the young Count Ludwig Reventlow, who in 1906 became a deputy in the antisemite interest; and a few other academic personalities of minor importance, besides one or two exceptional converted proletarians, such as the basketmaker Fischer. It would not be right to regard as treason in the strict sense of the term a simple passage from the Socialist Party properly so-called to some other form of militant socialism, such as happened in the case of socialists as fervent and convinced as the deputy Johann Most, the noted binder of Augsburg, and Wilhelm Hasselmann, the chemist, another deputy, who after 1890 broke openly with the party, to adhere first to antiparliamentary socialism and subsequently to anarchism. To speak of these men as “deserters” would be to identify the notion of desertion of the organized party with desertion of the idea of working-class emancipation. But even if we count as deserters from socialism those who have gone over to the ranks of the anarchists, we are compelled to admit that among the apostates from the German Socialist Party there has not been one of those who have occupied a leading position in the party.

The fighting proletariat in Germany has hitherto been spared the spectacle of its former representatives seated on the government benches surrounded by the enemies of the socialists. There has in Germany been no such figure as Aristide Briand, yesterday advocate of the general strike and counsel for the defense of men prosecuted for antimilitarism, who had expressly declared himself in full sympathy with the anti-militarist theory plutôt l'insurrection que la guerre, and to-day, as Minister of Public Instruction, approving no less vigourously and explicitly the measures of repression enforced by his colleagues in the Cabinet against antimilitarists. Germany has not known a John Burns, who as a labour leader in 1886 played a prominent part in the organization of huge demonstrations of the unemployed, at which open reference was made to the possible need for destroying the palaces and sacking the shops, and whose activities had led to a panic in the bourgeois world of the English capital, but who a few years later as President of the Local Government Board, when a motion was brought forward in Parliament at the instance of the Labor Representation Committee demanding the intervention of Parliament on behalf of the unemployed, replied that he was neither a publichouse politician nor a soft-hearted philanthropist prepared to squander the money of hard-working citizens upon the socalled unemployed, and who advised the workers to save their money in good times and not to spend it upon unworthy objects. Such disillusionments, experienced at the hands of men in whose sincerity and firmness of character the organized workers had an ingenuous confidence, have a politically discouraging and morally enervating effect. They tend to lead the workers to indifferentism, or to onesided specializations, such as the new unionism, or an exclusive belief in the cooperative movement, or, again, to certain forms of libertarian aspiration, and to alienate them from the thought of political organization, and from a considered and measured parliamentary activity. We see this, above all, in France, where the case of Briand was merely a sequel to that of Millerand, and the case of Millerand a sequel, if you will, to the case of Louis Blanc, and where the great mass of the manual workers are split up into the two sections of those who advocate the most defiant abstentionism and of those whose minds are dominated by the spirit which the French aptly term jemenfichisme. [92] The fact that the socialist parties of Germany, Italy, and Belgium have hitherto been free from the disturbing and demoralizing effects of such episodes furnishes the chief if not the only reason for the unlimited and often blind confidence which is displayed, as no unprejudiced observer of the members of these parties can fail to notice, in the “tried and trusted” leaders. In Germany, indeed, the authority which this spirit gives to the party leaders, and which continually accentuates the tendency towards centralization, is enormously reinforced by the spirit of organization, by the intense need for guidance, which characterizes the German proletariat, and also by the comparative poverty of the party in individuals of intellectual pre-eminence and of those possessing economic independence. Owing to these exceptional conditions, the leaders are preserved from the disintegrating influence of personal and tactical dissensions, which would otherwise have led them into conflicts with the masses of the party similar to those that have raged with such violence in Italy and in Holland, notwithstanding the stability and the authoritative position of the socialist leaders in these latter countries.

