Social Reform and Social Revolution

Abstract

IT HAS long been almost axiomatic among political thinkers that social reforms are the surest preventive of social revolution, but very little attention has been paid to the analysis of the relationship between the two. The usual explanations are general and far from satisfactory. They assume on the part of the masses either gratitude for social and economic favors or a willingness to abandon professed ideals for the sake of some small measure of economic security; they neglect the fact that group gratitude is unstable and that the social revolutionaries have been moved by a zeal essentially religious in character which was not likely to be affected-and actually was not -by concessions made by the social reformers. The policy of Bismarck in granting economic reforms to undermine p,olitical opposition is cited again and again, but the statistics regarding the growth of the socialist party are seldom mentioned at the same time. Yet one can hardly escape admitting the validity of such an axiom in the light of the recent history of Europe. The countries which endured the greatest strains during the great war-namely Great Britain, France, and Germany-were also those in which pre-war legislation had done the most to insure the average man against ignorance, unemployment, and a destitute old age. These same countries are today the stronghold of the politically liberal nationalism so characteristic of the nineteenth century. Their losses of men and of property were great, they suffered from political revolution, inflation or unemployment, yet they remained immune to the fevers of social revolution and dictatorship. The case of Germany is especially striking. The new republic, immediately after the revolution which brought it into being, was forced to accept the humiliation, the territorial losses, and the economic burdens embodied in the treaty of Versailles; then came the period of inflation resulting in the complete collapse of the mark; finally, with stabilization, unemployment appeared to add its share to the sufferings of the people. Yet Germany escaped social revolution. On the other hand, the peasant countries, the illiterate countries, the countries which never embarked on programs of social reform have suffered from attempts to impose new schemes of society which range from Communism to Fascism, or have sought refuge in the creation of dictatorships. It is easier to recognize the fact than to find a reason for it. Great Britain, France, and Germany, among the great powers,