The Conquest of Bread | Page 2

agriculture with a suddenly
developed industry and a rapidly growing international trade. The latter
appears especially as a disturbing element, since it is no longer
individuals only, or cities, that enrich themselves by distant commerce
and export; but whole nations grow rich at the cost of those nations
which lag behind in their industrial development.
These conditions, which began to appear by the end of the eighteenth
century, took, however, their full development in the nineteenth century
only, after the Napoleonic wars came to an end. And modern
Communism has to take them into account.
It is now known that the French Revolution, apart from its political
significance, was an attempt made by the French people, in 1793 and
1794, in three different directions more or less akin to Socialism. It was,
first, the equalization of fortunes, by means of an income tax and
succession duties, both heavily progressive, as also by a direct
confiscation of the land in order to sub-divide it, and by heavy war
taxes levied upon the rich only. The second attempt was a sort of
Municipal Communism as regards the consumption of some objects of
first necessity, bought by the municipalities, and sold by them at cost
price. And the third attempt was to introduce a wide national system of
rationally established prices of all commodities, for which the real cost
of production and moderate trade profits had to be taken into account.
The Convention worked hard at this scheme, and had nearly completed
its work, when reaction took the upper hand.
It was during this remarkable movement, which has never yet been
properly studied, that modern Socialism was born--Fourierism with
L'Ange, at Lyons, and authoritarian Communism with Buonarroti,
Babeuf, and their comrades. And it was immediately after the Great
Revolution that the three great theoretical founders of modern
Socialism--Fourier, Saint Simon, and Robert Owen, as well as Godwin

(the No-State Socialism)--came forward; while the secret communist
societies, originated from those of Buonarroti and Babeuf, gave their
stamp to militant, authoritarian Communism for the next fifty years.
To be correct, then, we must say that modern Socialism is not yet a
hundred years old, and that, for the first half of these hundred years,
two nations only, which stood at the head of the industrial movement,
i.e., Britain and France, took part in its elaboration. Both--bleeding at
that time from the terrible wounds inflicted upon them by fifteen years
of Napoleonic wars, and both enveloped in the great European reaction
that had come from the East.
In fact, it was only after the Revolution of July, 1830, in France, and
the Reform movement of 1830-1832 in this country, had begun to
shake off that terrible reaction, that the discussion of Socialism became
possible for a few years before the revolution of 1848. And it was
during those years that the aspirations of Fourier, St. Simon, and Robert
Owen, worked out by their followers, took a definite shape, and the
different schools of Socialism which exist nowadays were defined.
In Britain, Robert Owen and his followers worked out their schemes of
communist villages, agricultural and industrial at the same time;
immense co-operative associations were started for creating with their
dividends more communist colonies; and the Great Consolidated
Trades' Union was founded--the forerunner of both the Labour Parties
of our days and the International Working-men's Association.
In France, the Fourierist Considérant issued his remarkable manifesto,
which contains, beautifully developed, all the theoretical considerations
upon the growth of Capitalism, which are now described as "Scientific
Socialism." Proudhon worked out his idea of Anarchism and
Mutualism, without State interference. Louis Blanc published his
Organization of Labour, which became later on the programme of
Lassalle. Vidal in France and Lorenz Stein in Germany further
developed, in two remarkable works, published in 1846 and 1847
respectively, the theoretical conceptions of Considérant; and finally
Vidal, and especially Pecqueur, developed in detail the system of
Collectivism, which the former wanted the National Assembly of 1848

to vote in the shape of laws.
However, there is one feature, common to all Socialist schemes of that
period, which must be noted. The three great founders of Socialism
who wrote at the dawn of the nineteenth century were so entranced by
the wide horizons which it opened before them, that they looked upon
it as a new revelation, and upon themselves as upon the founders of a
new religion. Socialism had to be a religion, and they had to regulate its
march, as the heads of a new church. Besides, writing during the period
of reaction which had followed the French Revolution, and seeing more
its failures than its successes, they did not trust the masses, and they did
not appeal to them for bringing about the changes which they thought
necessary. They put their faith, on the