It may be said of the German socialist leaders that they have not yet lost contact with the masses; that there still prevails complete harmony between the form and the content of their tactics even when there should be a conflict between these; that the community of ideas between leaders and led has not yet been broken; and, to sum up, that the executive committee of the party, and also (though perhaps less perfectly) the parliamentary socialist group, still represent the average opinion of the comrades throughout the country. The confidence which the organized German workers give to those that represent them in the complex game of politics is based upon the security which the leaders offer at once from the moral and the political point of view. This security incontrovertibly exists. The manner in which the masses entrust their interests to the leaders is, historically at least, legitimate and explicable. But the causes of the stability of the leaders are naturally, like all causes, complex. Among various explanations, it has been suggested that all the virtue of the German labour leaders lies in the fact that they have never been exposed to serious temptations, so that it resembles that of a young woman who has never been courted. There is a certain element of truth in this explanation, in so far as we have to do with that special political virtue which consists in the faithful defense of the party flag. In a state where parliamentary government does not exist, where the ministers of state are chosen by the sovereign from among the leading officials of the administration without any regard to the parliamentary majority, and where consequently no direct path to office is open to popular representatives, the possibility of intellectual corruption, that is to say of a more or less complete change of front on the part of the socialist leaders under the influence of a desire for ministerial office, is ipso facto excluded, just as is excluded an adhesion to the party of bourgeois social reform of the revolutionary socialists who aim at changing the very base of the existing economic order. On the other hand, Arturo Labriola, who has followed the German movement with keen interest and lively sympathy, is undoubtedly right in his caustic prediction that as soon as the day comes when the German Government is willing to afford itself the luxury of a lukewarm liberal ministry, since the socialists are really not difficult to satisfy, the “reformist infection” will spread far even in Germany. He adds that the germs of this infection are already widely diffused. [93]

Yet although it is true that the feudal structure of the German Empire, which is still reflected in the laws and in the collective mentality of the country, imposes necessary limits upon the ambition of the labour leaders, it must be admitted that the fact we are now considering does not find an adequate explanation in the mere lack of temptation. Moreover, temptation, in the vulgar and material sense of the term, is no more lacking in Germany than elsewhere. No government, however autocratic, has ever neglected a chance of corrupting the austere virtue of the leaders of any movement dangerous to authority, by the distribution of a portion of those secret service funds which every state has at its disposal, and which have been voted by the popular representatives themselves. Nevertheless, it may be affirmed that the leaders of the German labour movement, even if they do not possess that evangelical morality of which we find so many examples in the early days of the Italian labour movement, have yet always resisted any attempts to corrupt their integrity by bribes. We need hardly reckon as an exception, the case which has not yet been fully cleared up of the president of the Allgemeiner Deutsche Arbeiterverein, Johann Baptist von Schweitzer, in the year 1872, for it seems probable that the fiery Bebel, who secured Schweitzer's condemnation and expulsion from the party, was in reality altogether in the wrong. [94] Even the subordinates in the leadership of the party, those whom we may speak of as the non-commissioned officers, have usually proved altogether inaccessible to the blandish-ments of the police. They have sometimes accepted bribes, but always to hand them over at once to “Vorwärts” or some other socialist paper, in which there has then appeared an invitation to the owner of the money to come and claim it personally within a certain number of days, since if unclaimed it would be handed over to the party funds.

The unshaken fidelity of the German socialist leaders rests upon powerful reasons, and some of these are ideal in nature. The characteristic love of the German for his chosen vocation, devotion to duty, years of proscription and of persecution shared with other comrades, the isolation from the bourgeois world of the workers and their representatives, the invincible conviction that only a party of a compact and solid structure will be able to translate into action the lofty aims of socialism, and the consequent aversion for any socialist struggle conducted by free-lances outside the ranks of the organized party—such are some of the numerous reasons which have combined to produce in the minds of the German socialists a love for their organization enabling it to resist the most violent storms. This attachment to the party, often manifested by fine and moving actions, certainly represents one of the most solid elements in the foundation upon which has been erected the edifice of German socialism. It enables us to understand the conduct of the socialist leaders during and after numerous crises which, in the view of the profane, would necessarily terminate in the open abandonment of the party by a number of its leaders. It is their love for the party, with which the great majority of the comrades feel themself to be identified, which has led such men as Eduard Bernstein and Kurt Elsner to retain their membership after violent conflicts which had almost led to their expulsion. It is proper to add that in the course of this struggle these men have always preserved the personal dignity without which a self-respecting man cannot possibly remain among his companions-at-arms.

