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6. CHAPTER VI
THE STRUGGLE AMONG THE LEADERS THEMSELVES

THE thesis of the unlimited power of the leaders in democratic parties, requires, however, a certain limitation. Theoretically the leader is bound by the will of the mass, which has only to give a sign and the leader is forced to withdraw. He can be discharged and replaced at any moment. But in practice, as we have learned, for various reasons the leaders enjoy a high degree of independence. It is none the less true that if the Democratic Party cannot dispense with autocratic leaders, it is at least able to change these. Consequently the most dangerous defect in a leader is that he should possess too blind a confidence in the masses. The aristocratic leader is more secure than the democratic against surprises at the hands of the rank and file. It is an essential characteristic of democracy that every private carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack. It is true that the mass is always incapable of governing; but it is no less true that each individual in the mass, in so far as he possesses, for good or for ill, the qualities which are requisite to enable him to rise above the crowd, can attain to the grade of leader and become a ruler. Now this ascent of new leaders always involves the danger, for those who are already in possession of power, that they will be forced to surrender their places to the newcomers. The old leader must therefore keep himself in permanent touch with the opinions and feelings of the masses to which he owes his position. Formally, at least, he must act in unison with the crowd, must admit himself to be the instrument of the crowd, must be guided, in appearance at least, by its goodwill and pleasure. Thus it often seems as if the mass really controlled the leaders. But whenever the power of the leaders is seriously threatened, it is in most cases because a new leader or a new group of leaders is on the point of becoming dominant, and is inculcating views opposed to those of the old rulers of the party. It then seems as if the old leaders, unless they are willing to yield to the opinion of the rank and file and to withdraw, must consent to share their power with the new arrivals. If, however, we look more closely into the matter, it is not difficult to see that their submission is in most cases no more than an act of foresight intended to obviate the influence of their younger rivals. The submission of the old leaders is ostensibly an act of homage to the crowd, but in intention it is a means of prophylaxis against the peril by which they are threatened—the formation of a new élite.

The semblance of obedience to the mass which is exhibited by the leaders assumes, in the case of the feebler and the more cunning among them, the form of demagogy. Demagogues are the courtesans of the popular will. Instead of raising the masses to their own level, they debase themselves to the level of the masses. Even for the most honest among them, the secret of success consists in “knowing how to turn the blind impulsiveness of the crowd to the service of their own ripely pondered plans.”122 The stronger leaders brave the tempest, well-knowing that their power may be attacked, but cannot be broken. The weak or the base, on the other hand, give ground when the masses make a vigourous onslaught; their dominion is temporarily impaired or interrupted. But their submission is feigned; they are well aware that if they simply remain glued to their posts, their quality as executants of the will of the masses will before long lead to a restoration of their former dominance. One of the most noted leaders of German socialism said in a critical period of tension between the leaders and the masses, that he must follow the will of the masses in order to guide them. [123] A profound psychological truth is hidden in this sarcasm. He who wishes to command must know how to obey.

It has been affirmed that popular revolutions usually end by destroying their leaders. In proof there have been quoted the names of Rienzi, Masaniello, and Michele di Lando, for Italy, and of Danton and Robespierre, for France. For these and many similar instances the observation is a true one. It would, however, be an error to accuse the crowd of rising against its leaders, and to make the masses responsible for their fall. It is not the masses which have devoured the leaders: the chiefs have devoured one another with the aid of the masses. Typical examples are that of Danton, who was overthrown by Robespierre, and that of Robespierre, who was destroyed by the surviving Dantonists.

