The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 21/ Bakunin, and the majority of those of Geneva against him. Thus two federations were constituted. The working men’s societies of German Switzerland assembled in general congress at Olten in 1873, and at Winterthur in 1874. The pro gramme adopted was very moderate. There was no question of collectivism, but merely of the regulation of labour in the manufactories, and of the means of intellectual and technical culture. The Socialists of the Jura, however, guided by James Guillaume, adopted the extreme ideas of Bakunism. It was in this centre that the Avant-garde was published, a paper which was condemned at Geneva on account of an article on regicide by a refugee named Brousse. For this group, to destroy and to kill appear to be the sole means of improving human affairs. On this point I may quote a curious passage from the number of the Bulletin of the Federation of the Jura, which appeared on the 4th of March, 1876. A group of French refugees resident at New York, calling themselves Authoritarian Revolutionists, demanded, in a manifesto, that in future all reactionaries should be killed without mercy. The Bulletin replied that hatred is a bad counsellor, that the reactionaries were to be counted by millions, and that they consisted not only of magistrates, priests, officials, and proprietors, but also of the great mass of the people, who did not at all understand humanitarian collectivism. Universal suffrage, said the Bulletin, would hardly give us half a million of votes : we should accordingly have to cut the throats of all the rest, which would be impossible. The essential point is to rid ourselves of the leaders : for this a few thousand heads would suffice. Violent language of this kind causes little uneasiness in Switzerland. No repression or interference is attempted. New Socialistic journals and societies come and go. The best of their forces is employed in self-destruction, and the social order seems in no wise imperilled. It is true that society there rests on a very wide and very democratic basis. Not only is there universal suffrage in Switzerland, but there is also direct govern ment by assembly of the whole people {Landsgenieinde), as in f e primitive cantons, or by the Teferendum or plebiscite, as in the other cantons. In the revision of the Federal Constitu-

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