that tendency. First of all, opportunism and chauvinism in the labor movement have the same cause: the alliance between shopkeepers and the upper crust of labor, gathering in a few crumbs from the banquet at which sit their national capitalists, against the overworked and oppressed masses of the proletariat.
In the second place, both tendencies are moved by the same thoughts and ideas. Thirdly, the division of the Socialists into opportunists and revolutionary groups, which was already observable at the time of the Second International, corresponds perfectly to their new division into chauvinists and internationalists.
To realize the truth of the forgoing one must remember that social science, like science in general, deals with mass phenomena, not with isolated cases. Take ten European nations: Germany, England, Russia, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Switzerland, France, Belgium. In the first eight nations the new split upon the question of internationalism is the same as the old split upon the question of opportunism. In Germany that citadel of opportunism, the Soz. Monatshefte, has become the fortress of chauvinism. The internationalist idea is only defended by the extreme left. In England, according to the last estimates, only three-sevenths of the members of the British Socialist Party are internationalists (66 for, to 84 against the internationalist resolution). In the opportunist bloc, that is, the Labour Party, the Fabians and the Independent Labour Party, less than one-seventh of the membership is internationalist.[1]
In Russia the center of opportunist propaganda, Nasha Zona, organ of the liquidators, became the organ of the chauvinists. Plekhanov and Alexinsky make much noise, but we know from what we observed in the years 1910–1914 that they are unable to conduct a systematic propaganda among the Russian masses. The stronghold of internationalism in Russia was "pravdism" and the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, representing the advanced workers, and organized in January, 1912.
In Italy, the party of Bissolatti & Go., purely opportunist, turned chauvinist. Internationalism was represented by the Labor Party. The masses of the workers were behind that party. The oppor-
- ↑ People generally compare the Independent Labour Party with the British Socialist Party. This as not fair. It is not the form of an organization that counts but the work it does. Take the matter of daily papers. There were two of them. The Daily Herald, the organ of the British Socialist Party alone, and the Daily Citizen which did service for all the opportunist groups. It is its daily newspapers which are the best evidence of the propaganda, agitation and organization work done by a party.