The struggle which arises between the leaders, and their mutual jealousies, induce them to employ active measures and often to have recourse to artifices. Democratic deputies endeavour to disarm their adversaries within the party, and at the same time to acquire a new prestige in the eyes of the masses, by displaying in parliament “a formidable activity on behalf of the common cause.” This is regarded at once as a democratic duty and as a measure of personal precaution. Since the great majority of the deputies, electors, and comrades have no precise ideas concerning the functions he exercises, and are continually inclined to accuse him of slackness, the deputy is from time to time forced to recall himself to their memories. It is this need which has given rise to not a few of those speeches to which the Germans give the name of Dauerreden (interminable speeches), and it has also been the cause of more than one “scene” in the various parliaments of Austria, France, England, and Italy. It is, in fact, held that the most efficacious means for retaining the attention of the masses and of rendering them proud of their leaders is to be found in the provocation of those personal incidents which are far more interesting to the great public and far more within the scope of its intelligence than a report upon the utilization of water power or upon a commercial treaty with the republic of Argentina. Moreover, it has to be remembered that in many countries, and above all in Italy, such scenes are recorded in the capitalist press with the greatest abundance of detail, whilst serious speeches are summed up in a few lines, and with especial brevity when the speaker is a socialist. Thus even in normal times the oratorical activity of the parliamentary representatives of the democratic parties is considerable. In Italy, the socialist deputies have boasted that between March 25 and July 10, 1909, they spoke in the Chamber 212 times. The figure represents 20 per cent of all the speeches made in parliament during the period, whilst the socialist deputies at this time constituted only 8 per cent of the members. [124] Such loquacity serves not merely to maintain the prestige of the party in the eyes of its opponents, but it is also a matter of personal interest to each deputy, being a means to secure his reelection in competition, not only with enemies in other parties, but also with jealous rivals belonging to his own organization.

The differences which lead to struggles between the leaders arise in various ways. Reference has previously been made to the inevitable antagonism between the “great men” who have acquired a reputation in other fields, and who now make adhesion to the party, offering it their services as generals, and the oldestablished leaders, who have been socialists from the first. Often conflict arises simply between age and youth. Sometimes the struggle depends upon diversity of social origin, as when there is a contest between proletarian leaders and those of bourgeois birth. Sometimes the difference arises from the objective needs of the various branches of activity into which a single movement is subdivided, as when there is a struggle between the political Socialist Party and the trade-union element, or within the political party between the parliamentary group and the executive. In some cases there is a horizontal stratification, causing a struggle between one stratum of the bureaucracy and another: at other times the stratification is vertical, as when there occurs a conflict between two local or national groups of leaders; between the Bavarian socialists and the Prussian; between those of Frankfort and those of Hanau; between the French followers of Vaillant, Jaurès, and Hervé, and the German adherents of Bebel and von Vollmar (in the antimilitarist discussion at the international congress of Stuttgart). Often enough struggles among the socialists are the outcome of racial differences. The unceasing contests in the international congresses between the German socialists and the French afford in more than one respect a parallel with the Franco-German War of 1870. In these same congresses there participates a third group, misunderstood and heterogeneous, the representatives of English socialism, hostile to all the others and encountered with the enmity of all. In most cases, however, the differences between the various groups of leaders depend upon two other categories of motives. Above all there are objective differences and differences of principle in general philosophical views, or at least in the mode in which the proximate social evolution is conceived, and consequent divergences of opinion as to the most desirable tactics: this leads to the manifestation of the various tendencies known as reformist and Marxist, syndicalist and political socialist, and so on. In the second place, we have the struggles that depend on personal reasons: antipathy, envy, jealousy, a reckless attempt to grasp the first positions, demagogy. Enrico Ferri said of his opponent Filippo Turati: “He hates me because he thinks there is not room for two cocks in the same fowl-house.” [125] In most cases the two series of motives are somewhat confounded in practice; and in the long run we find that those of the former series tend to be replaced by those of the latter, inasmuch as differences of principle and of the intellectual order soon become personal and lead to a profound hostility between the representatives of the various theories. Conversely it is clear that motives of the second series, since those who are influenced by them are ashamed to display them in their true colors, always endeavour to assume the mantle of theory; personal dislike and personal hostility pompously masquerade as differences of views and tactics.