These ideal motives are reinforced by motives, no less important, of a material order. The practice of paying for the services rendered to the party by its employees creates a bond which many of the comrades hesitate to break, and this for a thousand reasons. The pecuniary remuneration for services to the party which is given by the German social democracy immunizes the party employees against the grosser forms of temptation. Whereas in France, England, Holland, Italy, and elsewhere, socialist propaganda, spoken and written, is effected chiefly by volunteers, in the German Socialist Party gratuitous propaganda is practically unknown. Elsewhere than in Germany, socialist activity is based upon individual enthusiasm, individual initiative, and individual devotion; but in Germany it reposes upon loyalty, discipline, and the sentiment of duty, encouraged by pecuniary remuneration. In the history of the non-German socialist parties, for example, we find important periodicals, such as the “Avanguardia Socialista” of Milan and the “Nieuwe Tijd” of Amsterdam, which have been founded by individual initiative, and which are maintained by the political idealism of a few individuals. These continue to carry on their work although the expenses of the venture often exceed the income, and although those who write for the papers in question are unpaid or almost wholly unpaid. In Germany, on the other hand, the “Vorwärts” of Berlin, the “Leipziger Volkszeitung” and the “Neue Zeit” were founded and sustained by the party as a whole, and have a paid editorial staff and paid contributors. It would nevertheless be quite wrong to suppose that socialist propagandists and socialist officials are paid on a scale which enables them with the hard-earned pence of the workers to lead that luxurious existence which, with an ignorance bordering on impudence, is often ascribed to them by the “respectable” press and the loungers of the clubs. The life of a socialist journalist is far from resembling that of a spendthrift or a libertine; his day's work is by no means an easy one, his labours demand an abundance of self-denial and sacrifice and are nervously exhausting; whilst the remuneration he receives is a modest one when compared with the gravity and the difficulty of his task. No one will deny this who has even an elementary acquaintance with the conditions of work and pay in the socialist press and with the life led by the employees of the party. Men of the ability and education of Karl Kautsky, Max Quarck, Adolf Müller, and a hundred others, would have been able, had they chosen to devote themselves to some other service than that of the workers, to obtain a material reward much greater than that which they secure in their present positions.

This reference to the practice of the German Socialist Party of remunerating all services rendered was necessary to enable the reader to understand rightly certain peculiarities of German socialist life. But it must not be supposed that there is no unpaid socialist work in Germany. In country districts where the organization is still poor, and in the case of small weekly papers whose financial resources are inconsiderable, much gratuitous work is done by the socialists. In not a few places, moreover, the local comrades do not receive pay for any of the speeches they make. A witness to the idealism which, despite all difficulties, continues to flourish in the working class is the way in which during elections and at other times many working-class socialists sacrifice their Sunday rest in order to do propagandist work in the country, vigourously distributing leaflets, electoral addresses, socialist calendars, etc. This gratuitous work is often carried out, not only under conditions involving the patient endurance of exposure and privation, but also in face of all kinds of abuse and of the danger of arrest on the most trivial pretexts, and of attacks made by excited antisemitic or clerical peasants.

In general, however, the German practice is to pay for all services io the party, from the most trifling notice contributed to a newspaper to the lengthiest public discourse. Whilst this deprives the party to a large extent of the spirit of heroism and enthusiasm, and of work done by voluntary and spontaneous collabouration, it gives to the organization a remarkable cohesion, and an authority over the personnel which, though doubtless detracting from its elasticity and its spirit of initiative, and, in essence, tending to impair the very socialist mentality, constitutes none the less one of the most important and indispensable bases of the party life.

