CHAPTER XI

Socialism and Labor in the Balkans *

There has been considerable Socialist activity throughout the Balkans, notwithstanding the abnormal destruction due to the war. The three principal national groups are the Serbian and Bulgarian and Roumanian, as Greek Socialism is negligible. In all three of these countries, the character of the Socialist movement is decidedly radical, much more so than in the neighboring Czecho-Slovak region of Bohemia, and Slovakia. This is shown by the adhesion of all three groups to the Zimmerwald and Kienthal programs, by their refusal to join the Second International Conferences, and by their adhesion to the Third (Moscow) International. The Roumanian Socialists, reorganized after the war, almost provoked a revolution at the time of the invasion of Hungary. In the political field, it is in Bulgaria that the Socialists, or, as they call themselves, the Social Democrats, have obtained the greatest power, electing a large number of deputies to the recent Parliament, notwithstanding the repressive measures of the government. The Socialist Party in Serbia is, since the war, rather disorganized. In Bulgaria, there are two sections to the party; one called the broad-minded, which supported the war and governmental positions, the latter called the narrow-minded, which endorsed the Zimmerwald Conference, and more than 1,000 of whose members were imprisoned. It was in May, 1919, that the radical section of the party broke away and called itself the Communist Party, adopting a program thoroughly in harmony with the Communist International.

During the last year the Serbian Socialist Party has been. reorganized and has decided to join the Third (Moscow) International. It sent a delegate to attend the organization meeting in Moscow in December, 1919. In certain sections of the new Jugo-Slav State, especially Croatia, the Communist section of the Social Democrats have made great gains.

Bulgaria was also represented at that time by a delegate who gave to the Congress in his speech a verbatim reproduction of the Manifesto recently issued by the Bulgarian Socialists.

The Communist Party has gained steadily in Bulgaria since the close of the war. In the 1919 elections, notwithstanding the See Addendum, Part I.

very drastic opposition of the government, it gained a number of seats in Parliament. In fact, the Communist Socialists won forty-eight seats, the Moderate Socialists twenty-five seats, against the government block of 113. The Bolshevist propaganda in Bulgaria is extremely active.

CHAPTER XII

Labor and Socialism in Great Britain *

The movement of the Socialist and Labor groups in Great Britain is extremely complicated and not easily to be traced in a few words. Its beginnings have already been referred to, down to the time when, almost contemporaneously with the formation of the Second International, a series of strikes in England gave a tremendous impetus to the movement. However, at that time British Socialism lacked unity and lacked able leaders. The gulf between the Socialists and the workmen was not yet bridged. Even as late as 1899, there was very little practical Socialism in charge of the labor movement. The Independent Labor Party was unimportant, at that time, notwithstanding the wonderful personality of its founder, Keir Hardie. The failure of the so-called Social Democratic Federation in the various elections emphasized the lack of political power of the Socialists. But a complete transformation took place during the succeeding years, so that when a labor party congress met at Belfast in 1907 almost all the delegates were workingmen.

In 1908 the old confederation changed its name to that of the Social Democratic Party. In 1911 the party coalesced with other organizations under the new name of the British Socialist Party. This party adopted the Marxian point of view but remained of very little influence in politics.

In 1903, a new party called the British Labor Party was formed, growing out of the action of the Trades Union Congress of 1899 and of the combined activity of Ramsay MacDonald and Arthur Henderson. This party quickly acquired great political influence, electing in 1910 as many as forty labor members to the Parliament.

In 1907 the Congress of the British Labor Party declared in favor of "the socialization of the means of production, distribution and exchange, to be controlled in a democratic state in the interest of the entire community, and the complete emancipation of labor from domination of capitalism and landlordism, with the establishment of social and economic equality between the sexes."

We have already called attention to the Fabian Society as an interesting group of intellectual Socialists who engaged in a very brilliant campaign of propaganda.

* See Addendum, Part I.

Another association which began as an intellectual and theoretical group, but which expanded very soon into an extremely important association, is the so-called National Guild League, founded by G. D. H. Cole, in 1905. This group and its theory will be very carefully studied in another chapter.

Even here we wish to call attention to the wonderfully important document, which will be later published, called “Labor and the New Social Order," which, though not written until 1918, expresses the ideas and the plans that were already current in the British Party before the war.

The British labor movement is political as well as economic and is composed of four large organizations besides a number of minor ones. These are described as follows in the Report of the National Civic Federation ("The Labor Situation in Great Britain and France," p. 112):

"(1) The Trade Union Congress, meeting annually to decide principally upon the several measures to be asked of Parliament and to elect its "Parliamentary Committee," whose mandate is "to watch all legislation affecting labor." In 1918 the membership fees were $4,532,085; the number of delegates 881, representing 262 societies.

(2) The General Federation of Trade Unions described by its secretary as "the largest purely trade union organization outside of the United States," and as having March 31 (1919), 1,215,107 of a gross membership, with 140 affiliated societies.

(3) The Co-operative Union, its fraternal delegate to the Congress reporting a membership of 3,500,000, the great bulk trade unionists; associated since 1917 in the Labor Party.

(4) The British Labor Party, its membership composed of wage-workers and other citizens, mixed, polling a vote equal to somewhat more than half the total membership claimed for the trade unions in the Congress and represented in Parliament by fifty-nine out of 707 members."

There is no national organization of trade unionists in Great Britain in the way they are organized in the United States. Of dock and riverside unions there are fifteen; none national; of seamen and boatmen, nineteen, only three in the Congress. Bricklayers, masons and plasterers have seventeen societies, only two national, etc. There is little unity either or policy or organization. In the National Federation of General Workers there are nine organizations (four of them having "national " in their

titles), all separately represented in the Congress, each with its own headquarters and independent administrative machinery, and mostly with special fields of operation, local or regional, the total membership claimed being 961,466. Arthur Henderson, the foremost labor leader in Great Britain, says: "The pressing need of organized labor is fewer trade unions and more trade unionists," and J. H. Thomas, secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, says: "The greatest difference now is not be tween the government and the railwaymen, but between the unions themselves."

No reference to British working class effort in the pursuit of its own welfare would be complete without mention of the cooperative movement. It has now more than 1,300 distributive societies, with 3,500,000 members, and more than 100 productive and three wholesale societies. Its employees number at least 125,000, and the sum total of all the sales annually runs up to $1,000,000,000, from which its members are reimbursed nearly $100,000,000. The movement promotes voluntary co-operation and resists any legislative or administrative inequality which would hamper its progress. Its biggest aim is Its biggest aim is "that eventually the processes of production, distribution and exchange" (including the land) "shall be organized on co-operative lines in the interest of the whole community." The co-operative movement is now associated with the political labor movement and has a "platform" of eleven planks, the objects stated in the final paragraph being the "breaking down of the caste and class system," and "the democratizing of State services - civil, commercial and diplomatic."

THE INDEPENDENT LABOR PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

The most radical labor leader in Great Britain among those who do not adhere to the Third International and believe in democratic parliamentary methods is J. Ramsay MacDonald, who yet is a sympathizer with the Soviet idea among English labor men. He made one of the most important addresses at the International Labor and Socialist Conference at Berne, in 1919. He gave an authoritative statement of the Independent Labor Party's character and aims in the "N. Y. Nation" of June 14, 1919, under the above title, and from it the following important passages are quoted. As he is its foremost exponent it is authoritative.