Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/232

 216 SOCIALISM the movement is a work by Pastor Todt entitled Der radi- i-ale deutsche Sodalismus und die christliche Gesellschaft. In this work Todt condemns the economics of liberalism as unchristian, and seeks to show that the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity are entirely Scriptural, as are also the socialist demands for the abolition of private property and of the wage system, that the labourer should have the full produce of his labour, and that labour should be associated. The chief leader of the movement is the court preacher Stocker, the head also of the anti-Semitic agitation, which is largely traceable to economic causes. Stocker founded two associations, a central union for social reform, consisting of members of the middle classes inter- ested in the emancipation of labour, and a Christian social working-men's party. The former has had considerable success, especially among the Lutheran clergy. The move- ment has met with the most strenuous resistance from the social democratic party and has been greatly hampered by the anti-socialist law of 1878. State so- Little can here be said of the state socialism of Bismarck, cialism. a very recent movement, which has not yet had time to pass into history. Its leading principles were announced in an imperial message to the Reichstag in November 1881. Besides the repressive measures necessary to restrain the excesses of the social democracy, the emperor declared that the healing of social evils was to be sought in positive measures for the good of the working man. The measures proposed were for the insurance of the workmen against accident, sickness, old age, and inability to work by ar- rangements under state control. " The finding of the right ways and means for this state protection of the working man is a difficult task, but also one of the highest that concern every society standing on the ethical foundations of the Christian national life." The message then proceeds to speak of measures for "organizing the life of the people in the form of corporative associations under the protection and furtherance of the state," a clause which might be taken as an admission of the collectivist principle. As yet the imperial programme has only been partially realized. It will be obvious that such measures can be rightly appreciated only with reference to the general theory and practice of Prussian government. Anarch- The acknowledged father of anarchism isPnouDHON(g.v.); ism of but the doctrine owes its development chiefly to Russian Bakuniu. thinkers who had been trained in the Hegelian left. The great apostle of the system in its advanced and most characteristic stage was Michael Bakunin. Bakunin was sprung from the highest Russian aristocracy, and was born at Torshok, in the government of Tver, in 1814. Leaving the army, in which he served for some time, he visited western Europe, chiefly Paris, where he met George Sand and Proudhon in 1847. For his share in the German disturbances of 1849 he was imprisoned in Russia for several years and then sent to Siberia, from which he escaped, and spent the rest of his life in exile in western Europe, principally in Switzerland. In 1869 he founded the Social Democratic Alliance, which, however, dissolved in the same year and entered the International. In 1870 he attempted a rising at Lyons on the principles afterwards exemplified by the Paris commune. At The Hague congress of the International in 1872 he was outvoted and expelled by the Marx party. Bakunin's activity was most remarkable as an agitator. The international socialism of the Romance countries, especially that of Spain and Italy, has been largely moulded by him. He died at Bern in 1876. Nothing can be clearer or more frank and comprehensive in its destructiveness than the socialism of Bakunin. It is revolutionary socialism based on materialism and aim- ing at the destruction of external authority by every available means. He rejects all the ideal systems in every name and shape, from the idea of God downwards ; and he rejects every form of external authority, whether emanating from the will of a sovereign or from universal suffrage. " The liberty of man," he says in his Dieu et L'^Jtat, " consists solely in this, that he obey the laws of nature, because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him ex- ternally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual." In this way will the whole problem of freedom be solved : that natural laws be ascer- tained by scientific discovery, and the knowledge of them be universally diffused among the masses. Natural laws being thus recognized by every man for himself, he cannot but obey them, for they are the laws also of his own nature ; and the need for political organization, adminis- tration, and legislation will at once disappear. Nor will he admit of any privileged position or class, for "it is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart." " In a word, we object to all legislation, all authority, and all influence, privileged, patented, official, and legal, even when it has proceeded from universal suffrage, convinced that it must always turn to the profit of a dominating and exploiting minority, against the interests of the immense majority enslaved." The anarchy of Bakunin is therefore essen- tially the same as that of Proudhon, but expressed with- out paradox, and with a destructive revolutionary energy which has seldom been equalled in history. What they both contemplate is a condition of human enlightenment and self-control in which the individual shall be a law to himself, and in which all external authority shall be abolished as a despotic interference with personal freedom. It is an ideal to which the highest religion and philosophy look forward as the goal of man, not as one, however, which can be forthwith reached through the wholesale destruction of the present framework of society, but through a long process of ethical and social improvement. The error of the anarchists consists in their impatient in- sistence on this proclamation of absolute freedom in the present debased condition of the great mass of the people in every class. They insist on taking the last step in social development before they have quite taken the first. The other leading principles of anarchism will be best understood from the following extracts taken from the programme of the International Social Democratic Alliance. The Alliance demands above all things the definitive and complete abolition of classes, and political, economic, and social equality of individuals and sexes, and abolition of inheritance, so that in the future every man may enjoy a like share in the produce of labour ; that land and soil, instruments of labour, and all other capital, becoming the common property of the whole society, may be used only by the workers, that is, by associations of cultivators and industrialists. It looks forward to the final solution of the social question through the universal and international solidarity of the workers of all countries, and condemns every policy grounded on so-called patriotism and national jealousy. It demands the universal federation of all local associations through the principle of freedom. Bakunin's methods of realizing his revolutionary pro- gramme are not less frank and destructive than his principles. The revolutionist, as he would recommend him to be, is a consecrated man, who will allow no private interests or feelings, and no scruples of religion, patriot- ism, or morality, to turn him aside from his mission, the aim of which is by all available means to overturn the existing society. His work is merciless and universal