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THE BIRTH OF MODERN SOCIALISM 145
philanthropic and tender-hearted Utopians. And from
then on the hope of every sincere advocate of fundamental
social changes rested on the working
— class on its
organizations, its press, and its labors— for the establishment
of the new order.
The most striking characteristic of the period which
follows was the attempt of all the socialist and anarchist
sects to inject their ideas into the rising labor movement.
With the single exception of Robert Owen in England,
the earlier socialists had ignored the working classes.
All their appeals were made to well-to-do men, and some
of them even hoped that the monarchs of Europe might
be induced to take the initiative. But Marx and Engels
made their appeal chiefly to the working class. The profound
reaction which settled over Europe in the years
following '48 ended all other dreams, and from this time
on every proposal for a radical change in the organization
of society was presented to the workers as the only class
that was really seeking, by reason of its economic subjection,
basic alterations in the institutions of property and
the constitution of the State. The working classes of
Germany, France, England, and other countries had already
begun to form groups for the purpose of discussing
political questions, and the ideas of Marx began to
be propagated in all the centers of working-class activity.
The blending of labor and socialism in most of the
countries of Europe was not, however, a work of months,
but of decades. The first great effort to accomplish
that task occurred in 1864, when the International Working
Men's Association was launched in St. Martin's Hall
in London. During the years from '47 to '64, Marx and
Engels, with their little
coterie in London and their correspondents
in other countries, spent most of their time
in study, reading, and writing, with little opportunity to