Able critics of socialist affairs, such as Ernst Günther, have endeavoured to explain the fact that persons of recognized ability and worth have preferred as a rule to subject themselves to the party-will rather than to break completely with the organization, by the suggestion that had they decided otherwise they would have imperilled their political existence, and would have renounced “the possibility of continuing to represent efficiently the interests of the workers.” [95] It is unquestionable that the socialist platform is now the best one from which to advocate the interests of the workers, and is historically the most appropriate, so that the renunciation of this platform almost always involves the loss of the opportunity for defending working-class interests. But it is no less indisputable that “to the average man the close association of his own economic existence with his dependence upon the Socialist Party seems a sufficient excuse” for the sacrifice of his own convictions in order to remain in a party with which he is in truth no longer in full sympathy. [96]

It has been written: Staatserhaltend sind nur jene, Die vom Staate viel erhalten. [97]

For all their exaggeration, there is a nucleus of truth in these words, and the criticism applies with equal justice to the party as to the state. The practice of paying for all services rendered, tends in no small degree to reinforce the party bureaucracy, and favors centralized power. Financial dependence upon the party, that is to say upon the leaders who represent the majority, enshackles the organization as with iron chains. The most tenaciously conservative members of the organization are, in fact, those who are most definitely dependent upon it. When this dependence attains to a certain degree of intensity, it exercises a decisive influence upon the mentality. It has been noted that in those countries in which members of parliament are not salaried, but where the party organizations themselves provide for the support of their parliamentary representatives, the deputies have a very strong sense of dependence upon the members of their organizations. Where, on the contrary, members of parliament are remunerated by the state, they feel themselves before all to be parliamentarians, even though they may owe their election exclusively to the Socialist Party.

It is well known that the numerical strength of the trade unions depends to a very considerable extent upon the economic advantages which the unions offer to their members. The success of the trade-union movement from this point of view has suggested to the German socialists that the Socialist Party should extend to the rank and file of the membership some of the advantages which have hitherto been the exclusive privilege of the party bureaucracy. Otto Gerisch, treasurer of the party and member of the executive committee, referred to this possibility in a speech on the problem of organization, made at the Bremen Congress of 1904. [98] After quoting facts proving the superiority of the trade-union organization over that of the party, he stated that in his view the real reason of this superiority was to be found in the “accumulation of benefits” which the unions provided for their members. He added that the workers did not prove faithful to their unions until these organizations undertook the practice of mutual aid on the large scale, but that thereafter the membership increased enormously and became far more stable. Continuing this train of thought, he said: “It is characteristic that the Königsberg comrades, who, in view of the advanced position they occupy in the German socialist movement, must certainly be held to possess extensive experience in matters of organization and propaganda, provide subsidies to members of the party to meet funeral expenses. This practice has been introduced for a very good reason. We are at a disadvantage in the Socialist Party as compared with the trade unions, in that we cannot offer any direct advantages to our members. But this will not always be the case.” It seems doubtful if these words are to be interpreted as a direct announcement of the intention to introduce a system of mutual life-insurance, or whether Gerisch merely intended a warm recommendation of such a measure. Oda Olberg, who was present at the congress on behalf of the Italian socialist paper “Avanti,” interpreted the words in the former sense, and described the speech as a “menace of degeneration.” [99] It is certain that in the German Socialist Party tendencies exist towards laying greater stress upon such material advantages, tendencies which might lead to the transformation of the party organization into a socialistically tinged proletarian assurance society. It is evident that an evolution in this direction would attract to the party hundreds of thousands of new members, so that there would be a considerable accession of strength. At the same time the apparatus of the socialist bureaucracy would be greatly developed. The effects which such an evolution would have upon the real strength of the party vis-a-vis the state, upon its moral impetus, its internal unity, and its tactical cohesion, are questions which cannot be discussed here. For our purpose it has been enough to draw attention to the influence which the practice of paying for services rendered has upon the maintenance and the reinforcement of the organization.

