790 Ch. 20 • Responses to a Changing World
The emergence of socialists as contenders for political power reflected
economic, social, and political changes in individual countries and had rel
atively little to do with the influence of the Second International. Yet the
debates and divisions that obsessed European socialists revolved around
common questions. What should be the relationship between socialism and
nationalist movements? Could socialists, proclaiming international solidar
ity among workers, support demands for Polish independence from the Rus
sian, German, and Austro-Hungarian Empires, or those by Czechs and
other nationalities for independence from the latter? Czech socialists with
national aspirations for their people challenged the domination of the Aus
trian Social Democrats by German speakers who seemed oblivious to Czech
demands. Should socialists oppose imperialism in all its forms (see Chapter
21), or should they hope that the colonial powers might gradually improve
the conditions of life of Africans and Asians, who might become adherents
to socialism? Finally, amid rising aggressive nationalism, socialists were
divided on what response they should take in the event of the outbreak of a
European war.
In the Russian Empire, Marxists were “Westernizers,” in that they looked
to “scientific socialism” as a model for political change in their country (see
Chapter 18). They counted on Russia’s industrial workers to launch a revo
lution, but only after Russia had undergone a bourgeois revolution antici
pated to bring the middle class to power. In the 1880s, socialists formed
reading groups of intellectuals and students—and at least one that was
made up of workers—in the imperial capital of Saint Petersburg. Exiles
began to publish socialist newspapers abroad, smuggling them into Russia.
Reformism dominated socialist movements in much of northern Europe.
Great Britain’s handful of socialists were virtually all intellectuals and
reformists. In 1884, a group of intellectuals formed the Fabian Society, which
took its name from the Roman dictator Fabius, known for his delaying tac
tics. Committed to gradualism, the Fabians took the tortoise as their emblem.
The Fabians were influenced by an American writer, Henry George. The
author of the best-selling Progress and Povertyy George argued that the great
gulf in Britain between rich and poor could be lessened by the imposition of
a “single tax” on land, which would force wealthy landowners to pay more
taxes. The “single taxers” believed that socialism could be gradually imple
mented through reform.
Most German socialists did not accept Marx’s contention that the working
class could only take power through revolution. In 1863, Ferdinand Las
salle (1825—1864), the son of a Prussian merchant, had formed the first
(very small) independent workers’ party in any of the German states. Las
salle only lived a year more—killed in a duel at age thirty-nine by the fiance
of the woman he loved. In 1875, the German Social Democratic Party
(SPD), was founded. Despite official proscription in 1878, it slowly grew
into a mass political party. The SPD’s program included reformist demands
such as proportional representation, political rights for women, and the