The oligarchy which issues from democracy is menaced by two grave dangers: the revolt of the masses, and (in intimate relationship with this revolt, of which it is often the result) the transition to a dictatorship when one among the oligarchs succeeds in obtaining supreme power. Of these two dangers, one comes from below, whilst the other arises within the very bosom of the oligarchy: we have rebellion on one side, and usurpation on the other. The consequence is that in all modern popular parties a spirit of genuine fraternity is conspicuously lacking; we do not see sincere and cordial mutual trust; there is a continual latent struggle, a spirit of irritation determined by the reciprocal mistrust of the leaders, and this spirit has become one of the most essential characteristics of every democracy. The mistrust of the leaders is directed above all against those who aspire to command their own organizations. Every oligarchy is full of suspicion towards those who aspire to enter its ranks, regarding them not simply as eventual heirs but as successors who are ready to supplant them without waiting for a natural death. Those who have long been in possession (and this applies just as much to spiritual and psychical possession as to material) are proud of their past, and are therefore inclined to look down upon those whose ownership is of more recent date. In certain Sicilian towns, struggles go on between two parties who in popular phrase are ironically termed i ricchi and gli arricchiti (the wealthy and those who have attained to wealth). The former consist of the old landed gentry; whilst the latter, the parvenus, are merchants, contractors for public works, manufacturers, and the like. A similar struggle makes its appearance in modern democratic parties, although it is not in this case characterized by any flavour of economic distinction. Here also we have a struggle between the détenteurs d'emploi et les chercheurs d'emploi, or as the Americans put it, between the “ins” and the “outs.” The latter declare war on the former, ostensibly on the ground of eternal principle, but in reality, in most cases, because in such opposition they find the most effective means of forcing their way into the circle of the chiefs. Consequently in meetings they display themselves as implacable theoretical adversaries, “talking big” solely in order to intimidate the accepted leaders, and in order to induce them to surrender a share of the spoil to these turbulent comrades. Often enough, the old leaders resist, and maintain their ground firmly; in such cases their opponents, changing front, abandon the attitude of struggle, and attach themselves to the triumphal care of the men in power, hoping thus to attract favor, and, by a different route, to realize their own ambitions.

The struggle between the old leaders and the aspirants to power constitutes a perpetual menace to freedom of speech and thought. We encounter this menace in every democratic organization in so far as it is well ordered and solidly grounded, and in so far as it is operating in the field of party politics (for in the wider life of the state, in which the various parties are in continual reciprocal concussion, it is necessary to leave intact a certain liberty of movement). The leaders, those who already hold the power of the party in their hands, make no concealment of their natural inclination to control as strictly as possible the freedom of speech of those of their colleagues from whom they differ. The consequence is that those in office are great zealots for discipline and subordination, declaring that these qualities are indispensable to the very existence of the party. They go so far as to exercise a censorship over any of their colleagues whom they suspect of rebellious inclinations, forcing them to abandon independent journals, and to publish all their articles in the official organs controlled by the leaders of the majority in the party. The prohibition, in the German Socialist Party, of collabouration on the part of its members with the capitalist press, is in part due to the same tendency; whilst the demand that the comrades should have nothing to do with periodicals which, though socialist, are founded with private capital and are not subject to the official control of the party executive, arises solely from this suspicion on the part of the leaders.

In the struggle against the young aspirants, the old leader can as a rule count securely upon the support of the masses. The rank and file of the working-class parties have a certain natural distrust of all newcomers who have not been openly protected or introduced into the party by old comrades; and this is above all the case when the newcomer is derived from another social class. Thus the new recruit, before he can come into the open with his new ideas, must submit, if he is not to be exposed to the most violent attacks, to a long period of quarantine. In the German Socialist Party, this period of quarantine is especially protracted, for the reason that the German party has been longer established than any of the others, and because its leaders therefore enjoy an exceptional prestige. Many of them were among the actual founders of the party, and their personalities have been consecrated by the baptism of fire which they suffered during the enforcement of the anti-socialist laws. A socialist who has had his party card in his pocket for eight or ten years is often regarded in his branch as a “young” member. This tendency is reinforced by the respect for age which is so strong among the Germans, and by the tendency towards hierarchy of which even the democracy has not been able to divest itself. Finally, it may be added that the bureaucracy of the German labour movement, like every strongly developed bureaucracy, tends instinctively towards exclusivism. Consequently in the German social democracy, in contradistinction to other socialist parties which are less solidly organized, we find that not merely the recently enrolled member of the party (the so-called Fuchs), but also the ordinary member who does not live in the service and by the service of the party but has preserved his outward independence as a private author or in some other capacity, and has therefore not been incorporated among the cogwheels of the party machine, very rarely succeeds in making his influence felt. There can be no doubt that this fact plays a large part in the causation of that lack of a number of capable young men, displaying fresh energies, and not greatly inferior to the old leaders, a lack which has often been deplored. The annual congresses of the Socialist Party have even been spoken of as “congresses of the party officials.” The criticism is not unjust, for among the delegates to the socialist congresses the percentage of party and trade-union officials is enormous. It is above all in the superior grades of the organization that the tendencies we are here analyzing are especially conspicuous. In Germany, the management of the Socialist Party is not entrusted to young men, as often happens in Italy, or to free publicists, as in France, but to old members, des anciens, elderly officials of the party. Moreover, the conservative psychology of the masses supports the aspirations of the old leaders, for it would never occur to the rank and file to entrust the care of their interests to persons belonging to their own proper sphere, that is to say, to those who have no official position in the party and who have not pursued a regular bureaucratic career.