In aristocratic regimes, so long, at least, as the aristocracy retains its essentially plutocratic character, the elected officials are usually unpaid. Their functions are purely honorary, even when they require the whole time of those who undertake them. They are members of the dominant class, are assumed to be rich, to make it a point of honor to spend money for the public good, and to occupy, even at considerable pecuniary sacrifice, eminent positions in the service of the state. A similar practice prevails even in modern democracies. The Lord Mayor of London and his colleagues in the other great cities of England are unpaid. The same is true of the Italian Syndics. Inasmuch as the entertainment allowances, etc., are usually altogether inadequate, the holders of such offices must be men of considerable private means to enable them to support the necessary charges, and they must therefore be either wealthy parvenus or men born to wealth. Similar considerations apply to Italian parliamentary representation. In Italy the government opposes the idea of paying salaries to members of parliament, on the ground that it would be improper for the elected of the nation to receive base money for their activities. The consequence is that in Italy, since the Italian socialist party is a poor one, the manual workers are a priori excluded from parliament. Among the thirty-six socialist deputies in the Italian chamber during 1909, two only had been manual workers (trade-union leaders). In such conditions it is likely that the party representation in the legislature will be restricted to persons with private means, to those, that is to say, who have time and money which they are able to devote to an unremunerative occupation, and one which demands frequent changes of residence, In France, moveover, where the salaries of the deputies are on a liberal scale, it has been noted that the poorest constituencies are represented in parliament by the richest members.

Even in certain democratic parties the assumption of official positions in the party may be regarded as an honorary office, especially where the organization is not well supplied with means. Thus there not infrequently arises within the party a peculiar form of financial authority, since the comrades who are better endowed with means, gain and retain influence through the pecuniary services which they render. A plutocratic supremacy of this nature exists in the press of those parties which, lacking means for the independent maintenance of their own organs, are forced to depend upon the pecuniary assistance given by well-to-do comrades. The result, of course, is that these latter, as principal shareholders in the newspaper, possess a natural right of controlling its policy. A typical example of this is found in France, where for a time “l'Humanité” was supported by a syndicate of wealthy Jews. Again, in choosing delegates to the party congresses, the preference is often given to those who are able and willing to pay their own traveling expenses. In this way it results that the congresses, which constitute the supreme authority of the party, often come to be chiefly composed, like the parliamentary group in certain countries, of persons who are comparatively well-to-do. This is what happens in Italy, France, Holland, etc. As far as Germany is concerned, this is less likely to occur, partly because very few members of the Socialist Party are well off, and partly because of the flourishing condition of the party finances. In Germany, therefore, the financial superiority of the rich comrade over the poor one is often replaced by the superiority of the rich branch. It is naturally very difficult for the organizations that are short of money to send delegates to the party congress, especially if this is held in a distant city. Consequently these poor branches, when they are unable to appoint as delegate some one who has the time, the means, and the will to undertake the journey at his own expense, are compelled to abandon the idea of being represented at the congress. It should be added that public opinion within the party has often shown itself strongly adverse to the practice, stigmatizing the delegates who are appointed on these terms as “mandataries by accommodation,” and regarding the conferring and the acceptance of such a mandate as a treason to the party and as a form of corruption. At the Bremen congress of 1904, in the case of Fehndrich, it was loudly denounced as a veritable crime. Such accusations are often unjust, for more spirit of sacrifice and love of duty are commonly needed to induce a comrade to attend a congress at his own cost than would be the case if he had a week's holiday at the expense of his local branch.

Nevertheless it remains true that as regards representation at party congresses, the smaller sections are in a position of ser-ious inferiority. Numerous proposals have been made for the remedy of this state of affairs. For instance, in order to realize the democratic postulate of the equal representation of all districts, in the years 1903 and 1904 the section of Marburg proposed that all the costs of delegation should be defrayed by the central treasury. This proposal was not accepted, and consequently another attempt was made to find a remedy, and this has taken the form of uniting numerous local branches into provincial federations. Thus the rules of the provincial federation of Hesse-Nassau contain a clause to the following effect: “Those local branches of the federation which are unable to pay the costs of delegation to the congress will draw lots every year to select one among their number, and the branch thus chosen will have the right to send a delegate to the congress at the expense of the federation.” It may be noted in passing that five of the branches out of the ten of which the federation consists have to avail themselves of this privilege.

