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And it is only within the last year or two that the revolutionary wing in these last-named countries has begun to grow rapidly again and promises to regain control. There can be no doubt that Socialist "reformism" has become very widespread.
The passage of Bebel's resolution, by a vote of 289 to 80, was an emphatic repudiation of reformism. In the minority, besides the South Germans, were to be found a considerable proportion of the delegates from a very few of the many important cities of North Germany, namely, Hanover, Dresden, Breslau, and Magdeburg, together with an insignificant minority from Berlin and Hamburg.
Debs has been, on three occasions, the unanimous choice of the Socialist Party of the United States as its candidate for the Presidency, he remains unquestionably the most influential member of the Party. I, therefore, quote his statement at length, as the most competent estimate obtainable of the present situation as regards reformism in the American Socialist movement:
In Italy "reformism" has reached its furthermost limit. When last year Bissolati was offered a place in the Giolitti Ministry he hesitated for weeks and was openly urged by a number of other Socialist deputies to accept.
The liberal and advanced churches recognize this fact by exhibiting a great preoccupation with everyday affairs. Now they may be doing important service I have no wish to deny that but when the Christian Churches turn to civics, to reformism or socialism, they are in fact announcing that the Christian dream is dead.
The revolutionary minority in the parliamentary group, however, which had consisted of only two at the time of the Bissolati affair, was now increased to half a dozen of the thirty-odd members, while the revolutionary opposition to "reformism" in the Modena Congress, as a result of these two issues, rose to more than 40 per cent of the delegates.
Yet no Socialist dreams that the presence in the movement of semi-Socialist or non-Socialist elements, which is both the cause and the effect of reformism and compromise, is a mere accident, or that there is any device by which they may either be kept out or eliminated until the time is ripe.
Quentin Congress and during the first days of the Monis Ministry. It is now in Belgium and Italy only that "reformism" is dominant and still threatens to fuse the Socialists with other parties.
Opposition to the policy of absorption in ordinary reform movements is general in the international movement outside of Great Britain. Eugene V. Debs, three times presidential candidate of the American Socialist Party, is as totally opposed to "reformism" as are any of the Europeans.
The Socialist parties in Italy, Belgium, and France, where "reformism" is strong, are progressing less rapidly than the Socialists of these countries had reason to expect, and far less rapidly than in other countries. It would seem that in these cases the same cause that drives the movement to abandon aggressive tactics also checks its numerical growth.
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