Often the struggle between the old leaders in possession of power and the new aspirants assumes the aspects of a struggle between responsible and irresponsible persons. Many criticisms leveled by the latter against the former are beside the mark, because the leaders have grave responsibilities from which the aspirants are free. This freedom gives the aspirants a tactical advantage in their conflict with the old leaders. Moreover, precisely because they are irresponsible, because they do not occupy any official position in the party, the opponents are not subject to that simulacrum of democratic control which must influence the conduct of those in office.

In order to combat the new chiefs, who are still in a minority, the old leaders of the majority instinctively avail themselves of a series of underhand methods through which they often secure victory, or at least notably retard defeat. Among these means, there is one which will have to be more fully discussed in another connection. The leaders of what we may term the “government” arouse in the minds of the masses distrust of the leaders of the “opposition” by labeling them incompetent and profane, terming them spouters, corrupters of the party, demagogues, and humbugs, whilst in the name of the mass and of democracy they describe themselves as exponents of the collective will, and demand the submission of the insubordinate and even of the merely discontented comrades.

In the struggle among the leaders an appeal is often made to loftier motives. When the members of the executive claim the right to intervene in the democratic functions of the individual sections of the organization, they base this claim upon their more comprehensive grasp of all the circumstances of the case, their profounder insight, their superior socialist culture and keener socialist sentiment. They often claim the right of refusing to accept the new elements which the inexpert and ignorant masses desire to associate with them in the leadership, basing their refusal on the ground that it is necessary to sustain the moral and theoretical level of the party. The revolutionary socialists of Germany demand the maintenance of the centralized power of the executive committee as a means of defense against the dangers, which would otherwise become inevitable as the party grows, of the predominant influence of new and theoretically untrustworthy elements. The old leaders, it is said, must control the masses, lest these should force undesirable colleagues upon them. Hence they claim that the constituencies must not nominate parliamentary candidates without the previous approval of the party executive.

The old leaders always endeavour to harness to their own chariot the forces of those new movements which have not yet found powerful leaders, so as to obviate from the first all competition and all possibility of the formation of new and vigourous intellectual currents. In Germany, the leaders of the Socialist Party and the tradeunion leaders at first looked askance at the Young Socialist movement. When, however, they perceived that this movement could not be suppressed, they hastened to place themselves at its head. There was founded for the guidance of the socialist youth a “Central Committee of Young German Workers,” comprising four representatives from each of the three parties, that is to say, four from the executive of the Socialist Party, four from the general committee of trade unions, and four from the Young Socialist (the representatives of the latter being thus outnumbered by two to one). [126] The old leaders endeavour to justify the tutelage thus imposed on the Young Socialists by alleging (with more opportunist zeal than logical acuteness) the incapacity of the youthful masses, if left to their own guidance, of wisely choosing their own leaders and of exercising over these an efficient control.

