.

However, there is one feature, common to all Socialist schemes of that
period, which must be noted. The three great founders of Socialism who
wrote at the dawn of the nineteenth century were so entranced by the
wide horizons which it opened before them, that they looked upon it as a
new revelation, and upon themselves as upon the founders of a new
religion. Socialism had to be a religion, and they had to regulate its
march, as the heads of a new church. Besides, writing during the period
of reaction which had followed the French Revolution, and seeing more
its failures than its successes, they did not trust the masses, and they
did not appeal to them for bringing about the changes which they thought
necessary. They put their faith, on the contrary, into some great ruler,
some Socialist Napoleon. He would understand the new revelation; he
would be convinced of its desirability by the successful experiments of
their phalansteries, or associations; and he would peacefully accomplish
by his own authority the revolution which would bring well-being and
happiness to mankind. A military genius, Napoleon, had just been ruling
Europe. Why should not a social genius come forward, carry Europe with
him and translate the new Gospel into life? That faith was rooted very
deep, and it stood for a long time in the way of Socialism; its traces
are even seen amongst us, down to the present day.

It was only during the years 1840-48, when the approach of the
Revolution was felt everywhere, and the proletarians were beginning to
plant the banner of Socialism on the barricades, that faith in the
people began to enter once more the hearts of the social schemers:
faith, on the one side, in Republican Democracy, and on the other side
in _free_ association, in the organizing powers of the working-men
themselves.

But then came the Revolution of February, 1848, the middle-class
Republic, and--with it, shattered hopes. Four months only after the
proclamation of the Republic, the June insurrection of the Paris
proletarians broke out, and it was crushed in blood. The wholesale
shooting of the working-men, the mass deportations to New Guinea, and
finally the Napoleonian _coup d'etat_ followed. The Socialists were
prosecuted with fury, and the weeding out was so terrible and so
thorough that for the next twelve or fifteen years the very traces of
Socialism disappeared; its literature vanished so completely that even
names, once so familiar befo