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CHAPTER VII
THE BIRTH OF MODERN SOCIALISM
While terrorism was running its tragic course, the socialists
grew from a tiny sect into a world-wide movement.
And, as terrorist acts were the expression of certain
uncontrollably rebellious spirits, so cooperatives,
trade unions, and labor parties arose in response to the
conscious and constructive effort of the masses. As a
matter of fact, the terrorist groups never exercised any
considerable influence over the actual labor movement,
except for a brief period in Spain and America. Indeed,
they did not in the least understand that movement.
The followers of Bakounin were largely young
enthusiasts from the middle class, who were referred to
scornfully at the time as "lawyers without cases, physicians
without patients and knowledge, students of billiards,
commercial travelers, and others." (i) Yet it
cannot be denied that violence has played, and still in a
measure plays, a part in the labor movement. I mean
the violence of sheer desperation. It rises and falls in
direct relation to the lawlessness, the repression, and the
tyranny of the governments.
Furthermore, where labor
organizations are weakest and the masses most ignorant
and desperate, the very helplessness of the workers leads
them into that violence. This is made clear enough by
the historic fact that in the early days of the modern
industrial system nearly every strike of the unorganized
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