nto the Socialist movement; their
criticism has forced it to consider some neglected questions, and has
contributed new ideas which are winning acceptance. The basis of their
view is that the working people cannot win by mere numbers or
intelligence, but must have a practical power to organize along
radically new lines and an ability to create new social institutions
independently of capitalist opposition or aid.

Lagardelle writes: "There is nothing in syndicalism which can
recall the dogmatism of orthodox Socialism. The latter has summed
up its wisdom in certain abstract immovable formulas which it
intends willy-nilly to impose on life.... Syndicalism, on the
contrary, depends on the continually renewed and spontaneous
creations of life itself, on the perpetual renewing of ideas, which
cannot become fixed into dogmas as long as they are not detached
from their trunk. We are not dealing with a body of intellectuals,
with a Socialist clergy charged to think for the working class, but
with the working class itself, which through its own experience is
incessantly discovering new horizons, unseen perspectives,
unsuspected methods,--in a word, new sources of rejuvenation."[266]

Here, at least, is a valuable warning to Socialism against what its most
revolutionary and enthusiastic adherents have always felt is its chief
danger.

The fact that lends force to Lagardelle's argument is that the average
workingman has a much more important, necessary, and continuous function
to fill as a member of the labor unions than as a member of the
Socialist parties. It still remains a problem of the first magnitude to
every Socialist party to give to its members an equally powerful daily
interest in that work. On the other hand, it must be said in all
fairness that the lack of active participation by the rank and file is
very common in the labor unions also, a handful of men often governing
and directing, sometimes even at the most critical moments.

It is the boast of the syndicalists that in their plan of revolutionary
unionism, practice and theory become one, that actions become
revolutionary as well as words--"Men are classed," says Lagardelle,
"according to their acts and not according to their labels. The
revolutionary spirit comes down from heaven onto the earth, becomes
flesh, manifests itself by institutions, and identifies itself with
life. The daily act takes o