We have by no means come to an end of our enumeration of the weapons at the disposal of the old leaders in their conflict with the new aspirants to power. Charlemagne effected the final subjugation of the Saxon tribal chiefs by making them counts. In this way he not only increased the brilliancy of their position, but also gave them a restricted share in his own power. This means has been practiced again and again in history, where an old ruler has wished to render harmless, insubordinate but influential chiefs, and thus to prevent a rebellion against his own authority. Oligarchies employ this stratagem with just as much success as monarchies. The feudal state of Prussia appointed to the privy council the most defiant among the leaders of its bourgeoisie. At a time when the youthful German bourgeoisie was still filled with a rebellious spirit towards the nobility and towards the traditional authority of the state, this tendency aroused much bitterness. Thus Ludwig Borne wrote in 1830: “Wherever a talented force of opposition has made itself apparent and has secured respect from those in authority, it is chained to the professorial chair, or is controlled by being harnessed to the government. If the governmental ranks are full, so that no place can be found for the new energies, a state livery is at least provided for the authors by giving them titles and orders. In other cases the dangerous elements are isolated from the people by immuring them in some noble's castle or princely court. It is for this reason that nowhere else do we find so many privy councillors as in Germany, where the courts are least inclined to take any one's advice.” [127] In the Spanish elections of 1875, we learn that so great was the popular indifference that the government had matters altogether in its own hands, but in order to be secure in any event it thoughtfully selected a certain number of opposition candidates. [128] It seems that things are much the same in Spain even to-day. [129] These tactics are not confined to states that are still permeated by feudal conceptions. Where plutocratic rule is supreme, corruption persists unchanged, and it is only the corruptor who is different. This is plainly shown by Austin Lewis when he writes: “The public ownership contingent in politics being composed of the middle and subjugated class have neither the political ability nor the vital energy necessary for the accomplishment of the task which they have undertaken. The brains of the smaller middle class have already been bought by the greater capitalists. Talent employed in the service of the chiefs of industry and finance can command better prices than can be obtained in the uncertain struggle for economic standing which members of the middle class have to wage. The road to professional and political preferment lies through the preserves of the ruling oligarchy, whose wardens allow no one to pass, save servants in livery. Every material ambition of youth is to be gratified in the service of the oligarchy, which shows, generally, an astuteness in the selection of talent that would do credit to a bureaucrat or a Jesuit.” [130]

Of late years the ruling classes in the countries under a democratic regime have hoped to impose obstacles in the way of the revolutionary labour movement by conceding posts in the ministry to its most conspicuous leaders, thus gaining control over the revolutionary impulse of the proletariat by allowing its leaders to participate in power, though cautiously and in an extremely restricted measure. The oligarchy which controls the modern democratic party has often employed the same means to tame the opposition. If the leaders of the opposition within the party are dangerous because they have a large following among the masses, and if they are at the same time few in number, the old party-leaders endeavour to hold them in check and to neutralize their influence by the conciliatory methods just described. The leaders of the opposition receive high offices and honors in the party, and are thus rendered innocuous—all the more so seeing that they are not admitted to the supreme offices, but are relegated to posts of the second rank which give them no notable influence, and they are without hope of one day becoming a majority. On the other hand, they divide with their ancient adversaries the serious weight of responsibility which is generated by common deliberations and manifestations, so that their activities become confounded with those of the old leaders.

In order to avoid having to divide their power with new elements, especially such as are uncongenial by tendency or mental characteristics, the old leaders tend everywhere with greater or less success to acquire the right of choosing their own colleagues, thus depriving the masses of the privilege of appointing the leaders they themselves prefer.

The path of the new aspirants to power is always beset with difficulties, bestrewn with obstacles of all kinds, which can be overcome only by the favor of the mass. Very rarely does the struggle between the old leaders and the new end in the complete defeat of the former. The result of the process is not so much a circulation des élites as a réunion des élites, an amalgam, that is to say, of the two elements. Those representing the new tendency, as long as their footing is still insecure, seek all sorts of side paths in order to avoid being overthrown by the powers-that-be. They protest that their divergence from the views of the majority is trifling, contending that they are merely the logical advocates of the ancient and tried principles of the party, and express their regret that the old leaders display a lack of true democratic feeling. Not infrequently it happens that they avert the blows directed against them by craftily creeping behind the backs of their established and powerful opponents who are about to annihilate them, solemnly declaring, when wrathful blows are directed against them, that they are in complete accord with the old leaders and approve of all their actions, so that the leaders seem to beating the air. On many occasions in the recent history of the socialist parties, the reformist minorities, in order to avoid destruction, have bowed themselves beneath the yoke of the so-called revolutionary majorities by voting (with a fine practical and tactical sense, but with an entire lack of personal pride and political loyalty) resolutions which were drafted precisely in order to condemn the political views dear to the minority. In two cases only does it sometimes happen that the relationships between the two tendencies become strained to the breakingpoint. In the first place this may happen when the leaders of one of the two factions possess a profound faith in their own ideas, and are characterized at once by tactical fanaticism and theoretical irreconcilability—or, in other words, when the objective reasons which divide them from their opponents are felt with an unaccustomed force and are professed with an unwonted sincerity. In the second place it may happen when one of the parties, in consequence of offended dignity or reasonable susceptibility, finds it psychologically impossible to continue to live with the other, and to carry on within the confines of the same association a continued struggle for dominion over the masses. The party will then break up into two distinct organisms, and in each of these there will be renewed the oligarchical phenomena we have been describing.

