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It is undoubtedly the opinion of the most representative figures of the international Socialist movement that there is not the slightest possibility that any of the non-Socialist reformers of to-day or of the near future are following or will follow any such policy, or even take the slightest step in that direction; and that there is nothing Socialists can do to force such a policy on the capitalists until they are actually or practically in power.

Wilson in coöperation with his opponents could defeat a recall unanimously indorsed by the Socialist Party. According to this principle a mere majority in the Socialist Party would be helpless against a mayor who is allowed to make his appeal to the far more numerous non-Socialist and anti-Socialist public.

They proposed to organize councils and congresses of the non-socialist elements. This project was immediately branded as counter-revolutionary by "revolutionary democracy."

There is thus always a possibility of splits and desertions in these countries, but none that the party will abandon the revolutionary path. For the question of supporting a non-Socialist ministry and of participating in it was made still more acute by the government's war against Tripoli, while the Bissolati case above mentioned was also for the first time before a national Party Congress.

The Bolsheviki declared their intention to break it up as quickly as possible, and there was not much optimism in non-socialist circles; one felt that it would not survive many weeks. But this third Coalition Government gave a greater promise of success than any previous attempt. There was hope that it would last, and hold the situation together, at least until the Constituent Assembly could meet.

Yet non-Socialist reformers persist in claiming that they represent all classes with the exception of a handful of monopolists, the bought, and the ignorant; and many assert flatly that their movement is altruistic, which can only mean that they intend to bestow such benefits as they think proper on some social class that they expect to remain powerless to help itself.

For there are comparatively few who have neither read any of the Fabian pamphlets nor seen or read any of Bernard Shaw's plays in which the same standpoint is represented. Mr. John A. Hobson classes the Socialist and non-Socialist reformers of Great Britain together as regards their opportunism.

It may take years before this new revolutionary movement gains the momentum it already possesses in Germany and France. There is already a strong division of opinion within the Socialistic "Independent Labour Party," and this organization has also taken issue on several important matters with the non-Socialist Labour Party, of which, however, it is still a part.

It is recognized that capitalistic or non-Socialist reformers have taken up many of the most urgent reforms and will take up more of them, and that being politically more powerful they are in a better position to put them into effect. But the "reformist" Socialists, far from allowing this fact to discourage them, allege it as the chief reason why they must also enter the field.

Even now it was only the revolutionary Musatti who pointed out the true Socialist moral of the situation, that failure of the non-Socialist democrats to stand by their principles and to oppose the war, ought to lead the party to separate from them, not only temporarily, but permanently, and to make impossible forever either the participation of the Socialists in any capitalist administration or even the support of such an administration in the Chamber of Deputies.