§ 10. Socialism and anarchism. In these and other respects the socialist movement, while gaining in the total number of its adherents, was breaking up into various schools of thought. Ceaseless and often bitter controversy over matters of doctrine and of policy have divided the leaders and split the parties. Almost the only general agreement among them is on a negative point, hostility to the existing system of private capital. In respect to the forms of political and of industrial organization that are to take the place of the present order, communist ideas and plans differ widely. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Marxian socialists were usually associated in popular thought with the bomb-throwing type of anarchists whose aim was to destroy all government and whose policy was that of terrorism and assassination of members of the ruling class. Usually the "scientific" socialists scornfully denounced this classification, declaring that socialism trusted to peaceful evolution, not to violence, that socialism put its hope in the triumph of democratic majorities, whereas anarchy hoped to win its ends through the violence of a minority. Socialism, they said, was primarily concerned with economic organization, and so far as it was concerned with government, looked toward a completer organization of the state for social purposes, whereas anarchy was essentially opposed to the state in any form. In truth, as we have observed above, some socialists conceived of class conflict as gradual evolution, while others conceived of it as bloody and not distant revolution. The rank and file of the socialists have been ready as a majority to "expropriate the expropriators" peacefully, if they could, and willing as a minority to do it violently if they must.

§ 11. Syndicalism and I. W. W. Among the various tendencies, or schools, within socialistic circles, two especially, syndicalism and guild socialism, have shown the marks of anarchistic influence. These both share the anarchistic dislike of strong central government, and cherish the ideal of self-governing independent communes. The model of the early anarchists was the simple Russian village community. Syndicalism in France originally meant trade unionism. The French syndicates (trade unions) which developed many years later than did the British unions, came under the influence both of Marxian socialism and of anarchism in the '80's and '90's, and developed a hybrid form of theory and of program. Syndicalism is anti-parliamentary and opposed to political action within the present capitalist states. It opposes militarism, and repudiates patriotism for any country. It favors the violent revolt of a minority whenever the workers are well organized enough to seize power. It favors the general strike as a means of wrecking society, not merely to win in immediate wage-controversies. Its most characteristic doctrine, detestable to all outside its ranks, is sabotage, which means any kind of vandalism, deceit and dishonesty which may inflict loss upon employers and capitalists and inspire their fears. Everything is permissible and laudable which would be done by a spy in modern war, for the syndicalist declares that a state of war exists. Yet he does not draw the corollary that every one with such a purpose and using such means should expect to be shot as an enemy spy. The syndicalist's economic ideal of the future state is somewhat vague, but it is one of communism, in which the instruments of production in each trade would be controlled by the unionized workers. After a revolution attained by sabotage and bloodshed, men would dwell together peacefully without restraint of any government, ruled only by sweet reasonableness.

Syndicalism has been most influential in France and Italy among the less skilled workers, but in Europe appears to have lost of late somewhat both in its intellectual and in its popular following. In America it appears as the I. W. W. (International Workers of the World) in some cities, but chiefly among the migratory workers in mines, lumber camps, and agriculture in the Middle and Far West.

§ 12. Guild Socialism. A school of writers, known as Guild Socialists, which has attracted wide attention since the war, had its origin in England about 1907, and in 1915 founded the National Guilds League. Guild socialism resembles syndicalism (and philosophic anarchy) in its plan of the future state. Producers are to be organized in shops, or in groups, which are to be further federated in a national guild, the supreme council of producers. This plan suggests more of a unified state than does syndicalism, a sort of "dual sovereignty" of local producing guilds and central social organization. These ideas seem to be all in the realm of imagination (Utopian) but they were reflected somewhat in the widespread discussion after the war for " industrial democracy" as in the Plumb Plan for the ownership of railroads by the railroad workers. Unless and until groups of trade workers can demonstrate by experiment, at their own risk, that they can cooperatively carry on enterprises of some size with success, the rest of the nation, the great body of consumers, must look upon such proposals as unpractical. The Bolsheviki since the second revolution in Russia in 1917, have exemplified the syndicalist ideal of a ruling militant minority, and in the Soviets, or local governing bodies made up of organized workers, have shown some likeness to the guild ideal.