One of the most interesting chapters in the history of the struggles between leaders deals with the measures which these leaders adopt within their own closed corporations in order to maintain discipline—that is to say, in order to preserve the cementing force of the will of the majority. In the struggle of which the various groups of leaders carry on for the hegemony of the party, the concept of democracy becomes a lure which all alike employ. All means are good for the conquest and preservation of power. It is easy to see this when we read the discussions concerning the system to be employed for the appointment of the party executive. The various tendencies manifested in this connection all aim at the same end, namely, at safeguarding the dominance of some particular group. Thus in France the Guesdists, whose adherents are numerous but who control a small number only of the groups, advocate a system of proportional representation; the Jauressists, on the other hand, who are more influential in respect of groups than of members, and also the Hervéists, oppose proportional representation within the party, for they fear that this would give the Guesdists group too great a facility for the enforcement of its own special methods of action, and they propose to maintain the system of local representation or of representation by delegation.

In the American Congress, each party possesses a special committee which exercises a control over the attendance of its members at the sessions, and which on the occasion of decisive votes issues special summonses or “whips.” When an interesting bill is before the house, the party committee also summons a caucus, that is to say, a private meeting of the parliamentary group, and this decides how the congressmen are to vote. All members of the party are bound by the decision of such a caucus. Naturally no immediate punishment is possible of those who rebel against the authority of the caucus; but at the next election the independent congressman is sure to lose his seat, for the party-managers at Washington will not fail to report to their colleagues, the bosses of the local constituency, the act of insubordination committed by the congressman concerned. The most vital of all the caucuses is that which precedes the election of the president of the congress. The ideas and sympathies of the speaker have a decisive influence upon the composition of the committees and therefore upon the whole course of legislation. For this reason his election is of fundamental importance, and is preceded for several weeks by intrigues and vote-hunting campaigns. Doubtless it is not in every case that the votes are decided in advance at a meeting of the group. Where laws of minor importance are concerned, every member of congress is free to vote as he pleases. But in times of excitement obedience is exacted, not only to the decisions of the caucus, but also to the authority of the party leaders. This last applies especially to Congress, for in the Senate the members are extremely jealous of their absolute equality. On the other hand, the caucus has an even greater importance in the case of the Senate, for here the groups are smaller and the caucus can therefore function more efficiently. The groups in Congress may number more than two hundred members, whereas those of the Senate rarely exceed fifty. [131]

The parliamentary group of the German social democracy is likewise dominated, as far as its internal structure is concerned, by a most rigorous application of the principle of subordination. The majority of the parliamentary group decides the action of all its members on the various questions submitted to the Reichstag or to the diets, exercising what is known as the Fraktionszwang (group coercion). No individual member has the right to independent action. Thus the parliamentary group votes as a single entity, and this not merely in questions of a distinctively socialist bearing, but also in those which are independent of socialist ideas, which each might decide according to his own personal conceptions. It was very different in the French parliament during the fratricidal struggle between the Jauressists and the Guesdists before the attainment of socialist unity in France, for at that time each deputy used to vote as he pleased. But the German example shows that liberty of opinion no longer exists where the organization demands common action and where it has some force of penetration in political life.