A party which has a well-filled treasury is in a position, not only to dispense with the material aid of its comparatively affluent members, and thus to prevent the acquirement by these of a preponderant influence in the party, but also to provide itself with a body of officials who are loyal and devoted because they are entirely dependent on the party for their means of subsistence. Before the year 1906, when the payment of members was conceded by the German state, the German Socialist Party had provided the salaries of its deputies. In this way the party leaders, poor men for the most part, were enabled to enter parliament without being in a position to emancipate themselves from the party, or to detach themselves from the majority of the parliamentary group of socialists—as has happened in France with the formation of the group of “independent socialists.” The French Socialist Party has been forced to recognize the danger involved in the existence of leaders who are not economically dependent on the party. In those countries in which the representatives of the people are not paid by the government nor salaried by the party, the danger of plutocracy arises from the fact that the members of parliament must necessarily be men of means; but in France such a danger arises in the opposite way, for here not only are the deputies paid, but they are paid at the high rate of £600 a year. Consequently it has occurred to the French socialists to adopt a measure which shall at once reduce the financial supremacy of its representatives at the Palais Bourbon and provide a steady accession to the party funds, and they have decreed that every deputy elected under the aegis of the party must pay over one-fifth of his salary, £120 per annum, to the party treasury. Many of the French socialist deputies, in order to elude this obligation, have simply resigned their membership of the party. Among the causes which in the year 1905 led to the formation of the new parliamentary socialist group, the so-called independent socialists, the chief was certainly the desire to escape this heavy tax, and to preserve intact for themselves the fine round sum paid as salary by the state. Even in the case of the deputies who, in order to preserve their seats, have found it expedient to accept as a matter of principle their liability to the party treasury, the majority have shown little alacrity in the discharge of this liability. Year after year, in fact, at the party congresses, there have been interminable discussions as to the means to be adopted to compel the recalcitrant socialist deputies to discharge their financial obligations. And yet (and here is one of the ironies of history) it has not taken long to discover that to despoil the deputies of a portion of their salary does not after all constitute the most efficacious means of preventing the formation within the party of an oligarchy of plutocrats. From the report made to the congress of Nimes (1910) by the executive committee it appears that of the 128,000 francs which constitute the party revenue, more than half, 67,250 francs to be precise, was made up by the contributions of the socialist members of parliament. Such a state of affairs is eminently calculated to favor the predominance of the deputies, who become the financial props of the party administration, and thus are persons of importance whom the rank and file must treat with all possible respect.

Speaking generally, when the manual workers become employers it is not found that they are easy masters. They are prone to mistrust, and are extremely exacting. Were it not that these employees have as a rule abundant means of escaping from the influence of their many-headed masters, they would be worse treated—so runs the complaint—than by any private employer. In relation to the salaried officials, every member of the organization considers himself a capitalist and behaves accordingly. Moreover, the manual workers often lack any criterion for the appreciation of intellectual labour.

In Rome, many societies for cooperative production make it a principle to pay their commercial and technical managers on the same scale as their manual workers. In Germany, too, for a long time the same tendency prevailed. At the assembly of the Christian miners held at Gelsenkirchen in 1898, the demand found expression that Brust, one of the leaders, should continue manual work as a miner, since otherwise he would forfeit the esteem of his comrades. At the socialist congress held at Berlin in 1892 a motion was discussed for many hours in accordance with which no employee of the party was to be paid a salary exceeding £125 per annum; whilst at the congress of Frankfort in 1894 the proposal to increase the salary of the two party secretaries by £25 had to be withdrawn, since the voting was indecisive, although the ballot was taken several times. For a long time in the German Socialist Party there continued to prevail the erroneous view that the salaries paid to the party employees, and even the disbursements made to propagandists on account of expenses and time lost, were a sort of gratuity, a “pourboire.” In the case of the socialist newspapers, the editor was often worse paid than the business manager and even than the compositors. Matters have changed since then, but there always exists a tendency on the part of the manual workers which induces them to endeavour to keep down the salaries of the party officials to the level of what is paid to a factory hand. A few years ago a trade union passed a motion to the effect that the employees of the union should be paid by the hour, and on the same scale as that which prevailed in the branch of industry to which they belonged as trade unionists. Even now, in fixing the salaries of their own employees, many of the comrades adopt as a principle that the remuneration ought to be less than that which is paid for the same work by capitalist employers. Speaking generally, however, it may be said that the German working class is now accustomed to pay its employees liberally. This improvement is explicable, in part, from the improved financial position of the trade unions and of the Socialist Party. But there is another reason. The employees have succeeded in withdrawing the question of their salaries from the publicity of the congresses and of reserving the discussion of this question for private committees.

