Ernest Belfort Bax

Save Us from Our Friends

(24 November 1896)


Ernest Belfort Bax, Save Us from Our Friends, Justice, 24 November 1896, p. 1.
Transcribed by Daniel Gaido.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.


It is a common thing to hear Englishmen say,

We have all our work to do to show these stupid people that Socialism is not a mere political question, but a social one; that it is not merely a matter of being “against the Government,” or even of overthrowing the Government, but of revolutionizing the whole social system of today, and that independent political action is but a means to that end. But our difficulties through this sort of opposition to our movement from our own countrymen is increased tenfold when representatives here of the Socialist movement abroad practically say ditto to our opponents by taking sides with them against us. Here is our friend Bernstein, from whom we had a right to expect better things, in the article dealt with by Bax in last week’s Justice, and that which we publish from himself in this week’s issue, practically taking the side of our worst enemies – to all intents and purposes championing the infamous doings of the Chartered Company in Matabeleland, and expressing his approval of the hypocritical pro-Russian agitation of our Liberal jingoes over Armenia; just as, at the last General Election, he condemned the opposition of Socialists to the Liberal party. No wonder English Liberal papers declare that the German Socialist movement is but an advanced Radical movement, and that if the same political conditions existed in Germany as obtain here, there would be no Social-Democratic party in Germany at all.

* * *

1. Ernest Belfort Bax, Our German Fabian Convert, Justice, 7 November 1896.

2. Eduard Bernstein, Amongst the Philistines: A Rejoinder to Belfort Bax, Justice, 14 November 1896.

3. Ernest Belfort Bax, The Socialism of Bernstein, Justice, 21 November 1896.

4. Ernest Belfort Bax, Save Us from Our Friends, Justice, 24 November 1896.

5. Eduard Bernstein, Justice. Bax and Consistency, Justice, 28 November 1896.>

 


Last updated on 14 October 2024