In certain cases, however, all these preventive measures fail of their effect. This happens when the conflict is not simply between a minority and a majority within the group, but between the group and one single member who possesses outside parliament, in certain sections of the party, the full support of the subordinate leaders. When a conflict occurs in such conditions, the deputy, though isolated, is sure of victory. The electors, in fact, usually follow with great docility the oscillations and evolutions of their parliamentary representatives, and they do this even in constituencies where socialist voters predominate. The ministers Briand, Viviani, and Millerand have been expelled from the French Socialist Party, but the former members of the socialist organizations in their constituencies have remained faithful to these leaders, resigning from the Socialist Party, and continuing as electors to give the exsocialists their support. Analogous were the cases of John Burns in England (Battersea) and of Enrico Ferri in Italy (Mantua). It was enough in Ferri's case that at an appropriate moment he should reveal a new truth to produce immediately a collective change in the political opinions of an entire region. Having first been, with Ferri, revolutionary and irreconcilable, this region became converted in a single night, always following Ferri, to the principle of class cooperation and of participation in ministerial activity. In Germany, the party executive had to make use of all its authority in order, at the last minute, to induce the comrades of Chemnitz to withdraw their support from their deputy Max Schippel, and those of Mittweid.a from Otto Göhre, when these two deputies had displayed heterodox leanings.

The tendency of the deputy to set himself above his party is most plainly manifest precisely where the party is strongly organized; especially, therefore, in the modern labour parties; and within these, again, more particularly in the reformist sections. The reformist deputies, as long as they have not upon their side a majority within the party, carry on an unceasing struggle to withdraw themselves from the influence of the party, that is to say, from the mass of the workers who are organized as a party. In this period of their evolution they transfer their dependence upon the organized mass of the local socialist section of the electors of the constituency, who constitute a gray, unorganized, and more or less indifferent mass. Thus from the organized masses, who may be under the influence of their opponents within the party, they appeal to the mass of the electors, with the contention that it is to these latter alone, or at least chiefly, that they have to give an account of their political conduct. It is right to recognize that this appeal to the electorate as the body which has conferred a political mandate is frequently based upon genuinely democratic sentiments and principles. Thus, at the International Socialist Congress of London (1893), the four French socialist deputies refused to make use of the mandates which had been conferred upon them by political or corporative groups, thus defying the rules of admission to the congress. After extremely violent discussions they were ultimately admitted simply as deputies, having raised the question of principle whether an important constituency capable of returning a socialist deputy to the Chamber should not have the same rights which are granted to a local socialist or trade-union branch, especially when it is remembered that such a branch may consist of a mere handful of members. It is true that in certain circumstances a constituency inspired by socialist sentiment, even if it be not socialistically organized, constitutes a better basis, in the democratic sense, for political action than a small socialist branch whose members are mostly petty bourgeois or lawyers;132 and even if a large local organization exists, the constituency as a whole is a better basis than a badly attended party meeting for the selection of a candidate.

From our study of the intricate struggles which proceed between the leaders of the majority and those of the minority, between the executive organs and the masses, we may draw the following essential conclusions.

Notwithstanding the youth of the international labour movement, the figures of the leaders of that movement are more imposing and more imperious than those displayed in the history of any other social class of modern times. Doubtless the labour movement furnishes certain examples of leaders who have been deposed, who have been abandoned by their adherents. Such cases are, however, rare, and only in exceptional instances do they signify that the masses have been stronger than the leaders. As a rule, they mean merely that a new leader has entered into conflict with the old, and, thanks to the support of the mass, has prevailed in the struggle, and has been able to dispossess and replace the old leader. The profit for democracy of such a substitution is practically nil.

Whenever the Catholics are in a minority, they become fervent partisans of liberty. In proof of this we need merely refer to the literature issued by the Catholics during the Kulturkampf under the Bismarckian regime and during the struggle between Church and State which went on a few years ago in France. In just the same way the leaders of the minority within the Socialist Party are enthusiastic advocates of liberty. They declaim against the narrowness and the authoritative methods of the dominant group, displaying in their own actions genuine democratic inclinations.

As soon as the new leaders have attained their ends, as soon as they have succeeded (in the name of the injured rights of the anonymous masses) in overthrowing the odious tyranny of their predecessors and in attaining to power in their turn, we see them undergo a transformation which renders them in every respect similar to the dethroned tyrants. Such metamorphoses as these are plainly recorded throughout history. In the life of monarchical states, an opposition which is headed by hereditary princes is rarely dangerous to the crown as an institution. In like manner, the opposition of the aspirants to leadership in a political party, directed against the persons or against the system of the old leaders, is seldom dangerous. The revolutionaries of to-day become the reactionaries of to-morrow.