In France, on the other hand, the tendency among the workers to stint their employees has gained ground, especially of late, since the deputies to the Chamber have been allotted salaries of £600 a year. The indignation against the “Quinze Mille” (15,000 francs) has been so great that in many cases the manual workers have been unwilling to pay their employees in the trade unions more than the tenth part of this sum, the modest annual salary of £60. During 1900-1901, the three employees of the Confédération Générale du Travail (the secretary, the treasurer, and the organizer) received in all only 3,173 francs (i.e., a little over £40 a year each). The two chief employees of the Printers' Federation receive an annual salary of £144 each, whilst the treasurer receives £48 a year. The Metal-workers' Federation regards itself as extraordinary in engaging three employees at a salary of £ 112 per annum and (in 1905) seven district secretaries at salaries of £95 each.

In Italy there has not yet come into existence a numerous general staff of employees salaried by the Socialist Party and the trade-union organizations. This is chiefly explicable by lack of funds. For many years it has been necessary to improvise secretaries, administrators, and treasurers of trade unions and local branches, to find them from day to day by appealing to the goodwill and devotion of the comrades. Before 1905, the Printers' Federation was the only one which had special employees for bookkeeping and for the administration of the funds. Even to-day the life of the labour organizations is extremely rudimentary and is exposed to great vicissitudes. Of late years, indeed, the number of permanent employees of the federations and the Bourses du Travail has undergone a continuous increase, but these employees are still very badly paid. We are told by Rigola that the salary has been raised from 100 lire to 200 lire a month, and that “no self-respecting organization will now offer less.” But this increase does not suffice to provide a remedy, for 200 lire will not induce a skilled workman to abandon his trade to become a trade-union leader. Nothwithstanding this, if we are to believe the trade unionists, even in Italy some of the trade-union leaders are already manifesting that tendency to grow fat and idle for which the leaders of the rich English labour organizations have sometimes been reproached.

The meagerness of the salaries paid to their employees by the Socialist Party and the trade unions is not due solely to that employers' arrogance and arbitrariness from which the working class is by no means exempt when it becomes an employer. Where the younger organizations are concerned, the trouble may arise simply from lack of means. Moreover, in paying at a low rate there is a practical end in view, the desire being that the employees should serve for love of the cause, and not with an eye to the material advantages attaching to their office. It was hoped that in this way the idealism of the leaders would be artificially fostered, and that it would be possible to prevent them from raising themselves above the social level of their proletarian comrades. During the early and revolutionary period of the labour movement, whether economic or political, such attempts were made in every country of the world. The labour organizations have not always been satisfied with paying their employees on a stingy scale, but members of the party or the union have even been forbidden to accept the money which the state paid to those who became members of parliament. Among the reasons which in the year 1885 induced the socialists of Berlin to abstain from participation in the elections to the Prussian Landtag, the chief was the consideration that the fifteen marks a day which the members of this body receive would tend to lift the socialist members out of their class.

In practice, however, the grudging payment of the leaders which at least in the early days of the trade-union movement was a deliberate policy, has proved to be a very untrustworthy safeguard against possible breaches of duty.

