180 181 THE CLASS STRUGGLE SOCIALISM AND THE LEAGUE units is not by any means to promulgate a new doctrine. Marx and others of his day. pointed it out so often and so clearly in expounding the theory of the class struggle, that all subsequent pointing has been more or less reiteration, although illuminated Ly new illustrations. But great crises in human affairs produce great crises in human minds and human breasts. And the war, a great crisis in international relations, produced a great crisis in minds devoted to the furtherance of international unity, and in breasts harboring a passion for universal brotherhood. Men who before the war were unequivocal adherents to the view that within each nation there are two stupendous economic forces, diametrically opposed, and battling with each other for supremacy, were virtually overcome by the vision of an international amalgamation, such as the one espoused by President Wilson. Indeed, the very word international in this connection had an alluring sound. It was the word that had always been associated with the Socialist conception of world union. And the application of radical terminology to other than radical programs is a most successfully deceptive device. Then there were those, quite enthusiastic over the idea of a league of nations, who yet adhered to the doctrine of the class struggle, urging the one as a step in the evolution of nationalism into internationalism, and espousing the other as a progressive force operating within the league.
These, however, as a general rule were guilty of flagrant neglect in their agitation of the latter, in the belief, not always admitted, that the former was the most potent propaganda for the time.
The doctrine of the class struggle which, before the war, was consciously advanced by a relatively small proportion of the people of the world though vaguely felt by a much larger proportion seemed obliterated by the entry into the war of all the hitherto contending elements. The failure of the Socialists to prevent the war was commonly mistaken for the breakdown of their principles and philosophy. Were not both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat united in the defense of their respective countries? In the great common cause, classes had disappeared. The class struggle had ceased.
As if classes are created by virtue of a desire that they exist!
The belief that there are classes may be dissipated for a time, or rather, there may prevail for a time the belief that classes are dissipated, but the existence of classes is a fact, which, though befogged by the clouds of overwhelming passion, remains to await a renewed recognition upon the rising of the mist.
The mist rose before the war was over. The revolution in Russia, particularly the shift of authority which put supreme power in the Soviet, was a monumental shock to the placidity of those who, as soon as the war had started, had complacently dismissed the menace of uneasy labor. Nor was it an undisturbing factor in the mental poise of those who had firmly placed the propaganda value of the class struggle subordinate to the pressing need and immediate practicability of a league of nations. Here was not a pressing need. Here was a pressing actuality! Here was not an immediate practicability. Here was an immediate practice! Back came the class struggle to a position of supreme importance. It is difficult to talk of its disappearance at a time when it stands a naked revelation to the whole world.
And then, as this first outbreak had been a signal, evidences of the conflict began to appear everywhere. Bulgaria, AustriaHungary and Germany showed violent symptoms. Striking signs appeared in Switzerland, Holland, Spain, Portugal, the Scandinavian countries; in Argentina and other South American countries. France was being viewed by the bourgeoisie with no little apprehension. In England the class issues came to the fore with a rapidity that belied the reputed stolidity of the English worker. Australian workers are on the verge of the organization of the One Big Union. Canadian official publicly expresses his belief that Canada has recently been dangerously near an uprising. Even the United States shows some feeble, though not inconspicuous signs. The talk of a labor party, and the recession of the belief in the identity of interest between capital and labor is of significance in this regard. The whole world is awakening; and to appreciate the underlying significance of it all, one need but to survey the plans for reconstruction which are under process of formulation by the governments of the world. Such plans present practically nothing but attempted solutions of the problems which have been propelled into focus by the ever increasing sharpness of class antagonisms.
Never before in history have the expressions of this class struggle been so glaringly apparent; and to day the denial of this tenet of the Socialist philosophy becomes not merely the profession of a theoretical opposition to an academic formula, but the betrayal of an actual blindness to an overpowering reality.
It is hardly a step from the recognition of the clash of the economic elements in a single country to a recognition of the identity of interest of each of those elements with that of a corresponding element in each of the other countries. The recognition of this latter proposition is altogether as irresistible as of the former. Patent evidence exists in the similarity of demands