differences of principle. Moreover, there are different types and degrees of radicalism and of revolutionism. Often enough radicalism is blind, and we cannot consider every revolution a step towards the goal. Marxist socialism has an advantage over anarchist radicalism in that the former has devoted more scientific attention to the philosophy of history and to economics, and takes the revolution more in earnest. But this must not be held to imply that venturesome and blind radicalism may not often prove more successful in choosing the right moment for action. When the need for action comes, daring and caution will always choose separate paths.
Finally, it is necessary to insist once more upon the fact that anarchism has developed as well as socialism, and that anarchism has to-day become more socialistic and communistic than of old. But the anarchist systems, when we examine their scientific content and their foundation, are seen to be more inchoate and more utopian than socialism.
In the camp of anarchism, considered theoretically, ethically, and politically, we find far too many advocates of negation and chaos. I am thinking here especially of Bakuninism, of the anarchism of anarchism.
In the literary and artistic fields, socialism, Marxist socialism at any rate, is on principle opposed to decadence.
§ 176.
IT is generally recognised that anarchism prevails more widely in Latin than in Teuton lands. Spain, Italy, and France are anarchist countries, whereas in Germany, England, and the United States anarchism of native origin is rarer and less revolutionary. England, the United States, and to some extent Switzerland, are bold enough to give harbourage to foreign anarchists. We shall enquire later whether there are material causes for these territorial differences.
Russia, too, is widely regarded as peculiarly anarchist.
Many authors, Russians among them, believe that they can explain Russian anarchism by saying that the Slavs in general and the Russians in particular are qualified by nature to play an anarchist part. By anarchism these authors mean an inborn incapacity for the activities of state life. Some Russians, too, contend that Russians have no faculty for understanding legal ideas. Certain authors, however, when
