socialism. Like the Bakouninists, the
chief strength of the revolutionary unionists lies in criticism rather
than in any constructive thought or action of their own. The battle of
to-day is, however, a very unequal one. In the International, two
groups--comparatively alike in size--fought over certain theories that,
up to that time, were not embodied in a movement. They quarreled over
tactics that were yet untried and over theories that were then purely
speculative. To-day the syndicalists face a foe that embraces millions
of loyal adherents. At the international gatherings of trade-union
officials, as well as at the immense international congresses of the
socialist parties, the syndicalists find themselves in a hopeless
minority.[AB] Socialism is no longer an unembodied project of Marx. It
is a throbbing, moving, struggling force. It is in a daily fight with
the evils of capitalism. It is at work in every strike, in every great
agitation, in every parliament, in every council. It is a thing of
incessant action, whose mistakes are many and whose failures stand out
in relief. Those who have betrayed it can be pointed out. Those who
have lost all revolutionary fervor and all notion of class can be held
up as a tendency. Those who have fallen into the traps of the
bureaucrats and have given way to the flattery or to the corruption of
the bourgeoisie can be listed and put upon the index. Even working-class
political action can be assailed as never before, because it now exists
for the first time in history, and its every weakness is known.
Moreover, there are the slowness of movement and the seemingly
increasing tameness of the multitude. All these incidents in the growth
of a vast movement--the rapidity of whose development has never been
equaled in the history of the world--irritate beyond measure the
impatient and ultra-revolutionary exponents of the new anarchism.

Naturally enough, the criticisms of the syndicalists are leveled chiefly
against political action, parliamentarism, and Statism. It is Professor
Arturo Labriola, the brilliant leader of the Italian syndicalists, who
has voiced perhaps most concretely these strictures against socialism,
although they abound in all syndicalist writings. According to Labriola,
the socialist parties have abandoned Marx. They have left the field of
the class struggle, foresworn revolution, and degenerated into weaklings
and ineffectuals who dare openly neither to advocate "State s