For the great majority of men, idealism alone is an inadequate incentive for the fulfillment of duty. Enthusiasm is not an article which can be kept long in store. Men who will stake their bodies and their lives for a moment, or even for some months in succession, on behalf of a great idea often prove incapable of permanent work in the service of the same idea even when the sacrifices demanded are comparatively trifling. The joy of self-sacrifice is comparable to a fine gold coin which can be spent grandly all at once, whereas if we change it into small coin it dribbles imperceptibly away. Consequently, even in the labour movement, it is necessary that the leaders should receive a prosaic reward in addition to the devotion of their comrades and the satisfaction of a good conscience. Quite early in the history of the organizations formed by the Italian agricultural workers we find in a manual written for the guidance of these that if the capolega or chief of the union is to do his duty it would be well to pay him for his work. [100]

For two additional reasons it is necessary that the employees should be adequately paid. The first of these is a moral one, belonging to the department of socialist ethics. The labourer is worthy of his hire. In Marxist terminology, the worker who does not receive pay correspondent to the social value of his work is being exploited. The other reason belongs to the sphere of practical politics. To pay the leaders poorly as a matter of principle is dangerous precisely because it stakes everything upon the single card of idealism. Eduard Bernstein is right in contending that underpayment leads to corruption and demoralization. [101] The leader who is poorly paid is more likely to succumb to temptation, more likely to betray the party for gain, than one who, being well paid, finds in his occupation a safe and sufficient income. Moreover, the payment of the leaders at a low rate renders difficult the application of another preventive means against the establishment of an oligarchy, for it hinders frequent changes in the personnel of the leading employees, and thus indirectly favors the formation of an oligarchy. In France, where it is still the rule to pay the tradeunion leaders very small salaries, there is lacking a new generation of leaders ready to take the place of the old, and for this reason at the trade-union congresses the same members continually appear as delegates.

If, however, the non-payment of the party leaders or their remuneration on a very moderate scale does not afford any safeguard for the observance of democratic principles on the part of the officials, we have on the other hand to remember that an increase in the financial strength of the party, which first renders liberal payment of the officials possible, contributes greatly to nourish the dictatorial appetites of the members of the party bureaucracy, who control the economic forces of the party in virtue of their position as administrators. In the history of Christianity we learn that as the wealth of the Church increased, there increased also the independence of the clergy, of the ecclesiastical employees, vis-à-vis the community. As representatives of the community they were in charge of the goods. Consequently all those who had need of these goods, or wished in any way to speculate upon them, were dependent upon the clergy. This applied not only to mendicants and to all kinds of receivers of alms, but also to those whose aim it was to swell the ranks of the clergy, or to succeed to the positions of these, all aspirants to sacerdotal honors. For the administration of the funds and for the conduct of affairs, Christianity needed a graded corps of employees. This was the origin of the hierarchy which changed the inner meaning of Christianity and perverted its aims. A similar danger is encountered by all democratic parties which possess an elabourate financial administration. This danger is especially marked in the case of the German Socialist Party, whose central organization in the year 1908 employed merely in its printing office 298 persons, and all of these, having no share whatever in the net profits, nor any rights in the management of the social property, depend upon the party just as they might depend upon any ordinary private employer. In the hands of the party bureaucracy are the periodical press, the publication and sale of the party literature, and the enrollment of orators in the list of paid propagandists. All these sources of income can at any time be closed to undesirable competitors or to dissatisfied members of the rank and file, and this power is utilized in actual practice. The concentration of power in those parties which preach the Marxist doctrine is more conspicuous than the concentration of capital predicted by Marx in economic life. For some years past the leaders of the German Socialist Party have employed numerous methods of oppression, such as the threat to give no aid either in men or money on behalf of the electoral propaganda of a candidate from whose views they dissent, although the local comrades give this candidate their full confidence. It is hardly necessary to say that such a practice as this accords ill with the principles of liberty and fraternity. In this way have come into existence strict relationships of dependence, of hierarchical superiority and inferiority, engendered by the invisible force of the great god Money, and this within the bosom of the working-class party which has taken as its motto Blanqui's phrase, ni Dieu ni Maître.

Brief allusion may be made in conclusion to another kind of economic pressure which labour organizations are able to exercise. Publicans whose houses are frequented chiefly or exclusively by members of the working class, or small shopkeepers whose customers consist mainly of working women, are indirectly if not directly dependent, in the economic sense, upon the party and upon the trade union. They are dependent, that is to say, upon the leading personalities in these organizations, who, by declaring a boycott, can involve them in absolute ruin.