ependent, and he never imagined that during
fifteen years of "independent action" they would oppose revolutionary
and militant ideas more than ever, and would even go so far in support
of the Liberal Party as almost to bring about a split within their own
anti-revolutionary ranks. Certainly Marx expected that they would accept
his leading principles, whereas only the smallest minority of the
present Labor Party has done so, while the majority has not yet
consented to make Socialism an element of the Party's constitution,
confining themselves to a broad general declaration in favor of "State
Socialism"--and even this not to be binding on its members.

Marx's standard for a workingmen's party was Socialism and nothing less
than Socialism. In his famous letter on the Gotha program addressed in
1875 to Bebel, Liebknecht, and others, at the time of the formation of
the Socialist Party and perhaps the greatest practical crisis in Marx's
lifetime, he said, it will be recalled, that "every step of real
movement is more important than a dozen programs," but he was even then
against any sacrifice of essential principle. He saw that the workingmen
themselves might be satisfied by "the mere fact of the union" of his
followers with those of LaSalle, but he said that it was an error to
believe that this momentous result could not be bought too dearly, and
if any principle was to be sacrificed, he preferred, instead of fusion,
"a simple agreement against the common enemy."

While Socialist workingmen, then, are inclined to attach more importance
to the Socialist Party than to conservative unionism, they expect the
new aggressive, democratic, and revolutionary unionism to do even more
for Socialism, at least in the expected crisis of the future, than the
Party itself. The tendency of the unions towards politics is merely an
automatic result of the tendency of governments and capitalists towards
a certain form of collectivism. Far more significant is their tendency
towards Socialism whether through politics or through the strike, the
boycott, and other means.

Trade unionism, transferred to the field of politics, is not Socialism.
The struggles against employers for more wages, less hours, and better
conditions has no necessary relation to the struggle against capitalism
for the control of industry and government. The former struggle may
evolve into the latter, and usually does so, but long periods may also
intervene when it takes no