thodox"
Socialists (I do not refer to personal or individual, but only to
partisan ambition) is often very similar at the bottom to that of the
"reformists"; while the latter contend that capitalism can grant few if
any reforms of any great benefit to the working people _without
Socialist aid_, some of the orthodox lay equal weight on Socialist
agitation for these same reforms, on the ground that they cannot be
accomplished by collaborating with capitalist reformers at all, but
_solely through the Socialist Party_.

"The revolutionary Marxists," says the French Socialist, Rappaport,
"test the gifts of capitalistic reform through its motives. And they
discover that these motives are not crystal clear. The reformistic
patchwork is meant to prop up and make firmer the rotten capitalistic
building. They test capitalistic reforms, moreover, by the means which
are necessary for their accomplishment. These means are either
altogether lacking or insufficient, and in any case they flow in
overwhelming proportion out of the pockets of the exploited
classes."[170]

We need not agree with Rappaport that capitalistic reforms bring no
possible benefit to labor, or that the capitalistic building is rotten
and about to fall to pieces. May it not be that it is strong and getting
stronger? May it not be that the control over the whole building, far
from passing into Socialist hands, is removed farther and farther from
their reach, so that the promise of obtaining, not reforms of more or
less importance, but a fair and satisfactory _share_ of progress
_without conquering capitalism_ is growing less?

Thus many orthodox and revolutionary Socialists even, to say nothing of
"reformists," become mere political partisans, make almost instinctive
efforts to credit all political progress to the Socialist Parties,
contradict their own revolutionary principles. All reforms that happen
to be of any benefit to labor, they claim, are due to the pressure of
the working classes within Parliaments or outside of them; which amounts
to conceding that the Socialists are already sharing in the power of
government or industry, a proposition that the revolutionaries always
most strenuously deny. For if Socialists are practically sharing in
government and industry to-day, the orthodox and revolutionists will
have difficulty in meeting the argument of the "reformists" that it is
only necessary to continue the present pressure in order to obtain more
and mor